Clients Gone Wild

Ever had a client that made you want to scream into the void?

I’m not talking about the ones who occasionally forget a payment or send a confusing ticket. I’m talking about the ones who treat your team like a drive-thru: demanding, impatient, and somehow always thinking they know more than you. Wild, right?

With Cloud Services for MSPs, I work with providers like you to help avoid the chaos I once lived through. Let’s talk about something I wish someone had told me years ago!

When You Let Clients Run the Show, You Lose Control

It doesn’t happen all at once. It starts with a small compromise: maybe ignoring your advice or asking for “just one little favor.”

Then before you know it, they’re skipping OS upgrades you told them were critical and acting shocked when they get hit with ransomware. You probably know what happens next… they blame you.

The real issue? It wasn’t them: it was us. We trained them to believe they could behave that way. Every time we put out a fire without pushing back, said “yes” to out-of-scope work, or gave a discount just to land the deal… we sent the message that they were in charge.

Red Flags You Can’t Ignore

At our MSP, we learned to sniff out trouble early. We built a mental list of red flags, and if we saw them? We ran the other way.

Here are just a few:

• The Serial Discounters – Always asking for “a little off the top,” even before you’ve signed the deal.
• Discovery Dodgers – They don’t want to pay for an assessment? Red flag. They just want you to “get started”? Big red flag.
• Contract Rewriters – If they’re tearing apart your terms line by line, that’s not attention to detail: that’s a control problem.
• Unrealistic Expectations – If they want 24/7 everything and only want to pay for Tuesdays, walk away.
• Rude to Your Team – Non-negotiable. If they treat your staff poorly, they’re gone.

We charged for discovery upfront. Why? Because it established authority from the jump! If someone had a problem with that, we let them go before things got messy.

How to Reclaim Control

If you’re already stuck with a wild client, don’t panic. You might not need to fire them… yet.

Start by re-onboarding. Call them up and say you’re updating service standards company-wide. Explain what that means for them and keep it professional!

Set new boundaries and standards such as:

• “We don’t support clients who decline basic security.”
• “If it’s out of scope, we quote it.”
• “If it’s after hours, it’s billed.”

Then, and this is key, hold that line.

We also implemented a no direct access to techs rule. All communication had to go through an account manager. No more techs getting pulled into side jobs and giving away time for free!

Finally, document everything. Call? Follow up with an email. Meeting? Write a summary. If things go sideways, you’ll want that paper trail.

When It’s Time to Say Goodbye

Sometimes, retraining doesn’t cut it. Sometimes you just have to let go.

It’s scary to let go of a paying client, but trust me: the emotional drain, the wasted time, the great clients you neglect while you deal with problem ones… all of those cost more than the monthly invoice you’re afraid to lose.

The first time I fired a client, I didn’t sleep the night before. But within 60 days, we landed two dream clients who respected us and took our advice. Go figure!

Your Challenge This Week

Look at your current clients and identify the ones where boundaries are blurry. Write down the issues, talk to them, and assess if a re-onboarding is necessary!

Today’s quote is from Albert Einstein: We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

Have a great week and weekend!