It’s not the client, it’s you. No wait, it is them. You can’t stand to work with them anymore. You’ve tried to make it work, but the relationship has been fraught with obstacles and unpleasantries. But how do you cut ties to a client without hurting feelings or worse, generating negative publicity about your firm's inability to honor its commitments?

There are many reasons why your relationship with a client headed south. Maybe you couldn't do the job, or they couldn't give you what you needed to do the job. Perhaps they were intolerable or acted in an indefensible manner. The list goes on, but your response should not be dependent on the "why" of the situation. Once you’ve made up your mind to part ways, focus instead on the "how."

Today's Topic: How to Lose a Client in 10 Days

What you should do:

• Make a graceful exit: No good has ever come of an acrimonious ending. Even if the client deserves a verbal tongue-lashing, resist the temptation to even the score. Every client is a potential reference, good or bad, and it is better to be forgotten or written off than to be actively discredited.
• Be honest: If the relationship failed because of miscommunication, mixed signals, and a lack of coordination, do the client a favor — one that could actually help you grow, over time, in their estimation — and contextualize your departure by explaining how they can improve their public relations approach in the future, and why you were not the right fit for them.
• Document, document, document: No matter what you do, or how carefully you plan, you cannot control the ensuing reaction to a break-up. Just in case the situation deteriorates or payment is held up due to specious claims, make sure that you have a clear paper trail documenting the work completed and the payment owed. Unhappy clients can act out in petty ways, but few will risk litigation or public humiliation.

What you likely should not do:

• Bad mouth the client to third parties: It is only human to vent about what makes you unhappy, including your clients. And it’s easy to assume that no one will be hurt if you share your negative impressions about a client with a friend. But unkind words have a way of migrating to the ears of unintended recipients, and you want to avoid being branded as an untrustworthy PR pro.
• Walk away too soon: Don’t quit just because you had a bad day, week, or month with a client. Quitting too soon isn’t the worst thing that could happen, but it shuts the door on the relationship, and you must be sure before you act that your judgment is correct and that closure is what you need. Client relationships have their ups and downs, and you need to be able to make a cold-blooded assessment of the possibility that the relationship could improve in the weeks and months ahead before you walk away and close the door forever.

What you should not do if you value your job:

• Be brutally honest: Honesty, as noted above, can be valued by a client, even when parting is bittersweet. Brutal honesty, on the other hand, will generally backfire. Even if you despise a client, telling them that “you will fail because you don’t understand how people think or act” does not qualify as constructive criticism.
• Harm the client through your action or inaction: No matter what else you do, take this advice to heart. Whatever the circumstances of your departure, bend over backward to avoid harming the client. If you are ready to quit, but their national conference is the next week, do not act until after the conference concludes and the media and public are gone. And if a local reporter has begun asking tough questions on the day you are breaking ties, do not bury the inquiry — complete your due diligence and ensure that the client is aware and ready to respond, even as you are parting ways.

There is no easy way to say goodbye, even if you know you are accepting short-term failure to set yourself up for long-term success. The fear of losing will never fully go away. A PR pro without clients is no different than a doctor without patients or a plumber without pipes — a professional waste of space. But fear of failure should not stop you from making the right decision when it comes time to cut ties. Just make sure that when you exit you are not leaving a trail of burning bridges in your wake.

While you may still be an idiot on the whole, this short guide should help you keep your job for a few more days. Public relations is a relatively simple discipline to comprehend, but vastly more complex to execute competently. There are many tough decisions to be made every day, and everyone, even an idiot, should start with the basics.

Miss the Earlier Installments?

• An Idiot’s Guide to Public Relations, Part I: Preparing Your Subject Matter Expert for an Interview
• An Idiot’s Guide to Public Relations, Part II: Preparing for a Crisis Before It Strikes
• An Idiot's Guide to Public Relations, Part III: Media Pitching 101
• An Idiot's Guide to Public Relations, Part IV: The Art of the Press Release
• An Idiot’s Guide to Public Relations, Part V: Client Management Made Easy
• Coming Next Week: An Idiot's Guide to Public Relations, Part VII: PR Pros Provide Tweet-Length Advice for Idiots