← LibraryCase No. 17
High stakesOperations platform (agency retainer) · $84K ARR retainer

Your Champion Just Resigned

Two weeks' notice. They want a clean handoff. You need to make replacing your agency impossible.

Based on real client experiences, but anonymized and dramatized to protect identities and confidential relationships.

The setup

Your VP-level champion calls: "Heads up — I've resigned. My last day is in two weeks. I want to set you up cleanly with my replacement, but I can't guarantee anything once I'm gone."

The three data points
  1. 01Champion drove all prior scope expansions on the retainer
  2. 02Replacement is internal, comes from a finance background — not marketing
  3. 03Champion is willing to do warm intros and write a wrap-up doc
How you pitch

3 minutes to lock in everything you can while the champion still has political capital. Don't be greedy. Be strategic about exactly what proof you need on paper before they leave.

What makes it exciting

Short window, high leverage. The champion wants to leave a clean legacy — your job is to make protecting your retainer part of that legacy.