One of the things I get regular DM’s and emails about are stories of the bullshit my customers have had to endure while growing their new boundary setting muscles.
From their clients pushing for extra work that wasn’t established in their contract to strangers wanting free product for “exposure” to hot-shots trying to negotiate a cheaper deal.
It’s frustrating to hear but like a proud mama bear, I beam from ear to ear when they relay the details on how they did the professional smackdown using the templates in this handbook.
Because not only have they set the boundary, but their courage and confidence has grown tenfold and they’ve become more comfortable with drawing their firm line in the sand.
And that my friends is what’s truly sexy about setting boundaries.
So if you’ve been needing to start setting some boundaries yourself but haven’t the slightest clue where to start, grab this handbook and use these 5 tips below to get started:
1. Establish Your Office Hours
My god, if you need to enforce anything, it’s office hours. You need a fixed work day and work week. Exhausted, drained, resentful, exploited and overtired are not alluring attributes of a successful business owner. No one wakes up and thinks, “Shit, I’d love to be a modern-day Miss Havisham.” And yet, so many business owners work themselves to burnout – hi, I’m talking about meeee – and it winds up giving them shingles – I’m not kidding! (Okay maybe a little bit..)
So, moral of the story is, establish your office hours! The easiest way to do this is to set up an autoresponder with your hours and response times. Place your office hours on your website footer and contact page. If you don’t, people will expect you to answer their queries 24/7.
Say it with me: Office hours are sexxxxy – and prevent being jilted at the altar!
2. Set Your Terms & Conditions
Oh my, what on earth are terms and conditions? Isn’t that the fine print no one EVER reads? Why yes ma’am, it is.
(Did you just mentally swat me over the head for calling you ma’am? I felt that).
Let me put on my unused and totally made up law degree hat for a min.
In case you don’t know what Terms and Conditions are, they’re a set of regulations which users of your website, products and services must agree to follow in order to use your website, products and services.
*Removes fancy fake lawyer hat*
This means that if you are selling digital products or services, you need T’s and C’s so you can put important things like your refund and cancellations policies, affiliate terms and your well thought out argument for why pineapple belongs on pizza. They will be your legal standing document should a spiteful customer who didn’t read your sales page demand a refund or makes a chargeback against you.
The best way to ensure you have a sound terms and conditions page? List out every possible scenario and decide what you’d prefer to happen in that situation and then format it all into a pre-made T’s and C’s template from *The Contract Shop to get the wording right.
*Yes, that’s an affiliate link.
3. Stick to Your Listed Prices
Stop changing your prices based on your assumptions about your target market! (In fact, that tells me you don’t really know who your target market is). Instead, get really really good at selling your products and services at that price.
Why? Because, my dear, the price is not the only factor in why someone wouldn’t buy your product or service.
Wanna know one of the biggest reasons people don’t buy? It’s because the value of your offer wasn’t conveyed in a spell-binding irresistible way that would make the prospect want to whip out their well worn credit card and buy that bad bitch because they ABSOLUTELY NEED IT RIGHT NOW – their words, not mine.
Stop thinking it’s the price that’s the issue and respect your work enough to leave the price the hell alone – yes, this a boundary you need to set with yourself. Then get to work on choosing ONE specific person who would 100% buy your offer at that price and begin writing a better and more gripping sales page, content and marketing copy speaking directly to THAT person.
4. Switch Off Notifications For Everything
Hands up if you’re addicted to the scroll? Or the email dings? Or the ‘this person liked your post’ notifications? Be real, how inspired, informed or productive are you because of these insidious things? I would say less than 5% – because that’s the first number that came to my head.
Let me be your cautionary tale: My phone and I were having an extra-marital affair. It got to the point I was obsessively checking every update that my phone deemed important that my stress levels went through the o-zone layer. Anxiety and RSI were my morning and evening cocktails until one day I decided to woman-up, put on my mom jeans and delete EVERY FUCKING APP ON MY PHONE THAT I WAS ADDICTED TO.
Including all email. *clutches pearls*
Your time is the most valuable thing you possess, and you have a limited supply of it. Don’t spend it zombie-ing out on what a sorely-depressed-and-hiding-it-with-impeccable-flair influencer is doing. Go BE depressed yourself. Wait, that’s not what I meant. Go sit out on your front porch and enjoy watching people trip over the tree stump by your driveway. Your notifications will still be waiting for you when you check them at a later date.
5. Stop Working On The Weekends
Even if you don’t have a life to live, like me, it’s better to enjoy doing nothing than filling the time with something you do every other day. It also gives you marginally more things to talk about with friends who ask you every 4 days, “What have you been up to lately?”
Learn to enjoy space and time away from your business. It will help you step outside the ‘working IN my business’ to the ‘working ON my business’ mindset.
Here’s a better way to explain what I mean: Years ago I started obsessively playing tennis because the play boy I was all about at the time was going to be the next Federer and I wanted to impress him with my non-existent tennis skills. So I learned to play by joining a club and hiring a coach. But there was a problem, my backhand was awful! And no matter how much I practiced I couldn’t get it right. I had to take a month off because I was traveling to Europe – oui oui – but on the 17 hour flights both ways I watched old tennis matches and practiced my backhand with a butter knife. Once I returned to home, my coach ran some drills and suddenly I could hit a Sharapova-worthy backhand.
The point of this lesson is that NOT doing the thing helped me become better at DOING the thing.
So stop working on weekends!
As you can see, these are some of the sexiest boundaries you can enforce in your business and on yourself right NOW. But if you want more help establishing them with other people – such as prospects from hell and other fun sorts – grab my B*tch Better Have Some Boundaries handbook.
These are my copy and paste response templates for anyone who oversteps your boundaries in business, and they are a MUST-HAVE in your business arsenal.
They’ll save you time, money, but most of all, from actually becoming the modern day version of Miss Havisham.
