Setting client boundaries in your creative business
As a creative business coach two common struggles my 1-2-1 coaching clients seem to have are setting boundaries for their clients (and themselves!) and having a schedule for the working week helps them stick to this, get more done, with less stress.
Since the pandemic a lot of us have been juggling a lot more in routines that are unfamiliar to us – including working from home which has created blurred lines between home and work life. This has led to stress and doing things in haste or without focus which can lead to errors and more stress.
Whether it’s the pressure of rescheduling or cancelling events, working second jobs, working from home rather than in your studio or office, or simply trying to find new avenues for your business that manage the uncertainty of Covid restrictions, all of us have been affected in some way and had to try and develop new routines and structures.
Managing your time
All too often it is ourselves that get left at the bottom of the pile, with everyone and everything else prioritised. But there are some simple things you can do to get back control. Writing down all the times when you can work uninterrupted can be a useful exercise – this will be different for everyone.
For me it’s between the school runs and dog walks on weekdays. I rarely work evenings or weekends to protect family time as much as possible since I work full time in my business. For those of you that work a ‘day job’ this may be trickier to navigate, and you will have to play a balancing act between the level of work you need to do to maintain your business and the time you need to spend on other things.
Next write down all the times you can work but may be interrupted or multi-tasking (ie for me it’s when I get back from the school run in the afternoon). I tend to do tasks that don’t require so much concentration during this period so that I can be on hand if my daughter needs help with homework for instance.
Everything that MUST get done or needs extra thinking time, like working on strategies for my coaching clients, or photographing sessions I fit into the times when I know I can work uninterrupted. The other things on my ‘to do’ list I are done in the periods when I know may have to stop and start a task, eg social media, printing and filing invoices etc.
Once you start to break it down into priorities of what you need to get done each week, you can start to set aside the time to do it in.
Remember to block out that creative time and protect it too – one of the reasons you started your business in the first place! Try to cover everything you do then apply it to your weekly schedule – you might want to include a general admin hour once a week for those little tasks that mount up like accounts, filing etc.
Managing clients and setting boundaries
Once you have the schedule in place you can then start to block out days or times when clients can expect to hear from you. It’s really important to set clear boundaries and expectations for clients, especially when we have mobile phones with all our apps on and/or you work from home - the separation between home and work life is that much more difficult to maintain.
Ways to help you set boundaries:
1. Set an auto responding email on with your contact times and expected response times. You do not have to reply immediately to every email or DM. Take time to prioritise.
2. Make your working hours clear on your website, particularly on your contact page.
3. Consider turning on auto replies for Instagram and Facebook outside of these contact times reiterating when they can expect a response, especially if you find it hard to stop yourself replying out of hours.
On Facebook: To automatically set your Page's messaging status to away outside of business hours, first you need to create the messages you want for your Page.
To schedule Away Messages, FAQs or Instant Replies:
1. On your desktop, from your News Feed, click Pages in the left menu.
2. Go to your Page.
3. Click Inbox at the top left of your Page.
4. Click Automated Responses on the top right.
5. Add in your desired details and click Save.
Note: Away messages aren't included in your Page's response rate or response time.
Instagram: It’s slightly different on Instagram, but it may help to set up your saved replies and FAQs - eg with a simple message reiterating your working hours and response times, as well as your FAQs. Go to Settings > Business > Save Reply or FAQs.
It may also be a big help to turn off your activity status when you don’t want to be contacted by people on Instagram - head to Settings > Privacy > Activity Status – toggle off. If people can’t see whether you’re online or not they are more likely to give you space and time to reply.
Whatsapp: In the Whatsapp Business app you can head to the Business tools settings and set your away message and choose who it sends to and when.
Or like me just delete it altogether! Joking aside, I know it can be a valuable business tool when working with multiple team members or client groups, but I found it a very stressful app with little or no escape and my mental health has been much better since deleting it.
With all these apps it can be good to take a break now and again, and either turn off notifications or temporarily delete them to give yourself that space.
Respect and Value Your Own Time
Respecting and valuing your own time is really important. Communicating clearly to your clients what is acceptable and what is not is vital (and right from the start of the relationship too – it’s much harder to move the goalposts further along in the client journey) – and this will be different for everyone.
I make a real effort to compartmentalise my work time versus home time (I’m not perfect, but I’m a lot better than I was!). Does this mean I have lost some client work – yes, I expect it does, but I don’t want to go back to 6 years ago where I felt I had no control and no private time – I was always accessible to my clients and it wasn’t sustainable.
The power of no is important – say it and mean it – if someone asks to talk during family time or down time, kindly say no, offer them alternatives and stick to it. Don’t be swayed into relaxing your boundaries through fear of losing business. As creatives we often think it’s part of the client experience to be always available to offer great customer service – but this shouldn’t come at the expense of your well-being, and is certainly not mutually exclusive to a great customer relationship.
In fact, the more you respect your time, the more others do too, and those that don’t? Well, then they’re not the clients you want now or in the future!
What have you done lately to make it easier to maintain your work/life balance? If you need help do reach out and let’s find you a better way of working. Book a call below.
