One of our clients, a solo consultant, lost a retainer that made up forty percent of her income. Her first instinct was to discount everything to fill the gap quickly.
We worked on separating the facts from the story. The fact was a cash-flow gap of three months. The story was that her business was failing. Once the two were apart, she could plan for the gap instead of reacting to the story.
She kept her prices, reached out to five past clients and filled most of the gap within ten weeks. The lesson she took away was to never let one client exceed a quarter of revenue again.