She liked him. That was the problem. The landscaping company had been with their web designer since the beginning — their very first one — and when you first start over with someone, you have a kinship with them. That’s what this was. A real relationship with a real person who happened to be not super experienced and building a website that wasn’t working. The idea of walking away from that and trusting a different company to deliver felt like a betrayal. That’s why sometimes hiring a web designer can offend your friend that built your site.
They’re so nice. I just can’t leave them.
That’s how the conversation started.
The Conversation That Changed It
We didn’t try to sell them on why boutique might be better. We broke down their website. This is what’s going on. This is what you need to overcome. These are the things that are important to fix.
Then the question that changed everything:
If I’m the one telling you this and you take this back to so-and-so web designer that you’re working with currently — does that feel good to you?
Because that’s the real issue and it might be the difference between this being the right time to get a website and you putting it off. If I’m bringing it to your attention, how come they just didn’t get fixed? Maybe they don’t know how to do it. And do you really want someone researching how to fix something versus just working with somebody like us that can just fix it?
That’s not a pitch. That’s a mirror. The prospect already knew the answer — they just hadn’t said it out loud yet. Sometimes knowing it’s time to move and saying it’s time to move are two different things.
What the Old Designer Did When They Left
When the client finally made the call, it wasn’t clean. A lot of feelings. “Are you sure?” The kind of reaction that makes you question a decision you already made.
It felt like to me it was a money thing with that other designer — like they were losing a lot by not having them. But I knew how much they were paying, so that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t a lot. But maybe there’s a lot to them.
And then the begging. That’s when you know — really solidified — that it was a good decision to come over. Because a company that responds to a client leaving by making them feel guilty isn’t a company that was putting the client first. They were putting themselves first. The guilt was the tell.
If you’re wondering what happens when you stop paying, that’s a separate question with a simple answer. But the feelings part — that’s what keeps people stuck longer than they should be.
The Honest Thing to Do
If you like your current designer as a person — awesome. I like a lot of people as people, but that doesn’t mean that I need to work with them.
If something’s not working — like a website — the honest thing to do is be honest with yourself. Is this worth continuing the relationship, or is this something where you need to go ahead and cut bait now?
Nice doesn’t mean competent. And guilt is not a business strategy. The landscaping company stayed longer than they should have because leaving felt cruel. It wasn’t. It was overdue. The website had problems that weren’t getting fixed, the person building it may not have known how to fix them, and the kinship — real as it was — wasn’t delivering results.
Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School and the author of Give and Take, described this exact misread in an interview about why we confuse niceness with value:
“Most people think that they’re very good at recognizing who is a giver and who is a taker. Unfortunately, the evidence shows that until you know someone well, most people do no better than random chance. One of the biggest reasons we get fooled is a personality trait called agreeableness. Agreeable people tend to be warm and friendly and nice, and welcoming and polite, whereas more disagreeable people are likely to be critical, sceptical, and challenging with others. Most of us associate these personality traits with giving and taking: if you’re a nice guy — if you’re agreeable — I will assume that you’re a giver, and if you’re a little bit more tough and gruff in your interaction, I might assume that you’re a taker. Yet when you look at the data, the correlation between agreeable-disagreeable and giving-taking, is basically zero. Agreeable and disagreeableness is about your outer veneer, whereas giving and taking is about your inner motives, your intentions.”
— Adam Grant, Organizational Psychologist, Wharton School. Source: thinkers50.com
You don’t owe a vendor your loyalty when the work isn’t there and if you stop paying your website subscription, you know what will happen. You owe yourself an honest answer about whether someone is communicating with you or just being pleasant. There’s a difference. And if you’re reading this, you probably already know which one you’re getting.
The right company is out there and that’s why we invented Yeetish, so it’s easy to find. But you have to leave the nice one first.
Yeetish Question
How do I fire my web designer without being cruel?
You don’t have to be cruel. You just have to be honest. Tell them the website isn’t doing what your business needs it to do and you’ve decided to go a different direction. Just because you paid a bad web company doesn’t mean you need to stay forever. You don’t owe them a performance review or an explanation of everything they did wrong. A clean, direct conversation is the kindest version of this — for both of you.