Katie McManus defends her strict no-show policy for discovery calls, sending confirmation plus three reminders to weed out disrespectful prospects. She argues that enforcing boundaries attracts clients who respect time, especially important for her ADHD coaching work.
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My favorite thing that I do in my business after working for years in sales for different corporations is that I have a no tolerance, no show policy. Let me explain. When I worked in sales for all these different companies, if someone no showed an appointment with you, a sales call, you had to seek them out, you had to chase them down, you had to get them to rebook, you had to try to get like another appointment on their calendar because they were what was considered by your boss a hot lead. They were interested in your thing. But the problem with people who are fine, no showing you once, they are fine, no showing you twice, and thrice and whatever the fourth one is with the ice kind of thing anyway, and after they no show you a gazillion times, if you do manage to get them on the phone ever after blocking off a ton of time on your calendar that you could have been using for other people or for other kinds of work, is they have like this, this much probability of ever buying anything from you. And since I have started coaching and running my own business, these are also the people who, when they do sign up with you, become the biggest pain in the butt clients. Because they, like, are victims of their own life. They are victims of their own life. They don't know how to manage anything. So you end up being, ipso facto, their virtual assistant as well as their coach. I'm not interested in that. And today I got no showed by one of these people and she really wanted to reschedule and I told her no. I have a policy against it. I mean, I'm a business coach who works specifically with people with ADHD who are notorious for not showing up to appointments, okay? For being late for appointments. And if my clients, my clients, my amazing, beautiful, magical, brilliant clients who struggle with like, time blindness and remembering appointments is all that stuff, if they can manage to not only be on time for our call, but to sit there patiently for 10 minutes staring at their computer, wondering where the zoom link is until they realize it's a phone call. If they can show up to an appointment with me. I'm sorry, there's no excuse for other people to not show up to that appointment. It's just plain disrespectful. And over the years, I've actually realized that it is a great litmus test to see if this, this potential client is actually client worthy. So when someone's curious about working with me and they book a generate income strategy call, which is my sales call, they have to answer a bunch of intake questions. And there's very Clear instructions at the end when they've booked the appointment. And it's like, here, you've booked the appointment, it says you have to save this to your calendar. Not only that, there's a confirmation, a confirmation email that goes out that says you have to save this to your calendar. There are three. Three gets really annoying. Three reminder emails. Because my people have ADHD and they forget shit all the time. I make this super ADHD proof because I'm one of you guys. I understand. Three emails that go out 24 hours, 12 hours and one hour before the appointment time. If you're telling me that all of that is not enough for you to remember that you booked a call on my calendar blocking off a half hour of my time for no cost, if you're telling me that's not enough to get you to remember that you wanted my help, I'm sorry, you cannot have it. And to all you business owners out there who are struggling to get clients and you feel like, oh my God, Volt, they were interested. I should chase them down. I should chase them down. I should chase them down. I want you to remember that the universal energies at play here are paying attention. I know it sounds super woo, okay, but it's true. Isn't that right? Sorry. If you signal to the universe that you are down to chase and chase and chase and chase and chase, and you keep chasing these people who waste your time, who are disrespectful, guess who you're going to get more of? You're just going to get more of that type of person. And we all know the one resource that we're never going to get more of. Time. If this person is willing to waste your time once, they're gonna do it again. And they're gonna do it again, and they're gonna do it again. And if you keep accepting that, if you keep letting them doing that without setting a boundary, you're gonna be a victim of your own life, just like them. It's a vicious circle. And of course, like, you're afraid that this isn't going to take off. You're worried that you're not gonna be able to attract clients. And if you're struggling with that, book a call with me. You better show up for it, though. O with me, we'll talk through how you can attract clients. But when you start really focusing on those people who will come to you and be consistent and will respect your time, and you start setting that boundary so that the people who waste your time are no longer allowed to use up your time to take up your energy. The universe pays attention. That's who you start attracting. That's who starts coming into your life. And that's when things get really magical in your business.
