I got fired!

I’ve been doing this on my own since 2019, and I’ve been very proud of the fact that I haven’t lost a client except for either completing a project or budget concerns. Well, I guess I can’t say that anymore, because I now have a client who has cut me off and apparently gone with someone else for the first time ever! And I’m a bit ambivalent about it. On the one hand, I can no-longer claim to have never been fired or had a contract with a client terminated. (Actually, I guess I can still make that claim, because they didn’t actually terminate my contract. They just deactivated my login.) On the other hand, I had planned to fire this client myself already and had simply not gotten up the nerve to actually do so. I guess that requires a bit more explanation.

Why fire them?

I had planned to fire this particular client because I wasn’t a good match for them. When they were first onboarded, it was pre-JTS, and they said they want integration and development help. That made them a good fit, but I quickly realized that they didn’t know what they were doing and were not utilizing the platform in an ideal way. They were still using “classic,” and there was just a small group utilizing it for support for their private fleet fueling stations, where they had their own payment system. Another very small group was using it for sales, but they really weren’t using the platform well. Mostly they wanted Salesforce to sync their emails and allow a couple Sr-level people to have their assistants send emails on their behalf. So they were leveraging Einstein Activity Capture (EAC), but constantly struggling with it. It would frequently become disconnected, and they didn’t understand how emails and contacts were shared, and so there were lots of duplicates and lots of confusion about who was talking to whom. They had been talked into Salesforce’s “Premier Support” package by their AE, but they were still leaning on me for simple things like creating users and fixing their EAC. I’d get a call only to find that EAC had been disconnected for weeks or months, and then I’d have to explain repeatedly that I could reset the connection but the individual users had to actually establish the connection, which would mean they’d have to remember their password, and that was always a big headache for these particular users. It felt very similar to trying to provide computer support for my aging parents. I also repeatedly found that users had been created using “Salesforce Integration” profiles and others because there were no “Salesforce” license available, and there was no dedicated and educated admin on-hand to manage that stuff. My point of contact had also become a rapid-turnover position that was primarily an assistant to one of the executives, which speaks to the way people in that position are treated.

Bottom-line, they refused to learn the system, they refused to move to Lightning, they refused to sign up for Managed Services, they refused to prioritize Salesforce to the point where anyone on-staff learned how to use it, and were simply not a good fit for JTS because of each one of those individual things, let alone all of them put together. My choice was to either become more involved or fire them. I had decided to fire them, and had even drafted a message encouraging them to lean more heavily on Salesforce support, utilizing their Premier package, but I filed it away and got gun-shy on actually sending it. I wanted to be the “nice guy” and continue to hold their little hand and try to nurse them along. “They aren’t actually that much trouble,” I told myself. “It’s not like they cost me anything,” I insisted.

They cut me off.

Before the end of the year (2025), they asked me about implementing Sales Engagement. Knowing their background and considering their history of not adopting Salesforce thus far (for example, still using Classic), I didn’t have high hopes for the project. In fact, TBH, I thought it was a waste of time, effort and money. Nonetheless, if the project failed because of a lack of adoption, I could try to console myself that it was not my fault, if the issues were related to their general lack of adoption rather than my implementation of the feature. I already had the email stating that I would not be renewing their support contract partial written when this request came in. Rather than dust it off and give them the heave-ho, I went ahead and put together a proposal for them which was purposely-inflated. I convinced myself that this was better, and that I was helping them by encouraging them to avoid spending money on this feature that they would likely never utilize. I even included phraseology in the proposal stating that the new features would only work in Lightning, so all users would need to make the switch. I did hear that they were going to try a “less-expensive” solution when I reached out to follow-up on my proposal. I assumed that meant that they would try to self-implement, or that they would simply do without the features, but convinced myself that I didn’t care one way or the other.

What I should’ve done

I can’t say for sure, but I believe I should’ve stuck to my guns and delivered the “go away” email that I had drafted. That would put me in control of the situation and made me be the decisive one. It’s possible they would’ve even tried to keep me as their consultant in that situation, but I’ll never know. In any case, my streak would’ve been preserved, and I think my reputation would’ve potentially been salvaged. Instead, I now can’t say I’ve never lost a client, and I can’t say I’ve never been cut off without notice or reason. It’s likely that none of this really matters. It certainly doesn’t matter financially, at least not directly; this client was never going to make or break the business in that way. Their largest monthly invoice ever was a mere $1500. And I will be relieved if I never have to connect their EAC accounts for them ever again. Then again, that admin seat hasn’t changed personnel in almost 2 years, so it’s past-due. I guess we’ll see.