early retirement

Harsh truth:

The moment you sign a client begins the countdown till you stop working together.

That’s just the nature of client work.

A fact I’ve been reminded of recently…

As the biggest client at the ad agency (where I work as Head of Strategy) recently left us.

What’s more:

This came as a bit of a surprise.

You see, we’d been working with him for close to 5 years…

And had helped him generate 8-figures in sales.

But, crucially:

The one thing we were NOT aware of…

Was that he’d fallen out of alignment with the business.

He no longer wanted to serve the audience he’d built.

So, instead of continuing to operate…

He chose to wind the whole thing down.

Naturally, we were pretty bummed out about this at first.

Yet upon further reflection…

We came to see it in a different light.

Because this client was basically able to “retire” early thanks to the work we did together.

Which is pretty damn cool.

Furthermore:

It illustrates the importance of building a business you don’t need to escape from.

Something I’m very passionate about these days.

In fact, it’s my guiding light when making decisions about…

- Customer acquisition
- Offer creation
- Positioning
- What kind of clients I take on
- How many hours per week I’m willing to work
- Etc etc

And I encourage you to do the same as you grow your list and build your business.

Because, as with all things:

Business comes down to tradeoffs vs payoffs.

So choose wisely.

Jim Hamilton