Having been an entrepreneur since 1989, I have became a big believer of the 80/20 rule. of business: 80% of your profits will come from 20% of your customers. The bad news is that 20% of my clients can take 80% of my time.

Over the years I have had to “fire†a few clients, and I did so reluctantly. But by letting go of these clients I have increased productivity and profitability.Most recently, I decided to quit doing business with a large defense contractor. The reason was is that I have a very small business, and this particular client generates only a few hundred dollars of revenue each year.However they constantly demand a huge investment in time learning their complex purchasing, and accounts payable system. The defense contractor treated us as if we were doing millions of dollars per year with them in business. It was time to let them go.

#1: It’s time to fire a client when they lose respect for your time. clients who demand unreasonable service requests outside of their contracted agreement, are highly disruptive.

#2: It’s time to fire a client who is chronically late paying their invoices. Cash flow is the lifeblood of any business. Taking time to track down payment from a client, detracts from more profitable activities.

#3: It’s time to fire a client who is abusive in the way they treat you or your staff.No matter how much money you are making form them, fire them and don’t look back. If you don’t you could lose valuable employees, or worse.

#4: It’s time to fire a client who is constantly negotiating the prices of your services or products. This can occur after a sale is made and the contract signed. These clients are only loyal to those that offer the biggest discount. These clients have zero respect for your company.

#5: It’s time to fire a client who tries to steal employees from you. This happens more frequently than you think. I have spoke with many VAR’s (Value Added Resellers) and MSP’s (Managed Service Providers), and it is shocking the number of their clients who will try to an employee to work on the side, or directly to cut your company out.

#6: It’s time to fire a client who is never satisfied. These guys are out there. They are always critical of your product, services, employees and so on. They keep coming back for whatever reason. They also lower morale.

#7: It’s time to fire a client who plays the “Blame Gameâ€. An old expression in the IT world is the last person who touched it broke it. The blamers assume that what ever patch you installed, update yo ran, new server you configure must b the reason their accounting app is giving them fits.

#8: It’s time to fire a client who won’t make time for you. I have been contracted in the past to complete rather large CRM implementation. I had management buy in and sales buy in. One client in particular was never available during process and failed to make the network personnel available as promised. My company lost many hours of productivity waiting for approvals from the client.Lesson learned.

#9: Now the last item might seem a bit of stretch but hear me out on this. A client who refuses to refer business to you, or provide a reference for you, many not be a client you want to keep. Of course they may have solid reasons for doing so,however you need to keep your business growing. Word of mouth advertising is still the #1 sure fire way to grow. I know personally when I have a great vendor I never hesitate to offer a recommendation.

#10: It’s time to fire a client who is unethical. When you learn a client operates their business in an unethical manner, break it off. You could find yourself dragged into a bad situation.