I recently had some sad news: one of my long-standing clients is planning to retire. Of course, I’m delighted for them; they work really hard so it’s about time they took it easy, enjoying life with their partner and their hobbies. But I shall miss them and the work I have enjoyed doing for them.
Closing a business – or planning a business move to a great extent – begs lots of questions. When to start telling your customers, bearing in mind you presumably want to keep working to the last? When to start winding up your marketing activity, so work doesn’t dry up too soon? And would it be useful to keep some channels open, even after you have stopped working?
If you search the internet, there is much advice about the financial side of closing a business but no one seems to have written about the marketing and communications considerations. So, as my client and I write a checklist for their business, it struck me that it might make an interesting blog, too. See what you think.
Who to notify?
As with all things marketing, it helps to start by thinking about who you need to tell. This applies if you’re moving premises, as well as closing them, of course. Here’s the list we’ve worked up so far, with some comments:
Clients: When and how you tell them could be critical; long-standing or regular clients might want more notice than others, for example. Are you going to refer them on to someone else or let them fend for themselves?
Suppliers: Your suppliers could range from your landlord to your website host, from subcontractors to printers, so make a full list of everyone who enables you to run your business. Check who you have contracts with and when these expire. Where no contracts are in place, try to give as much notice as you reasonably can, to respect the working relationship you’ve established.
Official bodies: Starting with HMRC but also thinking about any other government or industry bodies you may be registered with. They may not need much notice but they may need to be notified in a specific way so check with them early.
Professional registrations: From your insurance to any membership organisations you belong to, you may find that you are subscribed for a fixed time period; cancelling early probably won’t be refundable. Think about how your subscription length fits with your closure date and whether you’ll need to renew for a period anyway.
How to tell them?
For your suppliers, official bodies and professional registrations, notifying them is probably going to be a fairly functional business: an email, letter or ‘phone call to give them the appropriate notice on an individual basis. However, unless you don’t have very many, telling clients and managing their expectations of your closure or change of address is going to be a combination of individual and wider marketing communications. You don’t want to lose them before you’re ready!
My retiring client has started the ball rolling by drafting a short letter that they will start handing out to regular clients at about three months prior to their retirement date; this fits with their typical schedule of repeat business so we feel is about the right point for them. The same letter has been converted into a small notice that they will put up in their premises at about the same time. About a month before retirement date, the intention is to check the address book and post out the letter to any clients they have not actually seen by that point. We figure that this should inform the majority in a relatively personal way.
And how to tell everyone else?
Of course, marketing is partly about communicating with existing clients but it’s also about attracting new ones so when and how to stop marketing is going to be the knack. We started by making a list of all the communication channels the client has and then working out which messages should go out when. See what you make of this list:
Website: Think about putting a message on the website about a month in advance of retirement date; may encourage people to book in before then. When to safely stop paying for any paid SEO services?
After closure, should we take down the website entirely or have a holding page in case former clients come looking? When does the domain and webhosting renew, as that may be a factor in your plans? We’re planning to stop paid SEO about three months out and leave a holding webpage up for about five months afterwards, as that fits with existing webhosting arrangements too.
Emails: There is probably no need to change anything until after retirement but then we’ll add an ‘out of office’ message for any client who gets in touch. Is your email hosting linked to your web hosting (will switching off one also switch off the other?). For my client, they use their business email for some personal correspondence as well so we’re going to start switching over to their Google Mail for that starting immediately but leave the business email running for about five months post-retirement.
Google Business: We are going to post an update about a month ahead of retirement day as a notice to clients and only mark the business actually closed after retirement day. You need to remember that things like website addresses, emails and phone numbers are often linked to Google Business accounts so worth making a reminder to go back into the account to deactivate or delete these as you plan to close them down, even five months later.
Social media: When to stop posting? We’re going to keep posting as usual up to three months ahead, then start to wind down activity a bit. During the last month or two, we will post the odd notification of the impending retirement. After retirement date, we’ll ‘pin’ a final post with our closure message (useful having got that letter drafted early so we have a template text to work on that’s consistent across all platforms). Fortunately, my client doesn’t do any paid socials, and the platforms used are all free, so we haven’t got any subscriptions or payments to worry about cancelling or closing accounts.
‘Phone numbers: Do you have a dedicated business number or do you use your own mobile? Think about if and when to change any answer messages and whether it’s appropriate to switch off those numbers entirely at some point, mindful of any contractual commitments.
Printed material: When to stop producing print, like business cards? If you’re moving, this may be more critical than if you’re closing your business but you’ll want to run stocks down towards the end.
Paid advertising: Check any advertising you do – particularly regular or repeat ads – for any cancellation or notice periods. It might be sensible to stop advertising before retirement date but how much before may depend on your industry.
Signage: Do you have premises or vehicles, for example, that are branded or have signage you’ll need to take down or replace? Much of this won’t need to happen until retirement day but worth checking any contracts in place for notification dates, for example on vehicle leasing.
And anything else…?
Inevitably there may be things we’ve missed off this list (I’ll come back and add them if there are!). If you employ people or are a registered company, for example, you will have many other things to consider too, no doubt. Hopefully you have a good HR consultant and accountant who can offer practical advice. For my client, it’s perhaps fortunate that their business financial year does not coincide with the planned retirement date so there will be about eight months in which we can tie up any loose financial ends before having to submit the final set of business accounts.
But that’s about it for my client; all over bar the big retirement party. (They haven’t asked me to organise that yet but I live in hope!) I wish them a long and very happy retirement, when it finally comes!
Further marketing advice
If you’re starting a business, rather than closing one, try my marketing checklist for that here.
For some tips on doing your own marketing, tasks that will cost you nothing but a bit of time, try these.
And for the importance of communications, this might be useful.