Build it so they can leave

When I finish a project the client gets a document, a recording, and every credential. Domain, host, CRM, email sending, analytics, phone. All of it, in their name, on their card where money is involved.

People occasionally tell me this is bad business. If they can leave, they will.

That has not been my experience, and I think the reasoning behind it is wrong in an interesting way.

A client who cannot leave is not loyal, they are stuck, and stuck clients behave badly. They resent the invoice. They compare you unfavorably to whoever they imagine they would have hired. They do not refer you, because referring you means inflicting the lock on a friend. And when they finally do get out, and they always eventually do, they tell people about the extraction rather than the work.

A client who can leave any Tuesday and does not is telling you something real. They stay because it is working. They refer, because there is nothing to warn anybody about. And the relationship is honest, which means the conversations are honest, which means you find out about problems while they are small.

There is also a selfish version of this argument. If a client cannot leave, then every problem with the system is permanently mine. Forever. The lock cuts both ways, and the vendor is the one who cannot put it down.

I would rather do good work and be re-chosen than do adequate work and be retained by friction.

The practical version, if you are buying: ask for the handover documentation before you sign, not after. Not because you will read it. Because whether it exists tells you what kind of shop you are hiring.