Cynthia Lucas did everything she could to salvage the relationship. The senior vice president of WRH Realty Services in Jacksonville, Fla., advised her client, the owner of a large apartment building, that his planned cuts in office and maintenance staff would undermine service and quality at the property. She held weekly conference calls with the owner and her own staff. She put all of the issues on the table and hoped for a compromise. None came.
So she quit. She gave the client the names of a few of her reputable competitors and wished him well.
“When you've exhausted all efforts, if you feel like it's not going anywhere, if you're not in a position where you can be successful, give them your notice with the best level of professionalism as you can,” says Lucas, who says she's has resigned from clients only twice in her 12 years in the property management business. “All of our one-year contracts have 30-day outs.”
Sometimes, it's the property manager who fires the client, not the other way around. And while nobody relishes the prospect of passing up the revenue from a property management contract, it is occasionally in the best interests of the management company and its staff to say “so long” to a relationship that has soured.
“If, when you hear their name, hear their voice, or see their logo, you don't feel very good, those are indicators that this person has got to go,” says Kathi Elster, co-author of the New York Times bestseller Working With You Is Killing Me.
Indeed, a client who has become demanding of your staff's time, critical of their performance, reluctant to pay your invoices, or stingy about providing for the property can create a “psychological drain” on employees and a real drain on profits, says Randy Shattuck, president of The Shattuck Group, a San Jose, Calif., marketing firm for professional services companies.
Shattuck advises property managers to do a twice-annual analysis of how much profit per hour the company reaps from each client. “It could be very revealing to understand that a client might be generating a lot of revenue, but they're not generating a lot of profit. If they're taking up too much time from your staff, it might be better to find a client who generates more profit.”
And factor in the psychological toll a client can take on your employees if they are verbally abusive, overly critical, too difficult to please, or needy beyond reason, Shattuck says.
Elster calls these clients the “time eaters.” “They're people who just have bad boundaries,” she says. “They don't respect your time, they don't respect your invoice.” Among the “time eaters,” she explains, are the “empty pit,” who questions everything you do; the “pedestal smasher,” who tells you you're wonderful yet finds fault with your every move; and the “exploder,” who yells at everyone.
It's not just “time eaters” who cause irreparable damage to their relationships with property managers. Susan Glenn, president of Gilbert Realty Co., a property management firm in Chicago, warns of clients who ask the manager to act illegally or unethically.
“If you don't feel comfortable with the way they're doing business,” she says, “that could potentially reflect poorly on you. What is it that we really have to sell? Our reputation. We want to have a reputation of doing things properly and ethically, as well as maintaining the buildings to the highest standards and providing the best services to clients and tenants.
“Your first goal is to never lose business,” she concedes, “so your first action is to try to get them to do it properly.”
Glenn says she has only “fired” one client, after the new board president at a condominium community insisted that the building that housed his own unit be the first one renovated during a major rehabilitation of the property. That demand created resentment and infighting among board members, who blamed Glenn.
“I was taking this stuff home with me in my head, thinking about it, dwelling on it,” she says. “It never feels good when somebody talks bad about you, but you never want to give up an income stream if you can avoid it.” Still, she resigned from the contract.
“If a client is taking up a lot of real estate in your brain, if you're obsessively thinking about them, rehashing or rehearsing conversations that have happened or that you would like to happen, you'll be constantly distracted,” says Elster.
That, she warns, is not good for your other clients. “If it's just unreasonable or it's gone too far, they can soak up all of your time and you won't be productive in other places,” she says, “then they're not cost-effective as a client.”
Even so, says her co-author, Harvard-trained psychotherapist Katherine Crowley, most people are reluctant to “break up” with a paying client for fear they won't be able to replace the business. Her advice: “Even before you fire the client, start pursuing new and better clients. Usually we hold onto these toxic clients from fear.”
Part of that fear reflects the dread most people feel when it's time to confront a client with the ugly truth: This just isn't working out. But parting doesn't have to be sorrowful, says Joe Jernigan, president of Real Estate Associates, a property management firm in Durham, N.C., who has resigned from contracts just twice in his long career.
“We accept the responsibility for things not going well,” he says. “We don't say to the client that they did something wrong. We say, ‘We're not able to meet your expectations.' Then it's our fault.”
The tactic, says Jernigan, preserves whatever is left of a once-productive relationship. “After time lapses and the smoke clears, you want the client to be able to look back at the situation and say, ‘Well, Real Estate Associates resigned my account, but at least they were professional in the way they did it,'” says Jernigan. “You want the client to always think well of you and to speak well of you because we're always in the business of building business and reaching out for new accounts.”
Indeed, the first client Jernigan fired—after seven months of trying to rescue a three-year relationship that had begun to cause morale problems for Jernigan's staff—rehired the firm two years later.
“The way we resigned had a lot to do with the fact that we were re-engaged,” says Jernigan. “We did not criticize the client's staff, we did not point fingers, we did not accuse.” And, after blowing through two other property management firms in two years, the client's behavior toward Jernigan's staff has mellowed.
Likewise, Glenn made a graceful exit when she dumped her condo client, offering to continue working for four months or until the client could replace her. Five years later, she still gets occasional calls and mail about the property, which she forwards to the new managers.
“It never makes sense to burn bridges,” she says. “It's always better to leave on a good note. It's a major part of your reputation.”
Sharon O'Malley is a freelance writer in College Park, Md.
READY TO EXPLODE Breaking up is hard to do, even when the client you're dumping has been dumping on your staff for months. But don't make it worse with petty parting shots, tempting as it may be to have the last word. Follow these tips to say goodbye gracefully instead:
- Prepare for the parting conversation by documenting the problems your staff has encountered. Keep track of unnecessary meetings and phone calls, undeserved criticisms, and verbal abuses so you can justify your decision to the client.
- Resign verbally, not in writing. If your goal is to preserve your reputation and what's left of the relationship, talk to your client in person or on the phone.
- Follow the conversation up with a letter, but don't e-mail it. “The chance of [e-mail] being sent to someone else is very high,” says Kathi Elster, co-author of Working With You Is Killing Me, “and the big problem with e-mail is it is not always read with the same intent with which it was sent.”
- Accept your part of the blame for the failed relationship. Avoid pointing fingers; that will only lead to hard feelings and can flare tempers.
- Avoid similar situations in the future by screening—and turning away—potential clients for problems like the ones the fired client had.
- Write a 30-day “cancel” clause into every contract. It's risky because it gives the client an out, too, but it allows either party to cancel if the relationship sours.
- The Exploder. A “human land mine,” the Exploder at first can appear charismatic and charming. But as soon as you make a mistake, you'll find yourself on the receiving end of harsh accusations, humiliation, and threats of lawsuits and firings.
- The Empty Pit. This pitiful patron has lots of personal problems and is quick to confide them in you. The Empty Pit will bend your ear, ask for your help, call you at home, and demand too much time and attention. If you refuse, you might see this seemingly helpless soul transform into an angry monster.
- The Saboteur. Everyone loves flattery, and the Saboteur piles it on. But beware of embracing this one as your No. 1 fan: The Saboteur tends to gain your confidence and then use what you have revealed to undercut you professionally—stealing your ideas, “forgetting” to tell you about important meetings, and misrepresenting you behind your back.
- The Pedestal Smasher. Just as the name implies, this sweet talker will pump you up and then tear you down. The Pedestal Smasher will have you—and everyone else—believing you are a superhero and will enlist your genius to solve the company's biggest challenges. All at once, this false friend will criticize your every imperfection. You'll never know why.
- The Chip on the Shoulder. This grudge-holder will replay the raw deals that have resulted in missed promotions and lost opportunities—and eventually will blame you for them. You may do all you can to give the Chip on the Shoulder a chance, but your so-called friend will resent you for having it so easy—even though you probably didn't. This energy-drainer is out to make you—and everyone else—pay.