The Reverse WinBack

An Interview With Jill Konrath

In this article Jill Konrath shares the story of a reverse winback. In a normal winback, the client fires us, and we try to win them back. But Jill did the exact opposite, she fired the client and the client had to win her back. 

This is a fascinating and instructive story on the value of setting boundaries and staying true to yourself, even in the face of losing a large client and serious revenue.

About Jill Konrath

Jill Konrath is a veritable legend in the sales world.

She was LinkedIn's #1 "B2B Sales Expert to Follow", has over 378,000 LinkedIn followers and over 140,000 people get her Fresh Sales Strategies Newsletter.

Jill is also the author of 4 best-selling and award-winning books ... More Sales, Less Time: Surprisingly Simple Strategies for Today's Crazy-Busy Sellers || Agile Selling: Get Up to Speed Quickly in Today’s Ever-Changing Sales World || SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers || and Selling to BIG Companies.

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Dan Pfister: Jill, you've got this really interesting story about firing a client who actually came back, could you share it with us?

Jill Konrath: Sure. I was actually working with a general manager of a large company in the Minneapolis area. 

He had asked me to do what I thought was one of the most exciting consulting projects I’d ever done. It was meaty and I got to dig into it and help him figure out the direction of some new products and where they were going to go. 

I was really into it and I'd come to him every few weeks and share what I was doing. After about eight weeks of working with him, doing the interviews and reporting back, I got this really strange sensation. 

It felt like he was using me because as we were talking, he would just kind of brush off the information I had gathered and the recommendations that I was positing in terms of what they needed to do to be successful. 

Something wasn't right here and I came back to him and said, "Peter, we need to talk. This project isn't going anywhere. I feel that you're having me do this project and you're not ever going to use any of the recommendations that I make and I don't like feeling that the work I'm doing isn't going to be used in a valuable way, so I want you to know I quit."

He said "You can't quit."

I said "I need to quit because this project isn't going anywhere and I'm not getting any satisfaction from working on it."

So he asked me to write up the report and get it to him before I officially quit. I wrote up the report, submitted it to him and walked away from this organization who had been a very good client. 

For a couple of years I'd been doing product launches with them and helping them go to market with different ideas. They were such an important client for my business and it was really hard to walk away.

About two months later I got a call from a woman who had assumed the new role of general manager. 

Peter was no longer at the company. He was terminated. 

Barb called me up and said, "Jill, I'd like to find out about this project that you were working on with Peter and get the status of it." And I said, "Well, Barb, I'm not working on it. I resigned the project several months ago."

She said, "You did? I'd like to learn about it. Would you please come and talk with me?"

So I went in, sat in her office and explained the situation. She said, "Thank you for telling me this. You are now officially hired again and we're going to work on this project and take it where it was supposed to go."

I was off the project for two months and got hired immediately by a woman who I'd never met before but had heard that I was working on the project. 

They turned out to be my best client for the next two years. 

The work just came, one thing after another and they stretched me from a consultant's perspective. They took me places that I hadn't gone before and allowed me to do work that was beyond what I thought was my capability. 

It was fun work and it paid really well, and they loved me, and I loved them. 

That's my story.

Dan: That's an amazing story. 

For you to be hired by someone who’d never met you before is really something. Were there people within the company saying, "Oh, my God. Jill's amazing. You need to get her back”?

Jill: I'm sure they did. 

She heard that I was working with them and had done other projects with them before. 

But I think the reason she hired me back was mostly because I was honest with her. It was my truthfulness and the fact that I was willing to stand up to power and say when things weren't right. 

Dan: This company did a win back with you. 

They lost you because you were unhappy. They weren’t going to use any of your recommendations and they won you back by giving you things you wanted, they gave you great work to do.

Jill: Yeah. It's funny because they were really paying me well and it was a longstanding client, in a bigger company with multiple divisions. So not only was I risking losing this one division, I was risking losing multiple divisions over time. 

But the reality is it became even bigger. This business unit came back and I expanded into other areas.

It's kind of a strange story, isn't it?

Dan: It is and it's a really exciting story. You did the right thing and were stretched as a consultant but still, it must've been very difficult to walk away from that revenue.

Jill: Yes, very difficult.

Dan: So you walked away from all of that, and it all came back, plus much more. 

Jill Konrath: Yes, and there was no guarantee that it would turn out that way. That guy could’ve stayed in power for much longer. 

But I was happier not accepting money for a project that was just going to get tabled. It doesn't make you feel good and it zaps your energy so you have less to give other clients and their projects.

Dan: It really does. You can either have it suck your creativity, suck your energy, suck your motivation, suck your desire to get up and do good work or the opposite. But it's still a tough decision.

Jill: It was really hard. It probably took me about a month to get up the gumption to do it.

If you're working with a client and it's the wrong client, I think you have an obligation to say it. If what you're doing isn’t right for them, if you see that they're not going to use your work, or if they're not served well for any other reason, I think it matters to speak the truth to them, and if necessary, to make another recommendation.

In my case, I couldn't recommend somebody else because I could tell it was a fake work project designed to show that he was doing something. 

Dan: Normally when I think of a client that you shouldn't be working with, it's because you can't deliver what they need. But you were delivering what they needed. It's a very unusual situation.

Jill: It is and it never happened again, but they became one of my biggest clients and like I said, they were already a good client.

The work also expanded to other business units and when their people went to other companies, they took me there too, so it had a wonderful cascading impact.

Dan: Was there a story within your client going around about you letting them go and how they came back to you? Was there some “legend of Jill” talk going on there?

Jill: I don't know. I just ended up having a lot of fun and the first time I ever wrote anything actually came after I was rehired. 

It happened at a launch for one of their products out in Lake Tahoe and I was really, really sick. 

I was there to learn about the product so I could come up with the sales/marketing material that they needed. But I was so sick I spent my whole day in bed and I ended up writing a poem about the company. 

When we got back to Minneapolis, I called a staff meeting and told them I'd written a poem about them and that I'd love to share it. 

Actually, it was a short story. It was my first mini-book and the first time I ever wrote anything.

I had a good time with them.

Dan: That’s a really inspiring story. You did the right thing for you, and for the client. It was really tough to do but the rewards were huge.

Jill: I would have never expected that outcome but the point of it is, is that there are times when you don't belong and you shouldn't be with a customer and sometimes, the honesty of saying that gives you another chance to do something else that's maybe better than what you had.

Dan: You did a reversal.

Jill: Yes. It is a reversal. It's me firing the customer, but it was a winback.

Dan: Thanks Jill, I really appreciate you sharing these stories.

Jill: I like what you're doing.

Dan: Coming from you Jill, that means a lot.

Jill: It's good. People aren’t talking about winback and there's so many reasons to go back. 

I think if you've lost somebody, you need to come up with new ideas on how you can get back in. 

You have to think of some way to entice them and to pique their curiosity about why they should talk with you again because it's not over when it's over. It's only over now.

Dan: "It's not over when it's over. It's only over now." That's very quotable.

Jill: Well, feel free to quote me.

Dan: Thanks Jill.

Jill: My pleasure.

To learn more or to contact Jill visit JillKonrath.com.