Do you know what boundaries are and what you are supposed to do with a boundary?
we cannot allow people-pleasing tendencies to burn us out. We can’t say yes when we really need to say no. For every “yes” you say, there is a trade off...always. Sure, we do want to make our clients happy. We do sometimes sacrifice our boundaries to make them happy. This is not about the occasional emergencies. We just do not want to allow them to become the norms of our relationship.
energy.
Honoring Appointments
Their clients either
- cancel on them
- are no-shows
- last minute
if you don’t give us a heads up.”
.
It has to fit in with my calendar—not with their calendar.
our lost time and energy.
nip it in the bud.
cellations, the reschedules, the no shows.
not a fit. I’m sorry to see you go. Not really, because this was a pain for me. But when I say these are the appointments I’m serious. You have to show up the days that we agreed upon.” So I think that’s really one of those client things that we all struggle with. But if you set the expectations and you reinforce it immediately the first time it shows as being a problem, you won’t be struggling with it so much.
Scope Creep
They just want to make their clients happy and say, “yes”. Unfortunately, they keep saying yes to too many things. Suddenly when I look at everything they have now created or delivered to that client, I find myself saying, “You have undercharged this client so much. Your hourly rate for what you have created for them is pennies.” This is a huge problem, especially for female entrepreneurs because we want to be people pleasers. They hire us to do one thing and then suddenly they are asking for something more:
- “Well, I hired you to build this website, but could you also make some social media graphics?
- Cause you also design a sales page?
- Could you also format this blog and create a newsletter template?”
undercharging.
clear expectations. Really lay out every single thing you are delivering to them.
deliverables.” And we realized she had just completely undersold what the value of this offer was.
997 because it was something unlike any other experience. It wasn’t just an hour picking her brain. It was an intensive where you walk away with a custom pitch, signature talk topics, a speaker bio, and a lot of resources to help you get a head start on pitching yourself and getting more visibility.
an “add on” here.
They cannot get it more, more, and more for free, right? They have to pay you each time you say yes to another thing.
So we are ready to wrap up our three-part series on boundaries. We have covered a lot of ground.
are going to. People always push against boundaries. It does not mean the boundary isn’t working. It just means you need to now reinforce the boundary until they understand what is okay and what is not okay when it comes to doing business with you.
