Keeping selected customers after leaving the main business

Write what work you want to accept and what you will no longer provide. Include the expected response, practical facilities and any follow-up. Ask the appropriate advisers about contractual restrictions, ownership of relationships, insurance and the structure of the proposed activity.

Do not assume that a customer the owner knows personally is automatically available for a separate venture. The actual agreements and circumstances matter.

Keeping consultancy after closure may be a clearer model if the intended work is advice rather than manufacture. State the distinction in language a customer will understand.

Follow one retained job from enquiry to completion. Which records, software, premises and equipment does it use? Who helps when the owner is away? What happens if the customer asks for something outside the proposed scope?

A fictional owner plans to keep occasional design advice for two clients but discovers that both expect sample production. The owner must decide whether to narrow the promise, investigate a different arrangement with advice or reconsider retaining that work.

The point is to expose the dependency before equipment is reserved or a successor is told the entire capability will transfer.

The successor equipment requirement can reveal conflicts where both operations assume use of the same asset. Resolve those through the proper decision and advice process, not through informal priority on the workshop floor.

A retained customer may refer someone else or request a larger job. Decide how you will assess that request without allowing the reduced activity to grow by accident.

The final small-order example shows how modest work can carry disproportionate operating commitments. Use the same habit of tracing consequences, while recognising that continuing work needs its own business arrangements.

Keep a review point for the retained activity. Compare actual owner time and dependencies with the retirement objective. If the work repeatedly requires the old operation, the scope needs another decision.

Tell UK Auction Group which assets are excluded because of an agreed continuing use and which remain under consideration. The disposal brief should reflect a deliberate business boundary, not a general wish to keep enough equipment for whatever a familiar customer might ask next.

Explore succession and owner exit.