Written by Originally appeared in our LinkedIn Newsletter: Spoken Like An Entrepreneur
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-very-slow-respond-lakenya-kopf-ovdye/
At 10:46am on Saturday, October 12th, I received an inquiry from someone looking for help with their RSS feed for their podcast. Whether you know it or not, I believe in work/life balance, so I do not work on weekends. While I may occasionally work late nights to catch up, those hours are not open to my clients (meaning I should not be expected to respond after business hours). So at 10:46am on Saturday, I was likely relaxing with a book and recovering from working 3am to 10pm on Friday. It was also the first day of my three-day weekend, which means work was as far from my mind as possible.
Of course, all good things must come to an end, so I spent Monday evening sorting through everything to prepare myself for post-holiday traffic. At this time, I saw two inquiries – one for a copywriting service (which, outside of using AI, I do not offer) and the podcast troubleshooting ticket mentioned above. Despite it being a holiday, I decided to respond because I know my schedule is packed, and if they wanted to book a time to talk, letting them know sooner rather than later would give them more options. I made sure to articulate that I was out of the office due to the holiday and would not see their response until I returned on Tuesday. The response I saw this morning was, “You are very slow to respond. I found somebody two days ago that’s working on it.”
These are the moments I am insanely grateful that people weed themselves out. First, you sent a response on a Saturday and apparently expected me to respond the same day. I get it, everyone works differently, and obviously someone did, but right off the bat, we would not have been a good fit. I say this to segue into the reason I am writing this newsletter. The mistake a lot of new entrepreneurs make is not setting their boundaries or being flexible with their boundaries. When we allow them to be poked at, pushed around, and flexed beyond recognition, we are the ones who suffer. No client is going to complain if I am available morning, noon, and night, seven days a week. Why would they? They are getting their work done, but I am miserable, burned out, and loathing my situation.
Listen, the point of owning your own business is that you didn’t want to have to play by someone else’s rules. You didn’t want to work with people who make you miserable, in conditions that suck the life out of you, or doing things that make you question your life choices. You wanted to find joy, happiness, and some form of peace while keeping a roof over your head, food on the table, and that pretty green in your bank account. So decide on those boundaries and protect them like they’re trying to get that last biscuit at the family dinner. Let go of missed opportunities because if they were right for you, they would have worked out.
And most of all, if a potential client shows you who they are and that they are not the right fit for you, don’t try to talk yourself into it. I can only imagine how it would have been to work with this person – scratch that, I KNOW firsthand how it would have been working with this type of person, and I’ve never had an issue firing someone. There is a reason I work as hard as I do for my clients: I genuinely like them, care for their business, and am dedicated to their mission. It shows in my work and commitment to our professional relationship. That connection is what makes or breaks the success of a small business owner.
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