A good business boundary will teach your clients how to treat you and communicate with you. If you’re not setting these boundaries, you’re not protecting your time, your peace, or your personal life. In today’s episode, I’m sharing why boundaries are important, how to set them with your clients, and what types of boundaries you should be setting.
Called to Both is brought to you by Joy Michelle, mom of two and multi-passionate entrepreneur who’s on a mission to help others find balance between the worlds of motherhood and business. Called to Both is the podcast for women who have big business ambitions and also want to be intentional and present moms. At Called to Both, we truly don’t believe you have to choose between these two worlds tugging at your heart You can be Called to Both.
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Boundaries You Need In Your Business
A lot of what makes up boundaries in your business is going to be knowing where you stand. Whether you’ve run into situations you didn’t like, you want to make new rules for your clients based on life changes, or you’re just looking to protect your peace, we’re walking through how to build boundaries, communicate them, and maintain them in your business.
Set Your Work Hours
As basic as this sounds, it’s important to set your work hours, expected office hours, or estimated response times. Communicating this to your clients will help them understand when they can reach out to you and when they can expect a response.
Choose Your Preferred Communication Method
When your clients do need to reach out to you, it’s important that you’ve communicated how you like to connect. By selecting a preferred communication method, you’re setting the expectation with them on what works best for you as a business owner. This communication method could be a client portal, email, or CRM.
Before you accept texting and phone calls as your preferred communication method, consider if you want your clients to have your phone number or be able to access you outside off your working hours. You can use a Google Voice number to create a business number to help instill those boundaries around communication hours.
Set Expectations for the Experience
Once you’ve built the boundaries around your working hours and communication preferences, setting the expectations for the experience gives your clients guidance on how the process will go. While you may have a lot of back and forth in your client workflow, giving expectations to your client can help eliminate questions that come up on their end.
Depending on your business, you need to set up how the client journey will go to better set these expectations.
Communicating Your Boundaries
Now that you’ve set your boundaries, how are you communicating them with your clients or even potential clients? You should consider placing things like response times and office hours in the following places:
- Your email footer
- Your contact page (right next to the inquiry form)
- In your initial client response itself
- Your out-of-office responders
- Your Google Business listing or Facebook business page
- In your client welcome guide
A great way to communicate this in a way that benefits them is to say things like, “to get the fastest response, you can direct any questions to email address X.” Although, in communicating this, you need to remember that people get the tone of your business off of you and what you actually do. If you say to email you, but are quick to respond to texts, they will continue to text you.
I encourage you to set boundaries in your business, communicate them with you clients, and maintain them by following them every single day!
I hope you enjoyed today’s episode! If you’re enjoying the content we’re creating on the podcast, want to connect with others who are called to both, or even just request a topic on the podcast, make sure you come join us in the Called to Both Facebook Group!
Mentioned in this Episode:
Create a business number with Google Voice
Use Notion for client communication
Episode 20: Overcoming Business Burnout
Connect with Joy:
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Facebook: facebook.com/joymichellephotography
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