The hardest conversation in the Boardroom is never about winning work. It’s about letting some go. Owners will carry a bad customer for years — out of loyalty, fear, or the sheer size of the number on the invoice — while that customer quietly prices the whole business.
Score them: the four M-A-C-S columns
Margin — true contribution after the extra meetings, rush jobs and returns this account causes, not quoted margin. A-cash — how they pay: days, disputes, retentions. C-strain — what they cost the team: the accounts everyone dreads are already costing you your best people’s goodwill. S-trategy — do they make you better, or keep you doing yesterday’s work at yesterday’s prices?
Score each column 1–5 across your top ten accounts. There is always a bottom two, and the owner almost always knew before the scoring started.
Re-price before you release
Sacking comes second. First, offer the honest price — the one that makes the account genuinely worth its strain. Perhaps a third accept, and become good customers overnight. The rest leave “themselves”, which is tidier for everyone, including the relationship.
The Haydock precedent
Steven Haydock’s biggest account was 58% of turnover and, once machine-hour costing existed, provably loss-making on two lines. The structured re-price — walk-away position agreed in the Boardroom first — recovered 60% of the increase and released the loss-makers. Net margin went from 4.1% to 9.8% in two years. The full climb log shows the before-and-after table.
Concentration above 40% in one account is a standing red flag in the Terrain Survey — worth ten minutes to check yours.
WRITTEN BY
Neil Garside — Founder & Head Coach. ILM Level 7 Diploma, Executive Coaching & Mentoring · EMCC Senior Practitioner.