A friend of mine works for an ad agency in another state. Their account of 27 years – largest piece of business in the shop, billing over $27 million – went into review. The CEO announced, “They would defend.”

Bad idea.

I’ve been in that position. Early in my career, the first agency I worked for went through this same scenario. Our largest account went into review, accounting for 25 percent of our business. We spent almost three months on the pitch, dedicating most of the agency’s resources to retaining the account. In the trenches, even then, we could see that it was a lost cause. But senior management had too much pride and “wouldn’t go down without a fight.” They were blinded by the self-delusion that because they’d done such a good job for the past seven years, and put in everything they had to keep the business, they couldn’t possibly lose.

We lost.

The even bigger problem was, during the time we focused everything on retaining the lost cause account, we ignored our other, smaller accounts. And within three months, we had lost two more. Six months later, we lost another and the shop was folded into a sister agency and ceased to exist. In hindsight, it should have been predictable. Unlike problems, if you ignore your clients, they’ll eventually go away.

Later in my career, it was my call. I had recently taken on the role of president of the agency, and our largest account was acquired by their competitor. While we held onto the business for a year after the sale, I finally got the call that they were conducting an agency review. We were invited to defend, but I was told that “they would understand” if we didn’t participate.

I looked at the facts: new owners, relocated headquarters out of town, new daily contacts and management. Only one of our former client contacts had survived the transition.

As painful as it was (the account represented 20 percent of our business), I swallowed hard and declined. We had to cut costs and reduce staff. Many of my own closest allies couldn’t believe it. “How could you?” “Why didn’t we defend the account?” “Don’t you believe in us?” But I’d been there before.

Afterward, the client told me (off the record, of course) that they had no intention of retaining us and only invited our participation “out of courtesy.” (More on that another day.)

Because we didn’t spend our time and resources chasing a lost cause, we were able to put energy into serving our other accounts and reinventing ourselves. And in spite of the temporary setback, we came out of the deal a better, stronger, more focused company. The same thing has happened to a couple of our clients – they lost distribution in the largest home center chain, and instead of wasting efforts trying to get back in, they strengthened their brand and their relationships with remaining customers – and a few years later, that big box retailer asked them to come back.

The bigger marketing lesson here is what do you do if your traditional customer base goes away? Do you pour efforts into trying to retain your old customers? Or do you step back, evaluate the situation, and consider repositioning your brand and going after a whole new market? There’s no one right answer for every situation, but it’s a darn good question to ask. And an important one to ask while you have time to contemplate your response.

My mentor, the late Jay Schulberg, once dropped this truth bomb on me: “It’s an oxymoron to focus on more than one thing at a time.” His point was when you needed to make something great, you need to put all of your efforts toward it without distraction. If you’re going to fight to defend the business, be prepared to accept the consequences of going all in. Or don’t do it at all.

It’s like anything in life. You have to balance aspirations with reality. As Kenny Rogers famously sang, “You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.”

(By the way, my friend’s agency lost the account. Most times, you do.)