On my first day owning a new account, I found out the client had already started leaving.
They'd terminated three of our core solutions months before I arrived. The de-implementation was scheduled 30 days into my tenure. The only reason they hadn't cut us loose completely was one product our competitor couldn't replace.
Internally, the story was simple: this relationship was unsalvageable. Endless friction. Not worth saving.
So I asked her directly. Same questions, no defensiveness.
Her story was different. She wasn't asking for anything extra — she was chasing deliverables that should have been automatic, and they kept arriving late, straining her own team's deadlines.
Both sides were telling the truth. They just didn't know they were describing the same failure.
The real problem wasn't the relationship. It was the account manager assigned to it — spread too thin, missing follow-through. A resourcing problem wearing an "unsalvageable relationship" costume.
“A resourcing problem wearing an “unsalvageable relationship” costume.
It took a year to fix. A new account manager. A dedicated analyst so reporting stopped slipping. A lot of unglamorous work rebuilding trust before I ever mentioned growth.
When I finally did, her answer summed up the whole relationship: she didn't want a vendor to manage. She wanted a partner who understood her world well enough to bring her ideas she couldn't see herself.
By the time I left that company, we'd built a multi-million dollar pipeline together — work she was actively driving, not work I was pushing.
I think about that account every time a relationship gets labeled unsalvageable. Most of the time, it isn't the relationship. It's a broken process that's been wearing the account's name for a while.
What's the "unsalvageable" reputation on your team that's actually something else entirely?