I don’t know about you, but for me, 2020 really is offering a lot of chances to prove that I’ve learned some of the lessons I say I’ve learned—specifically, boundaries and my resolve in maintaining them.

As an entrepreneur, a professional service provider, and especially a woman and a mom, I encounter a lot of people who test my commitment to my boundaries (whether they are aware of it or not). We all—entrepreneur or not—have to figure out the boundaries between our work/jobs and personal lives. Children perpetually test the boundaries of their parents. And entrepreneurs walk a line of setting what they consider fair prices for their goods or services.

If you sell a product, you’ve probably encountered several people who want to haggle prices with you. If this is a product you purchase and then resell, you can at least explain—perhaps successfully, perhaps not—that if you go below $XX, you will take a loss. In such a case, it’s easy to maintain a boundary. But when providing services, I find most people cannot comprehend how you can lose money by bargaining with them or by working with them for less money. I think a lot of them figure you should be happy if you’re getting any money from them. And let’s be honest—sometimes we fall into that thinking trap as well, happy to get any money.

This seems especially true for women, who face certain assumptions and expectations in many cultures telling them they should be giving and nurturing (and thus not protest doing more work), even if it is sometimes to their detriment.

Recently, in a Facebook group for entrepreneurs, I read a post from someone looking for advice on how to handle a problem client. This entrepreneur gets paid a certain amount of money per hour by the client, up to a certain number of hours per week (20 or less). The problem the entrepreneur is encountering is that the client calls at all hours of the day and night, and seems to expect the entrepreneur to be at her beck and call, even going so far as to call unexpectedly at, say, noon, and want a certain service completed by 2 p.m.

From the entrepreneur’s perspective, this client is very demanding—and inconsiderate, to boot.

It is all too easy to get disgruntled with such clients, to get angry, to assume they are trying to take advantage of us. On the flip side, it’s also easy to simply give in because it’s easier in the moment. We could sit and ruminate all day, pondering the potential reasons for the client’s behavior; we could dwell in how rude that behavior is or can get huffy about it. But none of those things is helpful.

Instead, we need to take a proactive approach—an approach that clearly sets and makes clear our boundaries (and thus our values) to both ourselves and our clients.

In this approach, we make absolutely no assumptions about either the client or ourselves, and we express very clearly what we are and are not willing to do.

This means that we must figure out our own boundaries before we can explain them. This may mean you have to explain how you structure your day, that you have other clients and/or responsibilities, and how you handle this workload in a way that is most equitable. It may even require you to create a new fee structure.

For example, if I were this entrepreneur, I would explain to the client that I value her patronage but that I also have other clients, and that, to ensure all of my clients receive the high quality and fast turnaround they have come to expect from me, I structure my day in a way that is equitable to all (for example, “As such, I devote 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. to your projects every workday”).

Ideally, you have a signed contract in place with every client that explains expected turnaround times for your various projects or services. If you don’t, this is the time to lay out reasonable turnaround times. For example, if a client has just sent an e-mail requesting a service, I might reply, “That is an excellent choice! Given my number of currently active clients and my workload, I can have this completed [and deliverable to you] in three business days. If you want it sooner than that, it would be subject to a $XX per [hour/day] rush fee.”

Even then, it might be necessary to part ways with the client or to at least to turn down this particular service request.

After all, it can be easy to determine where you boundaries should lie, and to explain that, but the key lies in maintaining them—and sometimes that means letting go of people who can’t or won’t respect those boundaries. Sometimes you have to “fire” a client, because that client costs you time with other clients who do respect your boundaries and are easier to deal with.

Remember: not everyone is (or can be) your client, and that is okay.

 

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