Start the renewal conversation a month early.

When you click send on your invoices, do you say a little prayer that it’s not the last time?

A client had a pattern with their retainers. Six-month terms, and a lot of clients leaving right at the six-month mark. It always felt sudden. Everything seemed fine, and then an email would arrive saying they’d decided to go a different direction.

Here’s what I think is actually happening in most of those cases.

Somewhere around month five, the client has a conversation internally. Is this worth it? Are we getting what we expected? Should we keep going? And that conversation happens without you in the room.

By the time you hear about it, the decision is already made.

So my advice was simple: start that conversation yourself, about a month before the term ends. Do it openly. Something like, “We’re coming up on six months. I want to talk honestly about how this has gone, and what the next six could look like.”

A few good things happen when you do this.

You take the decision back into your own hands. You’re part of the discussion instead of waiting for a verdict.

You hear the concerns while you can still do something about them.

And if they are going to leave, you find out weeks early instead of the week of. That gives you time to fill the gap instead of scrambling.

It also saves you from the thing most of us have done at some point, which is sending next month’s invoice and nervously hoping it gets paid.

Agencies thrive on predictability, and clients thrive on knowing their agency is one step ahead of them. This is a great way to achieve both.