The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 329: How to Set Boundaries with Clients
Today, I am diving into my experience with lack of boundaries in the past, how boundaries actually serve both you and your client, how to set expectations with clients early on, the importance of holding true to those expectations and so much more.
HOW TO SET BOUNDARIES WITH CLIENTS
BY: MELISSA LIN
Welcome back to another episode of the Fierce Business Babe Podcast. Today's topic is one that I was actually chatting with a few clients about on a coaching call earlier this week and felt that it was definitely something to share about here on the podcast because it is such an important piece in business. I haven't dived into it specifically for an entire podcast episode, I’ve had snippets here and there about this topic and I really wanted to dive deep into it with you. When I first started my business, and honestly even to the first year or two, I didn't always have the best boundaries. I definitely didn't always hold true to them or even really have any business boundaries back then. I am probably one of the biggest recovering people-pleasers you will ever meet and it’s taken me time to get to where I am today. So if I can help you skip some of those speed bumps in creating boundaries between you and your clients, and even create boundaries between you and your audience on social media, that would be such an amazing take away from today's episode. So I've definitely talked about how to create boundaries within your business and how to really separate your business and your personal life, but this is the first podcast episode where I'm really diving into client boundaries, so boundaries between you and your clients. I am so, so excited about this because you really get to create boundaries, right? They truly serve both you and your clients and I cannot wait to share some examples with you today and it just more on why they're so important to have. So today we're going to be getting all into my experience with lack of boundaries in the past, how boundaries actually serve both you and your client, how to set expectations with clients early on, the importance of holding true to those expectations and so much more. We're also definitely going to get into some examples of what some client boundaries can look like.
MY EXPERIENCE WITH LACK OF BOUNDARIES
So I first want to get into my experience with lack of boundaries in the past. When I say things lack of boundaries, I truly mean I had a such a lack of boundaries in the past. First, I really want to set the scene and share with you what my boundaries, or more so lack of boundaries, looked like when I first started my business back in 2014. So I was a business owner back then, I mean I still am today, and back then I had nearly zero boundaries or I may have had a few, but I didn’t really didn't stick to them well. So for example, I didn't have a cancellation policy with calls. If someone needed to cancel a call I would allow it, no matter how many calls those were. I had notifications on all day long for social media and for client feedback. I did not stick to my business hours. I would get back to clients on weekends, which was breaking my initial expectations that I originally set with clients and so on and so on. So for example, and maybe this is something that you're doing right now, something I would do was when a client would reach out with a question I would instantly be notified on my Apple watch or my phone and I would get back as quickly as I could, like, hello, people pleaser. I would open it the instant the notification came in and get back to clients right away. And so what happens when we break those boundaries we originally set? Well, I'm going to dive into that a little further into the episode, but quick, quick insight on it is we're teaching our clients that this is the new norm in that getting back to them in Voxer or in the Facebook group or in slack or whatever client communication portal you're using. When we're getting back to them quickly, or when we're allowing multiple accounts, Elations or allowing multiple reschedules with little to no notice and so on, if we don't hold true to our expectations, you're not holding true to your end of the deal, so how can you ask your client to hold true to their end of the deal through to the end of their contract? Once I realized my lack of boundaries in 2014 wasn't serving me and that it was causing me to burn out and feel really overworked and that I wasn't serving my clients, I knew something needed to change. This was actually my first big, big, big moment of burnout as an entrepreneur. I learned a lot in those months as I started to bring stricter boundaries into my business and into my personal life as well. And so boundaries do truly serve both you and your client, and that's what I really want to get into next as we continue into this episode.
BOUNDARIES BENEFIT BOTH YOU AND THE CLIENT
My job as a coach, and if you're a coach you can probably relate to this, is I can help you find clarity, I can help you find focus, right? I can give you the know-how, the steps on what to do, the feedback you may be looking for. I can provide you support when things do get rough, support when things are amazing. I can help you connect with other like-minded entrepreneurs, teach you the business concept so that you can focus on your core skills. My job as a coach is not to do the work for you. My job as a couch is not to make decisions inside of your business for you. I'm here to empower you to take action, not here for you to rely on 24/7. So I want to give you an example and share how holding those boundaries can really serve your clients. So, for example, I had a client that messaged me a question and it was outside of my business hours, so I hadn't gotten back to my client yet, totally fine. I'm holding true to my boundaries by not getting into client portal when it's not business hours. And before I was able to get back into the portal my client was able to answer her own question and she was like, “Nevermind, I got it figured out. You're amazing. So excited to take action on this next step,” and my client was able to answer your own question because deep down she already knew the answer and how to take action. So me not getting back to her instantly allowed her to take that next step and not necessarily rely on me, which is amazing. And so holding boundaries serves both you and your client and when I hold true to my boundaries in my business with my clients, I'm also showing my clients it's okay and it's safe for them to also hold boundaries in their businesses and for their clients as well. Boundaries are amazing and boundaries are there to help protect your energy and also protect your clients as well. They serve both you and your client 100%. Boundaries are such an amazing, amazing thing that you can put into place in your business and I'm going to share some examples in just a minute on what some of these boundaries can look like. Now maybe you do have some boundaries in your business, amazing, but maybe they're not always followed through on. Maybe clients don't always follow them and you don't want to be the one to say, “hey, that's not the boundaries, that's not where we responded to client questions, can you please go and reach out to support to help you with this?” We get to really set the expectations and be very, very clear on these boundaries and how to go about some of these things. So that's what I really want to chat about next with you– how to actually set those boundaries and how to set those expectations.
HOW TO SET BOUNDARIES
So, so far I've gone into my story about how I had such a lack of boundaries when I first started my business in 2014 and how it really caused me to burn out, and I’ve also shared how boundaries truly serve both you and your clients. So now I want to get into expectations and how to set them and really hold true to those expectations. So, how can we set these expectations? Well, first, I always recommend that you make sure they're actually laid out visibly somewhere so that your clients can refer back to them. They're not going to memorize your boundaries the very first day you guys start working together on your onboarding call or on your onboarding email, and that's totally okay, so you want to make sure you put them somewhere they can always go back to refer to. Here are a few ways that we do this in our programs and with our clients. So our client and coach expectations are laid out in our client contracts, always, they are also laid out inside of our program portals, whether that's an orientation module, or an orientation call and we have those recordings available for clients to always go back to. And we also have expectations inside client welcome emails. So always always set them as early as you can, so usually in the onboarding process, and you may need to repeat them a few times because, again as I mentioned, your client is not always going to memorize your boundaries even if there is a list of them. However, anytime a boundary is broken, you can simply remind them, “Hey, this is not the correct channel, please reach out to support to get help with this for technical assistance.” I'm going to get into that a little further in just a few minutes and share an example on how we do this and how this does happen, and it's okay. You can always just remind your clients what those expectations are because, again, it’s serving your clients too.
EXAMPLES OF BOUNDARIES AND EXPECTATIONS
So what are some examples of these expectations, these boundaries, what do they look like? A few of ours in our programs with our clients are no cancellations, if we have one-on-one coaching calls there's no cancellation with less than 24 hours notice. Your time is extremely valuable and our time is also extremely valuable, so no rescheduled calls in less than a 24-hour period. We also add an expectation of client feedback on materials. If it's feedback that a client looking for on a sales page, which yes we do provide feedback for our clients in our masterminds and our higher-level programs on their sales pages, and their copy, and, you know, program outlines, and different things like that, email sequences, funnels, all of the fun exciting things. We let our clients know that we need 48 hours for some of these larger items to provide feedback. Our business hours, huge, huge, huge boundary, we add that in everywhere. How often we’re inside the client portal to support. So I personally am not inside of our client portal 24/7. I hop in there multiple times throughout the day and support our clients and our clients know this. Our clients know when coaching calls are, they know what we expect of the client as well, right? Come to the coaching calls with your questions with what we can support you with, show up, lean into the container; those are some of the expectations we have for our clients, just as we lay out what they can expect of us as their coaches. And so those are a few examples around what our expectations, our boundaries, look like. That’s just a few, we've got so many more, but those are a few to give you some ideas. So if you maybe don't have a cancellation policy, I definitely recommend to add one into your client contract so your clients know what that expectation is. That way calls aren't being cancelled 12 hours before or two hours before. Same with reschedules, same with number of coaching calls that your clients are given. So let's say that you are supporting clients through a 12-week program and if they get six one-on-one calls with you or three one-on-one calls with you, they get to use them within a certain time, not once the program's over or in the last month. Are they allowed to batch them all together? We don't allow that because that would be a six hour call for somebody and that's just not fair to coaches and it’s also not fair to everybody's schedule. And so really think about what are the boundaries that you want to set in your business? What would feel good to you? Your boundaries definitely do not need to look anything like my boundaries, but I wanted to share some examples with you. Keep in mind these are the boundaries that are going to help protect your energy and also serve both you and your client. So again, just a few, I cannot wait to see you put some in place.
HOLDING TRUE TO YOUR EXPECTATIONS
I really want to share just the importance of holding true to those expectations. If someone reaches out to you on social media and wants to maybe change their card payment I know how easy it can be to just stop what you're doing and take two minutes to go do it yourself, but that's not you holding true to your expectation or to your boundary if you initially said in your onboarding email that all technical assistance goes through your support team, right? We really want to hold true to your expectations, to those boundaries you originally sent and be firm with them. Just as you teach your audience on social media how to treat you, you also teach your clients how to treat you. So, for example, if your business hours are 8 to 5 Monday through Friday, however you start responding to clients in your client portal or over on your side channel 7 days a week, or in your inbox including Saturdays and Sundays, you're not being firm with your boundaries. You are not being firm with those initial expectations that you set in place. So what does this mean? Your clients will now start to expect you to be in that portal on the weekends because you're teaching them that this is the new norm by breaking your own boundaries. So as I mentioned earlier in this podcast episode, your boundaries serve both you and your clients. Now, if you were going back to your clients within minutes of them reaching out to you every single time, what you may start to see is the new expectation form from the client side, and this does not necessarily serve your client. It's teaching your client, or it can teach your clients, to come to you for every little thing instead of figuring some things out on their own and empowering them to figure some of these things out as well. It’s teaching your clients to depend on you as a coach or as a business owner or as a consultant, which does not necessarily serve your clients, which is why I highly recommend adding in some kind of boundary into your business about how often you check in with your clients or check your emails or texts; About your business hours, expectations for how long it'll take for feedback to be able to return to your client, and so on.
Have boundaries. Set those expectations and then actually follow through with them. If we tell a client we're going to send them feedback on an item within 48 hours or by a certain date we're going to do it. Why? Well, we get to practice what we preach. If you want your clients to respect your boundaries and respect your deadlines you also get to hold true to yours with them as well. Be reliable, stick to your boundaries. For example, we rarely have clients reschedule or cancel calls, right? They stick to boundaries, we all do, both parties. It's very rare for me to have to reschedule or move a call around because I stick to those boundaries. Now, if you're wondering how you can stick to some of these boundaries or if there is anything out there that can help you be a little better with this, using systems can really support boundaries in your business. I want to share one or two quick ones that you can start to implement pretty quickly if you don't have them yet. So for example, using an online scheduling system such as Calendly or Acuity, your clients are provided with your schedule. They can also see what the cancellation policy is, same with rescheduling policies. Your clients won't need to jump through a million hoops or reach out to you on Instagram to try and book one of their client sessions with you. They can do all of this much easier and quicker with a scheduling system. You can have those boundaries placed within that system. It can actually allow or not allow in the system those cancellations or reschedules and so be very clear with your clients and stick to your expectations. Another great example is where client communication occurs or where technical support happens. So when a client enrolls into one of our programs, all client communication happens in a separate members-only portal for a few reasons. So my team and I, we spend more of our time inside the portal supporting our clients than we do social media, so I'm able to get back to clients much quicker on the same day. Whereas over on social media it may not be the same day or even the next day because our social media is flooded with people reaching out, so we have a separate private members-only portal for those questions and support our clients because we're in there multiple times throughout the day. Then as part of our onboarding and orientation process, we set expectations around preferred channels of communication, and this is something I highly recommend. This is a huge boundary that you can add into your business. If a client has a question about program material, or looking for feedback on their items that they are completing in our programs, as I mentioned earlier, this does not happen on social media, we get back to our client portal much quicker. And we also don't want to miss any client questions, which is why it's all in a client portal and not on social media because things can get missed on social media, especially with lots of people reaching out. If clients do reach out to us on social media we actually have an autoresponder that lets them know the correct channel for business communication. So again, that's just simply reminding our clients what those expectations are, and this is definitely something you can do inside of your business and I highly recommend it. Be very clear on where communication happens, what is happening in that communication portal, and so on. Maybe they get to ask you over in the communication portal or maybe this is something that gets sent to your support team. So for us, if a client wants to change their card, maybe their card expired, they get to reach out to our support team via the support email and they can help them and get that changed very quickly versus on social media, we don't take care of that there. Today we have touched on so much around boundaries and expectations, the importance of them, examples of when I wasn't so great at it when I first started and how you can start to skip some of those steps of not having boundaries as I did back in 2014, and how we can start to have some boundaries in your business and how to stick to them and hold true to them. Just know that having those boundaries in place is going to really protect your energy and serve both you and your client. So we have touched on, again, my experience with lack of boundaries in the past, how boundaries truly serve both you and your client, how you can start to set those expectations of clients early on, some examples of those boundaries that we have in our business, the importance of holding true to those expectations, and so, so much more. You know we're already getting excited and ready for next week. I cannot wait to share it with you. We have so many exciting episodes coming out over the next few months. We have all of the topics mapped out. A lot of them are topics that you let us know you wanted to learn more about over on Instagram and I’m so excited to be diving into more and more of those. We'll have another brand new episode of The Fierce Business Babe Podcast bright and early next Monday morning for you!
Topics we cover include:
My experience with boundaries
Setting boundaries in your business
How boundaries can benefit you and the client
Examples of boundaries
And so much more!