Client Account Manager

Clients do not leave suddenly, and the quiet months before a non-renewal are now noticed while there is still time.

It watches the two things both sides can see. Whether the retainer is being consumed by work the client values, and whether what was promised arrived when it was promised. Almost every account loss shows up in one of those first.

Burn is judged against the calendar, not as a percentage. Ninety percent of the retainer consumed is fine in week four and an emergency in week two. Only the pace tells you which, so the pace is what gets reported.

The client hears bad news from this seat first. Before the date, with a recovery date the firm will hold. Clients forgive a slip they were told about. They do not forgive finding out themselves, and they never forgive a second missed recovery date.

Out-of-scope work is neither refused nor absorbed. Absorbing it quietly is how a profitable retainer turns into an unprofitable one. It gets named as out of scope and handed to whoever writes change orders.

Renewals are worked backwards from the notice period. An auto-renewing contract with sixty days' notice has a real deadline two months before the date in anyone's calendar.

Works with whatever holds your projects, time, contracts, and mail.