Boundaries In Business | How to Set Expectations & Protect Your Energy from Costly Mistakes | GROW

What's up everybody? Val Nichols here, and we are live today to bring you an amazing, incredible business training. If you are ready to grow and scale your business, we do have a free business training series this month, so go over and sign up. We are doing a free business training Today we're going to be doing boundaries in business, how to set expectations, protect your energy from costly mistakes. And then we're going to continue on with billing and invoicing for entrepreneurs, how to easily onboard clients and how to track your leads like a pro. So if you are interested in doing that, please do go over to my website, valnickels.com/grow, and you will see the signup link. We are going to be doing a ton of free business trainings right here. So definitely stay in the know. If you guys are brand new to this community, hello, hello. I know a lot of you guys have come in to specifically hear this training, which I am so incredibly excited about. And if you guys are here, I'm going to pull you up so I can see your comments as well. But if you are here, say hello and let me know in the comments, what do boundaries in business mean to you. If you do know anyone who needs to hear this training, please do invite them into this group so that they can get all the information, all the juicy details that we are talking about. My name is Val Nichols. If you guys are brand new here, I am so excited to say welcome to this community, welcome to this world. This is a world where we are— there's so much possibility. You learn to do what you love And to actually enjoy your business. So if you're in a space, maybe this is you, let me know in the comments if this is you, without the business boundaries, what can happen is we can get in a space where all of a sudden we are working too much. Maybe we're doing things for clients that they should be doing for themselves. Have you guys ever been guilty of that? I sure Know that I have. So if you are in that space, um, what can happen is without boundaries in your business, you can end up working endless hours. Maybe you do not have boundaries around when you work, what kind of work you do, the expectations of when clients can get ahold of you or how you prefer to do that. Whatever it is for you, just know that you're going to learn that in this training. And just know that this is an interactive live, so if you have any questions, comments during it, please do comment below and I will get to all of your beautiful, incredible questions and any comments you have as well. So if you're here, celebrate loud, because if you're at a place where you feel the stretch, maybe you feel the growth, or maybe You're in a spot where you feel stuck. Perhaps it's because you're afraid of the failure. Maybe you're afraid of success. And with success, it can be like, well, what if I get so many clients that I can't handle it? Or what if I don't trust myself to keep the boundary, to set the expectation? So that's exactly why we're here. And I am just So passionate about this subject because of the fact that when we don't have boundaries, what happens is we end up being in burnout. We end up wanting to burn our business down and start over, or just completely quit. Maybe go get a corporate job, do whatever. Like there's a lot of ways it shows up for us when we are not in integrity with our business boundaries. What ends up happening? Is there's an expectation that you do more for the client and you do it once. And then next thing you know, there's an expectation and then there's resentment because you're doing way more for your client than you should be doing, right? This is like a service-based, if this is a customer, whatever that is. So understanding boundaries, why it's so important is because for one, you have got to protect yourself as the CEO, as an entrepreneur. You've got to protect your energy and your space because what can end up happening— and I've seen this with a ton of people, I've been able to coach a whole bunch of amazing entrepreneurs in my 6 years I've been doing this business coaching— and you know what happens is when we don't have boundaries, it can really like leak into our personal lives, right? And what we're going for is like this work-life balance. What we're striving for is to do what we love, to know our limitations, and also to protect ourselves and our energy from those energy sucks that may be out there. And I did a post about that over on my Instagram. You guys want to check that out later, go check that out, because there's a lot of different ways that people, things, limitations, you know, urgencies are sucking our energy. And it's something that I say a lot to my clients is that other people's urgency is not your emergency. So number one, in creating boundaries, we get to remember that other people's urgency is not our emergency. What I mean by that is we're entrepreneurs, we wear many hats and all the things that pop up, you know, like the urgent things come up. Maybe there's a client who has, A situation where maybe they have procrastinated, right? And now all of a sudden, they're like, hey, I need this from you right now, right here, right now. It's because if we're spending all of our time reacting, right, the email comes in, the phone call comes in, the text message comes in, and we're constantly reacting. What ends up happening is we might be sitting at our laptop for 7 hours a day. 8 hours a day, 10 hours a day doing a lot, but not actually getting anything done. Do you guys resonate with that? We end up spending hours doing, but not actually moving the needle forward. And you guys believe me, I have been there. You are in good company where I look at my day and I'm like, I don't even know what I got done. Like, I have zero, nothing to show for it because I've been spinning my wheels, reacting, responding, doing all these things, you know, trying to prove my worth by being on top of it and doing the things and reacting to all the things. And like, we end up getting nothing done. When we create boundaries in our business, we're protecting ourselves, we're protecting our empire that we're building. And we also then get to prioritize our self-care. And for those of you out there, if you are a business owner, an entrepreneur, you are the key employee. You are the entrepreneur, you are the CEO. And so preserving your energy must be a top priority. It must. There is like no other way because think about this. A lot of times, you know, if you don't have a staff or a team or anything like that yet, you know, you are the one, you are the one that is doing all the things, right? You're wearing many hats. You're making the decisions. You are with your clients one-on-one. You're the one doing the things. And so if something happens for you, then that's going to be a very costly issue. If you get in burnout, if you are not feeling well, if running yourself till you're stressed out, if you just want to like burn your business down, if you want to give up, if you want to go get a job, like that is when we really need to have boundaries. And so in the context of entrepreneurship, when we talk about boundaries, in my experience and with the hundreds of entrepreneurs I've gotten to work with, big companies, brands, CEOs. I used to do executive coaching, like all across the board. Boundaries are essential. Not to be unkind, it's actually really kind to set boundaries upfront and have clear communication and expectations with your clients. And so for those of you who have, um, if you have like discovery calls or if you have like, you know, new client intakes, Which if you wanna know how to onboard your clients easily, go to my website, valnickels.com/grow, and join in on that one as well. Cuz I'm gonna teach you guys exactly how to do it to nail this topic as well. When you set your boundaries, you wanna be upfront and clear, whether if this is in the onboarding process, maybe it's in a sales call, but you want to set your boundaries with your clients. In clear, effective ways. If you guys are on a discovery call or a sales call or onboarding call, it's actually really kind to have that clear upfront communication because, you know, a lot of times if people don't know, we have not taught them. So if people don't know, we have not taught them. And so if you have a preferred way of communication, whether if that is having your clients reach out to you on email, And someone texts you and you say, hey, I'm going to jump over to email and I'm going to answer this question on email. And that redirects people, right? But in the discovery call, in your onboarding, you can be really clear about this. Like, hey, just so you know, I have open office hours on Thursday from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM. Feel free to jump in there with any of your questions you may have. Otherwise, send me an email or get a hold of me on Voxer. And you want to be really clear on what is the expectation of when you get back to them, right? Because if you are constantly just respond, respond, respond, respond, respond, and texting people back in like 5 minutes, they're going to get used to that. And then the one time you don't, it's going to upset someone, right? So if you say, hey, I'm going to do my best to respond to you as soon as I can. And just know your email is very important to me. However, I check my emails at 9:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 5:00 PM. So if you don't hear back from me in one of those timeframes, just know it'll be within the next 24 hours. Make sure you're setting those clear expectations because What happens, and I've seen this happen more times than I can even tell you guys, is that next thing you know, your phone is blowing up. You have the people messaging you on social media, and you have the messages in your text, you have the phone calls coming in, you have the emails, and you get so overwhelmed, and you end up spending so much time putting out fires and responding to things that could have just been an email or could have been addressed in your next conversation that you end up— the whole day goes by and your capacity to be able to serve your clients actually diminishes. So, you know, setting a clear expectation, setting those boundaries up front and clearly communicating them with your clients is not only going to help you to maintain your professionalism, it's actually going to help you to protect Your work hours, your communication policies. What happens if there is a boundary violation? What happens if someone does overstep? If you don't say these things up front, then what might happen is you end up, you know, letting it go once, and then next thing you know, they want a second one and a third one and a fourth one, and they'll be like, well, you let me do this before, so why can't I do it now? And what can happen is You know, later down the line, next thing you know, this client is not showing up for their appointments or they're canceling last minute. And if you do a lot of prep going into your client calls or, you know, whatever client or customer you have and they keep canceling, you want to make sure you have a clear policy, expectation, and boundary around, hey, you know, if you need to cancel, please give me 24-hour notice. This is what I say in my contracts. I say give me 24-hour notice. I understand things come up. Do I make exceptions? Abso-frickin-lutely. However, I maintain those boundaries and keep that clear communication open. Do you guys have policies, contracts? This will not only help you to maintain your professional boundaries, but it's going to be able to give you something that you can refer the client back to that and say, hey, so we agreed on this. We agreed on, you know, this certain time, this is when we meet, that you agreed to the expectation that you would give me 24 hours notice. Like, how can we work on this? That's the thing with boundaries. Hear the other person, remind them of that policy, remind them of the agreement. And then, you know, if it keeps coming up, then you can take the specific steps you need to take In order to get there, which brings me up to our next topic, which is addressing payment expectations. How many of you guys just like cringe when you hear that? I do not like having to track down payments, having to make sure people are paying their bills, all that stuff. ADHD queen right here. I actually don't even like. Touch any of that. It's mostly my team that does it. But you know, we've set up our billing and our invoicing in a way that it's pretty automatic at this point. I'm going to do a training on that as well during this training series. So please do go check that out. But the importance of setting up clear payment terms and policies upfront is going to save you from a huge headache. So if you say, Payments are due this time. Are there late payment fees? What kind of strategies do you have in handling your late payment fees and enforcing consequences? Because even if you bring it up or you add on a late fee, like, are there consequences of missing 2 payments or 3 payments or 6 payments? Because, you know, there was a time when I was not really paying attention to all the things that are happening in my company. Mm-hmm. I wasn't looking at billing. And the next thing I know, this client is like 6 months behind and they owe us a big chunk of change, right? And I'm like, how did this happen? Because we didn't have a strategy in place. It really didn't come up ever. But there was a billing conundrum with this client and we didn't have a strategy in place on how to handle late payments. We didn't have a strategy in place on enforcing consequences. So that's something we get to look at and address and create a boundary on. When you have these specific things in place, you can then be very clear, honest, and kind with your clients about what to expect across the board. So this way it's like, hey clients, this isn't about you specifically. We have a policy in place. That if you get two payments behind, we're going to pause your service until things catch up. It's a policy; has nothing to do with you. That's just the policy in place. You also want to make sure for those of you who are service-based, if you are, put a me in the comments. Say that's me, service-based. Let me know: Are you a coach, consultant? What kind of service-based business are you? If you are a service-based business, this is one of the biggest things that I wish. Somebody would have told me and walked me through when I first got into business is define your service length. For how long and what does it include? By clarifying the duration of your services or program, saying such as if you're doing a group coaching program, hey, this is a 3-month coaching program, you will have access to the group for 6 months, or you will have access for a year. You will have access for a lifetime. You want to say, you know, exactly what is the duration. Maybe it's a coaching package for 3 months. Maybe it's a coaching package for 1 year. You know, what is the duration of the program or service? And you want to be really clear with that upfront, because what can happen is someone will say, I didn't know that this program was 3 months and then I was going to get kicked out of the group and I wouldn't have access. I need to go back and catch up on a few things. You know, when you are clear about the duration, it is going to, you know, limit surprises. It's going to limit you doing an amazing service and rocking it out. And then a client getting upset, having an unnecessary misunderstanding that's going to end up giving them a bad taste in their mouth, right? So really clarifying the duration of the service and program is hugely important, as well as outline what's included in the purchase or the package. I can't tell you guys how often this has saved my behind. Where if I have it written down, I mean, I literally, I take paper notes. I'm again, ADHD queen. I have paper notes everywhere. And I remember a client having an expectation of me. This was one of our social media clients. We have a social media agency where we do done-for-you social media services, as well as my business coaching practice. So this client was like, well, this, this, this, this, this, I had all these expectations. We had gone over the different pricing and packaging. Mm-hmm. And she opted for the smallest package, which is $333 a month, super affordable. And, you know, she had thought because she had heard we had talked about the different pricing and packaging quite a few times. She goes, well, I thought I got this and I thought I got this and I thought this and this and this. And I was able to bring out that piece of paper that we had gone over and I said, oh, well, you said you wanted this, this, this. We have this package, this is what's included. Um, did you want to talk about upgrade? Just like that, right? And it's not about making anybody wrong because we hear what we want to hear, right? Or we may hear bits and pieces, get confused. A lot of times when we're buying things, we don't really know what's all included, especially if we've looked at different options and all the things. With clarifying and outlining what is included in the purchase or the service package. You also want to clearly define and show clients the options for upgrades and add-ons and how you're going to communicate that. Let's say if you're a graphic designer and you've agreed to do 6-month social media graphic design website redo, and they keep asking for more revisions, more revisions, more revisions, you want to be really clear on that, that, hey, this package includes up to 3 revisions. Anything after that is an add-on. And then you can remind them when they ask you again, say, okay, great. So we agreed on 3 revisions. We've already had the 3 revisions. Would you like an add-on of an additional revision? And then, you know, they get to hear that and communicate it. Add-ons could also be, you know, extra support. Maybe it's one-on-one support. And this is something I personally have had to create amazing boundaries around, because if somebody comes into, let's say, a group coaching program, right, and they are a part of a group coaching program that is like a fraction of the cost to work with Mm-hmm. One-on-one. And maybe this person is a close friend, or we have a good relationship, they've been following me for years, and they're going to ask extra questions and ask for additional phone calls with me or additional Zoom calls. And it's like, you know, I, I love you and I honor you. And, you know, a lot of this is stuff that I deal with with my clients one-on-one, and it would be unfair for me and for the people who are paying me to continue giving you this service, and I'm not charging you for it. Because why are other people paying more money to have one-on-one access if you're getting it for like a fraction of the cost? It's about protecting your boundaries. It's about protecting yourself as an entrepreneur, as a CEO. Because believe me, 9 months into this business, Val Nichols Business Coaching, I was frustrated. I was burnt out. I was getting resentful at clients and dreading getting on calls with them. And that wasn't on them. That was on me because I was not maintaining boundaries. I was not clearly communicating how they could call me, how often, what I would be available to them for, when I would be available. And I was like, overcompensating at that time because I didn't really understand my value and worth yet, which we go through that, right? I wasn't charging what I was worth, and then I would get resentful to clients because I wasn't charging what I'm worth. And that was 100% me. That was me not clarifying what's included, not defining it for myself, for one. Like, I didn't have policies in place. I didn't know what my boundaries were, so how could I communicate it? And, you know, I also, since I went from being in the corporate world to being self-employed, a lot of people are going to get this idea that, oh, Val has tons of time now. You have all this time. We can show up at your house in the middle of the day unannounced. We can ask you to volunteer for all these things. Like, you're available now. And so our boundaries are really about so much more. Not even just with clients, not even just in our business, but is there an area of your life where maybe you need to create a boundary with a loved one because they're not going to get it? Like people showing up at your house and it's like, hey, this is my business and I work from home, so I can't have you like interrupting. Because I know for me, ADHD, I will— it takes me like A while to get back on track if I'm interrupted. So having those boundaries in place also defines for me when are my working hours and how long is it going to take me to get back to you. And then also maintaining those boundaries with my loved ones because they're not going to understand and they're not going to get it. And so we get to teach them what's appropriate. We get to teach them through our actions. And then also with what we maintain in those beautiful, gorgeous boundaries. I hope that you can now see why it's important to have your boundaries in place, right? Not only for your own mental health, your own to protect your peace, but also to help prevent burnout from doing too much for clients, doing all these things, you know, like spinning your wheels and not getting anything done. It's also going to help you maintain clear policies in place. So as you grow and expand, you're not gonna have to worry about getting so bogged down or having way too many expectations on you. Or, you know, when you start taking on so many clients that now you're just like so overwhelmed and you can't even keep up, your boundaries are going to help to protect you, not only from the well-meaning people in your life that that just want to drop in, but also from the clients who may or may not even know what the policies and procedures are. And something can feel really urgent for one of my clients, and I get to help direct them of where could we troubleshoot, where can we— maybe there was a time management issue, let's work that together. And as a mentor, as a business mentor, I can't be asking my clients to do something or hold them at a certain standard if I myself am not doing it. A lot of people in my world— I have a lot of clients that are neurodiverse, ADHD, big creative visionaries. What they're attracted to from me is that I've been able to build this beautiful business while having ADHD, while being distracted, while traveling the world, while going through life, like doing all the things. And I've been able to maintain it and be consistent. And that's what attracts people. They're like, oh my gosh, you've had these things and you've still built this. And you can— you show me what's possible. Your clients are watching. They're going to want to have boundaries in place because they're going to need to know what are the guardrails, what are the expectations. But if they don't know, if we're not teaching them, How are they going to know? How are they going to know? Boundaries in business are so important. Give yourself the beauty and the grace of having boundaries in place, not only to protect your own time, but to prevent you from burnouts and to prevent you from really costly mistakes that can come down the pipeline if or when you are not clearly communicating expectations time limits, how to communicate all those things with clients, it can end up costing you greatly. So please do put these boundaries in place. Thank you guys so much for joining this training. My name is Val Nichols. I am a business coach and mentor for visionary creative entrepreneurs, people who know in their heart of hearts that they were created for more. They are the type of people who are like, I want to do what I love. I don't want to do what society tells me. I want to do what I love. I want to wake up each morning knowing that I'm not only creating a beautiful, incredible income for myself, but I'm creating freedom in my life so I can spend the time doing the things that actually matter— traveling, being with loved ones— and we get to create amazing impact in the world. So if that's you, you're in the right Please do go check out my free business training series. It is Grow Your Business with Val. That's me. And we're going to be doing all sorts of trainings throughout the month. Next one up is billing and invoicing for entrepreneurs so you can gain profit and stop losing revenue. That'll be on 4/23. How to easily onboard new clients. I know there's a lot of people who are looking forward to And then on April 30th, we're going to talk about how to track your leads like a pro, stop losing money and miss opportunities. So please do jump on over valnickels.com/grow and sign up for this training series. It is going to be beautiful, gorgeous. We have a ton of things coming in down the pipeline, so do stay tuned here in this Join my Facebook group if you're not already a part of it. Follow me on Instagram. Let's hang out. Let's hang out and do the thing. And I want to see you guys win because there is plenty of room at the top. There's plenty of room. There's plenty of clients. There's plenty of cash. There's plenty of solutions in the world. And guess what? There's someone out there in the world who is praying and is waiting for you to step out in your leadership, and someone out there is going to need it in a way that you share your message, in the way that you show up in the world. And it all starts out with creating our beautiful business boundaries. I love you guys. Let me know in the comments, what did you hear from this? What did you get from this? Please do share it out. If you have anyone you know that needs to hear this, invite them into the group, invite them into the training as well. We're going to be doing some beautiful, amazing trainings coming up. I'm so excited to share this. And my heart is honestly that I just want to help people. I want to serve. That's always been my mission and purpose. I'm that person that was sitting in corporate at the beautiful desk. I was sitting in my office thinking, there's got to be more than this. I had the job, the title, great income, but I still felt empty inside. I felt like there had to be more. More than this, and I was like, I just want to make a difference in the world. I want to know that my story, everything I've gone through, that I can help other people. And for me, that was through entrepreneurship. I've had marketing agencies in my twenties. I worked with huge companies like Nike, Lance Armstrong Foundation, T-Mobile for two years to also work with heart. Purpose-driven entrepreneurs just like you. And that lights me up to help create these sparks and to ignite this passion in the world, one entrepreneur at a time. I hope you got a lot out of this, and please do sign up for the rest of the series. It is going to be super fun, and you won't want to miss a minute. I love you guys. Bye. Bye.