#52: When Dream Results Aren’t Enough: The Client Who Fired Us at 18x ROAS
For a long time, I believed the same lie most agency owners believe:
“If the results are good enough, the client will stay.”
That belief cost me one of the most painful client losses of my career.
This was early in my agency journey, pre-COVID, pre–iOS 14, back when paid media felt like printing money. We were managing Facebook ads for a DTC kids clothing brand and delivering over an 18x return on ad spend for six straight months. Not once did performance dip. We were directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.
And then they fired us.
No warning. No performance issues. Just gone.
At the time, I was shocked. Looking back now, I’m grateful because that loss exposed foundational cracks that would have destroyed the agency later when the market got harder.
This post breaks down exactly why results weren’t enough, where I screwed up, and the operational changes that now drive retention, profitability, and real agency scaling.
Results Are Table Stakes, Not the Relationship
The first hard truth I had to accept was this:
Clients don’t pay agencies for results. They expect results.
Results are the cost of entry. They are not the glue that holds the relationship together.
In this case, I assumed performance would do all the heavy lifting. We let the numbers speak for themselves. But what we failed to do was anchor those numbers in strategy, leadership, and clarity.
The client saw revenue going up but they didn’t see:
The decision logic behind campaigns
The testing cycles we were running
The risks we were managing
Or why those results were happening
Without that context, the results felt accidental. Like luck.
And when results feel like luck, you become replaceable.
Mistake #1: No Real Client Onboarding Process
At the time, we didn’t have a properly defined onboarding experience.
No structured kickoff.
No sales to service handoff.
No roadmap showing what would happen, when, or why.
That meant we missed the most critical phase of the entire client lifecycle: early trust creation.
I think of onboarding as making trust deposits into the client’s emotional bank account. We made almost none.
This violated one of my core values: ruthless clarity.
We left expectations ambiguous. We didn’t clearly define how the relationship would work. And ambiguity always creates anxiety—even when results look good.
Agency scaling starts with client experience, and onboarding is where that experience is defined.
Mistake #2: Weak Communication Cadence = Weak Perceived Value
Another major failure was communication.
We didn’t have a regular cadence for strategic meetings. We sent reports. We shared ROAS numbers. We said, “Things are going well.”
But we didn’t lead the client.
Because we weren’t walking them through:
What we were doing
Why we were doing it
What was working
What wasn’t working
And how decisions were being made
The work became invisible.
And invisible work has zero perceived value, no matter how effective it is.
This is one of the biggest killers of agency profitability: doing great work that the client can’t see or understand.
Mistake #3: No Defined Scope of Work
We were hired to “do marketing.”
That was the scope.
Which, in hindsight, is insane.
Without a tightly defined scope of work:
The client couldn’t measure our delivery
We couldn’t clearly articulate our value
And expectations lived entirely in their head
This again violated ruthless clarity.
Early on, I was uncomfortable defining scope because I wasn’t confident enough to say, “Here’s exactly what we do, and here’s what it’s worth.”
That lack of confidence cost us.
Scope clarity protects the client relationship and your perceived value.
If you don’t define how you should be measured, the client will do it for you.
Mistake #4: We Acted Like Operators, Not CEOs
This might be the most important lesson.
We behaved like ad operators, pushing buttons, optimizing campaigns, reporting numbers.
We did not behave like strategic partners.
There was no strong positioning around our role.
No “CEO level” guidance.
No leadership narrative tying actions to business outcomes.
We delivered ads instead of owning growth.
And when you act like a vendor, clients treat you like one.
The Core Problem: We Skipped the Foundations
Looking back, everything comes back to this:
“We scaled the relationship without fixing the foundation first.”
There was:
No onboarding system
No SOPs for client communication
No clear client experience strategy
No articulated core values
No strategic positioning
We relied on performance instead of process.
And that creates fragile retention.
The Hard Lessons That Changed Everything
This client was hurt but it forced clarity.
Here are the principles that now drive how I think about agency operations, client acquisition, and long term profitability:
Results without relationship = fragile retention
Onboarding is not a formality, it’s the foundation of trust
Scope clarity protects both sides of the relationship
Regular strategic communication cements your role as the expert
These are not “soft skills.”
They are scaling mechanics.
The Exact Changes We Made (Step by Step)
After this experience, we rebuilt our agency from the ground up.
1. A Visual, Week by Week Onboarding Roadmap
Before a client ever signs, we now walk them through:
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Originally, our onboarding was six weeks. That was a mistake.
We shortened it to four weeks and now front-load action into the first two weeks.
Nothing kills momentum like telling a newly signed client:
“We won’t really be doing anything for the next 6–8 weeks.”
Fast action builds confidence. Confidence drives retention.
2. Weekly Strategy Calls (Then Biweekly)
We now lock in weekly strategy calls immediately.
Weekly calls:
Build rapport
Establish leadership
Create trust quickly
Once trust is established, we move to biweekly.
If a client trusts you, they don’t need constant reassurance.
3. SOPs for Scope and Client Communication
We created clear SOPs for:
Scope definition
Client updates
Reporting narratives
Not just what to communicate but how to communicate it.
We trained the team to make invisible work visible.
Our internal rule became simple:
“If it didn’t get communicated, it didn’t get done.”
4. Turning Delivery Into a Narrative
Clients don’t want dashboards.
They want context.
So we turned delivery into a story:
What we tested
What we learned
What decisions were made
What’s coming next
This is what positions you as a strategic partner instead of an execution layer.
Why I’m Grateful This Client Fired Us
At the time, I thought this would be our crown jewel case study.
Instead, it became something better: a mirror.
It exposed the cracks in our foundations before the market got harder, competition increased, and margins tightened.
Today, clients stay not just because of results but because:
They trust us
They understand our strategy
They see us as partners
If you’re an agency owner doing great work but still struggling with retention, profitability, or churn, this is likely why.
Fix the foundation first.
Everything else scales from there.
If you want to go deeper, you can run the full version at agencyuplift.co/mini.
Even if you never book a call, the clarity alone is worth it.
