There's a particular kind of business that looks healthy and is secretly fragile: the one where a single client makes up a huge share of revenue. It feels wonderful — steady income, a great relationship, less hustling for new work. But you're not really running a business; you're running a dependency. And the day that client leaves, changes direction, or hits their own hard times, your "successful" business is suddenly in crisis.
The rough rule of thumb many use: if any one client is more than a quarter or so of your revenue, that's a concentration risk worth taking seriously. Not because the client is going anywhere — but because you can't control whether they do, and a business whose survival rests on one decision made in someone else's office is exposed in a way the numbers don't show.
The fix isn't to neglect the big client — it's to deliberately build other revenue alongside them, so their departure would hurt rather than sink you. Use the stability they provide to invest in diversifying, while the going is good.
A great big client is a gift. Just don't let it quietly become your single point of failure.
Building a business that isn't dependent on any one customer is part of the Scale course.
Or find your stage with the free Business Stage Assessment.
Annie
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