Some Accounts Cost More Than They're Worth
Most staffing firms measure success by the number of clients they have.
”How many active accounts do we have?”
“How many new clients did we add this quarter?”
”How much total revenue are we managing across our client base?”
Adding more clients feels like progress. Bigger client lists feel like growth. A full CRM feels like success.
Except it’s not.
Here’s the cold, hard truth…
Some of your clients are costing you more than they’re worth.
Not in the ways you might think. They’re not refusing to pay invoices or creating HR nightmares. But they are consuming recruiter time on unrealistic searches. They’re demanding constant attention for minimal results. They’re treating your team like another commodity vendor while expecting boutique services.
Think about your current client list right now. How many of those accounts would you actually fight to keep if they threatened to leave? How many treat your team with respect versus treating them like an ATS with an email address?
Most staffing firms have a handful of clients that generate the majority of profitable placements, build long-term partnerships, and actually value strategic recruiting. Then they have a long list of accounts that consume disproportionate resources while delivering marginal results.
The difference between those two groups isn’t just in revenue. It’s everything.
Great clients make your recruiters better. They engage in real discovery conversations. They trust your expertise. They give feedback that helps you improve. They provide the kind of accounts that build your reputation.
Mediocre clients drain your team. They treat every search as urgent and every candidate as replaceable. They ghost your recruiters after an interview. They negotiate fees over and over again. Quite often they run off your best people (or poach them).
The firms that win in staffing don’t have the most clients. They have the right clients.
Spring cleaning your client list doesn’t mean abandoning everyone who is challenging. It means being honest about which relationships have potential and which ones are just extracting time and energy.
Look at your client list right now. Which ones energize your team and which ones drain them? Which relationships are growing and which ones are stuck in the same transactional pattern they were a year ago? Which clients would you actually be relieved to lose?
That last question tells you everything you need to know.