EPISODE 92: STABLE: Build a Boundaried Writing Business

Jessi:
Welcome to the copywriter collaborative podcast, where we're digging into how you can build a sustainable writing business. We're your hosts, Jessi...

Marie:
...and Marie. We're the co-founders of North Star Messaging + Strategy. When we started our business in 2010, we had no idea what we were doing. We just knew we wanted to write. Since then, we've learned a lot and we've grown into a successful multi-six-figure copywriting agency with a talented staff of writers and project coordinators. We've served hundreds of clients and we've seen it all. We wish we could have had a resource like this way back then. So we created it for you.

Jessi:
We're here to share our and top tips to help you achieve personal and professional success in the copywriting industry. Every week, you'll get valuable insights from us, members of our team, and special guests. Whether you wanna write better copy, create a stronger copywriting business that can support you financially or both, grab your earbuds.
Welcome to another episode where we are talking about one of our favorite topics in the STABLE series. So far, we have talked about the S, the T and the A in the stable framework. And today we're gonna talk about B: boundaries, which as I mentioned is one of our favorite topics. In fact, we've done two other episodes about boundaries in the past, which we'll link to in the show notes. But we're gonna hopefully take a slightly different take on boundaries today, so that you can think about how to incorporate them into your writing business in a way that allows you to feel like you have some time and energy freedom, while also creating really strong relationships with your clients.

Marie:
Absolutely. So just as a refresher, this is part of a small series that we're doing under the acronym STABLE. And if you want to listen to the previous episodes on having a strategic writing business targeted in terms of your audience and the people that you serve. And, A for... my brain is blanking out right now.

Jessi:
Appreciated!

Marie:
Thank you. Appreciated. having a business that leaves you feeling appreciated as a writer. Please check out those previous episodes. And we also wanna invite you to hang out with us in July, July 11th through 13th, 2022, for a free challenge for writing business owners called yeah, you guessed it, the STABLE writing business challenge. And we are gonna be helping you figure out which of these areas is your number one most important area to focus on in your writing business. And that way you'll have some direction on what to do next to strengthen your business and to make it more stable and sustainable and lucrative for you. So you can grab that link into show notes.

Jessi:
So let's dive into today's topic, which is the B for boundaries. And we wanna give you a few thoughts around what it means to have a boundary business, specifically, a boundaried writing business. And I think this is very much a near and dear topic for me. And I'm gonna assume for Marie as well, I'm gonna speak for her for a second, because in terms of types of service-based businesses out there, and I may be biased here, but I feel like writers and content creators often, their boundaries are pushed against more than a lot of other areas, more than a lot of other service-based industries. And I think that that happens because there's just a fundamental misconception between the amount of work that a client may expect it takes to, for example, create a launch and all of the copy responsible for launch and the amount of work it actually takes. And so often you have clients who say something like, oh, can you whip up X, Y, Z for me? And they think that it's just a quick thing. It's not necessarily a quick thing. That's just one example of a way in which boundaries can get a little fuzzy sometimes.
And it happens in a lot of different ways. We've experienced this firsthand in like dozens of different ways in our own business over the last decade-plus, almost 12 years now. And every time we think we have all of our boundaries smoothed out, something pops up that reminds us, oh, wait, maybe we need to make a tweak here, make an adjustment there to make sure that our clients are understanding what goes into the work that we do. And so that we can continue to build up a really positive relationship with them.

Marie:
Yeah, not all of it is around the actual act of writing. A lot of it's just around having boundaries as a business owner. But a lot of us don't have MBAs and I don't have an MBA. I don't even know if they teach boundaries in MBA programs. So this is the stuff that you kind of learn over time. And even if you've been in business for a long time, if you're sort of like me and you have these sort of people-pleasing tendencies, it may be hard for you to feel like you can implement this stuff, right. So for instance, what do you do if a client is consistently late on their payments? That's not something that's unique to writers that happens to pretty much every business out there. So what do you do, right? Well, it all comes down to boundaries. So what we believe is that not having boundaries is actually very detrimental, not just for you, but also for your clients. And on the flip side, boundaries have a lot of benefits for you and your clients and can lead to being really happy for both of you. So, I think we should dig into sort of those dangers of not having boundaries and how it really can harm you and your clients first.

Jessi:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a really great angle to take on it because I think sometimes we think about boundaries almost as being selfish. And especially if you tend to have people-pleaser tendencies, you wanna make sure that your client has the best product possible and the best experience possible. And that can often lead to us ignoring boundaries or not setting boundaries. And that we think of sometimes as being detrimental to us because we can feel the burnout and the exhaustion and things like that. But it's also detrimental to your clients, even though on the surface, it may seem that you're making them happy. And so some of the reasons for this, some of the ways in which this shows up in a detrimental way for both you and your clients? Scope creep, or just all the creeps, all the types of creeps. The scope creep, the timeline creep, the budget creep a project that the two of you sat down and said, okay, this is gonna take a month. It's gonna cost this much stretches out to six months. It ends up costing your client more. It ends up costing you more in time and energy. That lack of clear expectations can lead to assumptions. And then as things get added, as scope creep happens, as timeline and budget creep happens, it can lead to a reduction in trust. If you said it's gonna cost this much, and then it actually ends up costing a little more, or if you said it would take four weeks and it ends up taking eight because of the other types of creep, like scope creep and not wanting to say no, not having clear boundaries around what additions to a project looks like, it can end up making the relationship with your client a little rocky.

Marie:
And also let me chime in on that. Like, I've also been guilty of when the scope creeps and therefore the budget really kind of needs to creep with it. And the client freaks out because they're like, well, I've only agreed to pay $2,000 for this. And now you're saying it's gonna be $2,500, then doing things for free. And this is harmful for both of you. It's harmful for you because now whenever you sit down to do this work for free, you're feeling resentful, you're feeling frustrated. And as a result, it's harming your client because they're not getting the best of you, right. Because you're just trying to get it done so that you can get onto those paying clients.

Jessi:
Yeah, absolutely. And over time that builds up, right? Let's say you have two or three clients that this is happening with. And suddenly you're behind. You have so many projects, so many additions that are getting added on that may or may not be charging for, because you wanna make your client happy. You get more exhausted. You have less time to take on new clients. That means you're making less money in your business. That means that your client, as Marie said, is not getting the best of you. And may start to feel a little like they're being slighted or they're not getting the quality that they paid for because you're exhausted and you can't really put out your top-quality work if you're constantly adding more to your plate.

Marie:
So, you know, the other thing that happens is like, when you're exhausted and you feel like, kind of shouting at your clients, "You know I have other clients too, right?!" Like answer's no. They don't know that you have other clients. Or even if they do know, they don't know what demands those other clients have on you. And frankly, it doesn't really matter to them, right? Like you've promised to get this thing done. And if the scope is creeping and you're having trouble getting the thing done, then they're frustrated cuz the thing's not getting done. And they assume that you took them on as a client because you did have the capacity to do that. Even if you did have 12 other clients, right. So that's not really an excuse honestly. And it really kind of comes down to the lack of boundaries.
And the other thing that can happen when there's a lack of boundaries is if there's a hiccup or a true problem along the way, there's really a possibility for contention with that client, a falling out with them. Maybe you won't be able to work with them again, or maybe you don't wanna work with them again, even though they may be a great client but now you're at each other's throats. There can even be the possibility for litigation or small claims court. So I mean, it's pretty serious, not to scare y'all, but boundaries really are there to protect everybody. And so that's why we really believe that boundaries have a lot of benefits for both you and your clients.

Jessi:
Yeah. And this is where we insert our quick plug to make sure that you have a contract in place because there's no better way to make sure that your boundaries are able to be reinforced then by having a contract that both you and your client agreed to because it takes the emotion, maybe not fully, especially if you're a people-pleaser like me and Marie are, but it does take a good chunk of the emotion out of reestablishing boundaries if they do start to get crossed. But we'll circle back around to what to do when that happens in a little bit.
But first, let's talk a little bit about the benefits for you and your clients because we can take all of those negative things that we just talked about and flip them around, right? When you have those boundaries clearly written out within your contract, clearly agreed on with your client, you can stay within scope, your time and budget. And you also have those grounds to stand on where if out-of-scope things happen, if the client requests something else or if the timeline seems to be shifting, you can look back at the boundaries that you set and say, okay, well this is going beyond the boundary. Either it can't happen, or if it does happen, this is what it needs to look like. For example, it costs extra or the timeline has to shift in a certain way, things like that. That allows you to set expectations, meet expectations, adjust expectations on an even playing field. And it sets you up to be in a position where if you want to, you can overdeliver, you can exceed expectations and it doesn't come from that place of resentment that Marie was talking about earlier.

Marie:
Absolutely. And so as a result, you feel respected because you know your client's not calling you on Saturday evening. Your client is paying you on time. Your client is getting you their approvals in a timely manner, all those things. And your client feels respected, right? Because, you know, you said, Hey, I'm gonna do this for you, and you're doing it. And you're doing it in a way that's on-time within their budget and achieving the goals that they have for their content. You each have enough time to get the work done. And not only that, you have enough time for rest and recuperation, the rest of your business, your other clients, so that you can really bring the best of yourself to the work. And if there are hiccups or problems or arguments, there's a clear direction as to what to do. A lot of the time that can just be resolved with a conversation where you're just reminding about the boundaries that were set previously.
If it comes to it though and you do end up in a litigious situation, you have a contract to fall back on. And so like Jessi said, it kind of takes out the emotion from that. And at the end of the day, your client doesn't have to adhere to your boundaries. But that's their choice, right? But they can't adhere to your boundaries if you don't tell them what they are. So as a result, we find that our clients, we've had clients actively thank us for our boundaries. They are grateful for them because it just means that we're really transparent. We're really clear. We're very responsive. We're on time, we're respectful. And they give that in return. So it's a really nice give and take.

Jessi:
Yeah. And I think largely this is what ends up happening. You're able to build that really strong relationship with your client, right from the get-go. And anytime that a boundary situation comes up and you're able to reinforce it, it reinforces that relationship as well. But like Marie said, your clients are not beholden to your boundaries. They do and can step over them. And if you have those boundaries clearly set, you also have a plan for what to happen when they are crossed, whether it's stopping the work, whether it's sitting down and having a conversation, whatever it may be. So by and large, our clients have been grateful for the boundaries. We also have had clients who don't adhere to the boundaries and we have to have a conversation with them. But because we have the boundaries set ahead of time, when we have that conversation, we have a foundation for it. We have legs to stand on. It doesn't feel like we're throwing rules at them that they didn't even know existed in the first place.

Marie:
Right. So how do you deal with this in practice, right? So I think first of all, it's don't wait on your client to set boundaries for you because they won't. It's not because they're hateful people. It's cuz they're just thinking about things from their own perspective. They aren't mind-readers. They don't really know when you're feeling tired, resentful, frustrated, right? And even if they do sense that, they're gonna think like, oh gosh, did I say something wrong? And it's just because maybe you just didn't let them know that they only had two weeks to get you those revisions back. And now we're on week four and you're getting frustrated cuz you need that to finish up the project cuz they've already paid it and you're not keeping getting paid, but they don't know that they have to get them back to you in that time, right.
And also just don't let them be the only ones to set boundaries because you deserve them too. And if you find that you do not have all the boundaries that you need. And we're still discovering that. We are 12 years in business this year and we are still discovering opportunities for healthy boundaries to set in the business. Just know that you don't have to wait for the next client project, or the next project with that client, right. You can even start today, even in the middle of a project. It takes courage, but you can do it. And you know, yes, like Jessi said, we don't wanna throw curve balls at them, but I find the way to do this when you really have to do it if you find like, Hey, I'm gonna hate this project unless I do this, that's probably a good time to do it. And just to say like, Hey client, I just wanna let you know that I've created a new policy and it's this. And the reason for it is so that I can serve you better in this way. And I would like to go ahead and implement that starting on X date. So this will affect you in this way. And at the end of the day, I think you're gonna be really grateful for it because it means that I'm gonna bring the best of myself to your project and you're gonna be getting better outcomes. So, I would definitely kind of put on your conversion copy hat and talk to them about the benefits for them of this boundary. And if you're struggling to think about what those are, think about what's not going well right now and how is that affecting them. And then you can kind of flip it around the other way if the boundary were set.

Jessi:
Yeah, absolutely. So if the idea of setting boundaries is new to you, or if it's something that you've tried and feel like, eh, it hasn't quite worked out. What we wanna encourage you to do is to think about it in a few different categories. And so this is diving into the STABLE framework and the workaround that beef for about building a boundaried business. We have not noticed over the years, that boundaries tend to come up in certain categories. There are certain areas where the expectations tend to sometimes get a little fuzzy, need a little bit of exact and specific communication. So what I would encourage you to do, if you're listening to this and thinking, yeah, my clients sometimes walk all over me, and it's not necessarily because they're bad people or it's not necessarily their fault. It's just because I want to make them happy and I haven't put any boundaries in place or if I have it's been a while or it hasn't been clearly communicated or yeah, the boundary exists, but I pay it no mind and people just kind of blow past it and that's kind of become the new expectation. So if you're in that boat, I want you to think about boundaries in a few different categories.
First category is your values as a person and as a business owner, what are they? Next is communication. What does healthy communication look like, ideally between you and your client? What about time expectations? In a perfect world? What does that look like? What does time lining for projects look like? What do setting benchmarks- what does that look like? Money is a big one. What do boundaries around money look like? What happens when a client is late on an invoice? What happens when new parts of the project or what happens when parts of the project tend to require more revisions than immediately expected? What happens when the timeline changes, all of these things? How does that impact money? And then finally scope. What happens when the scope of the project changes, especially when it changes dramatically? But it doesn't have to be dramatic. When the initial expectations change, what happens?
And at the end of the day, that's really kind of how I like to think about boundaries. Because sometimes boundary can be this big, scary word that feels like you're putting a wall up between you and your client. It's not actually that. It's really just asking the question when something occurs, what happens next? When something unexpected happens within the project, what happens next? And so just think about when the time of the project changes, what happens next? When the money situation doesn't pan out the way you initially expected it to, what happens next? And so thinking about it in that terms may soften it a little bit. So it doesn't feel like you're just like throwing rules at your client in a way that feels too rigid.

Marie:
Yeah. And another way I like to think about it similar to that is just with an analogy, right? So we're building structure, we're building, let's say a road. And let's say, you have a piece of land and it is full of beautiful things. You've got a field of flowers over here and you've got a really cool building over there and an ice cream stand over here and you wanna share all these things with your clients. But you don't want them just plowing straight through the tulip field to get to the ice cream stand, right? So you're gonna build little roads. And they can go down these roads. And it's just, it lets them know that like, Hey, this is the approved path, right.
And similar to what we talked about in the appreciated category with that red, yellow, green light where it's kind of like, this is a no, this is a yes, this is a maybe we need to kind of talk about it. That can also exist in all of these categories for boundaries.
So again, in your field of tulips, maybe there's a cross intersection there and you need to put in a traffic light because at this point we need to have a rule that says you only go under these conditions, right? And so that's kind of what these boundaries are. It's like, I'm only gonna write for you once you pay your deposit. I'm only going to meet with you if you filled out your questionnaire at least 24 hours in advance, I'm only going... like whatever, right? And again, it's not because you're just an evil, hard-line person necessarily. It just means that, Hey, I'm not gonna be able to serve you to the best of my ability unless I really have time to take in your responses on that new client survey. And maybe that's part of your process. This is totally for example, right. But I really would like to be able to listen to the podcast that you send me and I'd like to be able to read the articles that you send me so that I'm informed on this topic so I can write this article ahead of time. And I wanna make sure we use our meeting time to the fullest because I know you're busy. And so that's why. It's not because I just wanna create busy work for you. It's so that we use our time together to the best of our ability. And then it's a green light because you've filled in the questionnaire ahead of time. So think about those little roads in your own business. And you get to pave the roads yourself. You get to put in stops for yourself.

Jessi:
Yeah. Boundaries shouldn't feel punitive unless they're being trashed. Yeah. It's meant to be supportive for both you and your client. So the reason we like the red, yellow, green light framework around boundaries is because, before anything happens with a client, you can kind of think about it from the perspective of like, okay, well, what would a red light look like around, let's say scope? What is that? What actions might cross the line around scope? Maybe it's something like your client has a tendency to always request, not just additions to the scope of the project, but last-minute additions. Like, I need this and I need it by tomorrow, or I need it by the end of the day. And historically, you've just done it because you wanna keep the client happy. But when you step back and think about it, maybe that actually crosses a line and that's a boundary that you want to draw so that the client has a chance to become a green light client. Let them know, Hey, I actually need at least 48 hours notice before something is due. Can you do that for me? If you can't, I can't actually, I don't have the time to get this done. Many clients will probably, especially if that boundary has not been set previously, be like, oh yeah, of course, and adjust to it. But in order to know what those boundaries need to be, you need to kind of think about it from the perspective of like, okay, well, what does crossing the line look like as far as a red light is concerned? Or what kind of just may not be a hard no, but does give you pause? What are some things that would be yellow lights, like, eh, it's fine, but it's not great? Because you can set boundaries around that as well.
So using the same example around last-minute requests, maybe 48 hours still feels too tight, maybe in an ideal world, you'd have a week of notice. And so a yellow light would be someone who's constantly requesting something like, you know, 48ish hours in advance, and you really wanna set the boundary of a week and then maybe they're still requesting it with not a ton of time, but they're getting closer to that week. So part of it is thinking in advance and then part of it is retroactive. Like Marie said, we're still finding ways where we can strengthen and tighten our boundaries because you can't anticipate everything. You can't anticipate every single boundary that might need to be established or that you experience being crossed. But if you're trying to think in advance, this red, yellow, green light framework is really, really helpful around those categories that I mentioned earlier. So that you can just start thinking, what does crossing the line look like in these categories and how can I create a boundary so that doesn't happen?

Marie:
Yeah, absolutely. Also a little side note, pro tip, instead of saying 48 hours, I would recommend that you say two business days. Because if someone is sending you 48-hour requests on Friday at 10:00 PM, and you don't like to check your work email on the weekends, you're gonna have a rude awakening on Monday when someone's mad at you. So that's what I would recommend. And then also make clear when your business days are. Maybe it's Monday through Friday, right? Whatever it is, it doesn't have to be, but whatever your days are.
So I just wanna give one little caveat I guess, to this whole episode, which is, do know that you can give a little? You can give a lot, actually, if you want to. I know people who do not struggle with boundaries. If that's you, you probably haven't really listened to this episode cuz you're like, I got this, but you know, if you're sticking around with us for some reason, hello, now I'm talking to you. Maybe you're not a people-pleaser, right? You're really good with boundaries. I want to let you know too that you can actually set a boundary around not setting boundaries if this makes sense.
Let me explain a little bit more. So maybe the boundary is, at the end of the day, I wanna make sure that no matter what I do, I am being respectful of my client and myself. I wanna be appreciative of my client and myself and I wanna be understanding and see that we're all humans and I want to thank and reward, I guess, those clients who have been respectful of my boundaries. So let's say you have a client that you've been working with for a few months, or maybe even over a year and they've always been respectful of you. And now they're like, Hey, this thing has happened. My babysitter can't actually help tonight, and I was planning on getting you these approvals tonight, but I need an extra couple of nights as a result. Whatever the thing is, right. They don't even have to tell you, they could just say like, Hey, I need a couple extra days. If by and large, they've been really respectful and helpful for you and it wouldn't actually harm you to grant them this, you could say, Yeah, for sure. I know that we usually do 48 hours for approvals. But I totally hear you and you've been great and so I'm happy to do that this time for you, right?
So we're not telling you that you have to be hard-nosed about your boundaries all the time. This is more of a cautionary tale for people like us who are a bit of a pushover. And that's kind of maybe our MO. But if that's not you, know that you get to decide what's most important. And sometimes what's most important is giving yourself and others grace. And actually that yourself thing is important, right Jessi? Because I remember that time that we had a client that we were trying to get something too and we were struggling. Do you remember that story?

Jessi:
Oh yeah, I do. And you know, up until then we set a lot of hard boundaries for ourselves, hard boundaries-

Marie:
Not for our clients so much!

Jessi:
Yeah, we were total people-pleasers to our clients, but boy did we set boundaries on ourselves. And if we broke our boundaries, it was like a total self-flagellation. Cause we held ourselves to such a high standard and that high standard really, it was valuable in the fact that like we gave our all to our projects, but it ended up being harmful too because we were so rigid around our expectations for ourselves. I remember the particular project that Marie is referencing was one that we had on top of several other projects going on. And we were just running out of time, running out of energy. And we were like, no, we told them we'd get it to them today. So we're gonna keep doing it. We're gonna keep doing it. And there was a point at which we realized like, but we're not doing our best work. And the client actually reached out to us, like when we kind of started talking about it with them and they were like, just ask me for an extension. It's fine. We were like, we can do that?

Marie:
We should also note that this client had been a coach of ours and so she was using this, I think, as a teachable moment for us that like, Hey, you're allowed to ask for grace for yourself as well.

Jessi:
Yeah, it was a learning moment for us because we were holding to our own boundaries so hard that it became detrimental. So, just like having no boundaries can be detrimental, having two stricter boundaries can be detrimental. So it's about finding that sweet spot that really fits you, your personality, the types of relationships you're building with your clients. And it may even be different from client to client. Some clients you may need to have much firmer boundaries with than others. Others, you may feel much better about bending the rules essentially for them because you have the type of relationship where it never feels like anyone is taking advantage of anyone else.

Marie:
Absolutely. So your homework for today, we have two pieces of homework. Number one, are there some things that are chaffing you in your business right now? If so, that's probably an opportunity for you to take a look at that and create a boundary and communicate that boundary and then hold to it as long as it's appropriate. So we wanted you to make a list of boundaries that you want in your business that would serve you and your clients that you haven't already created and clearly stated to them. So go ahead and make that list. At that point, you don't have to go ahead and put them all into action straight away. You can certainly if you want to do that, but this will help you just kind of get your hands around it. You may even wanna just have a little sticky note by your desk where you're writing them down as you think of them, because they may kind of be the thing that just comes up for you in the moment when you're like, gosh, wouldn't it be great if people would just pay me on time and then you could be like, oh yeah, paying on time. That's a boundary.
And then your other piece of homework for today is to join the STABLE writing business challenge. We're gonna be going through all six areas of our STABLE framework for writing business owners. And we're gonna help you identify which of these areas is the one that we feel you should be focusing on in your business. This will be customized to you and what's going on in your business. It's a free three-day challenge. And then if you finish all three days' assignments, you will be invited to something special. You'll get to have a chance to hang out with Jessi and me and get some of your specific questions answered in a coaching call. So, grab that link in our show notes. That's how you can register for the STABLE writing business challenge. Otherwise, we won't know that you're interested. So you gotta register so that we can send you all the information and materials and assignments.

Jessi:
Absolutely. And we really hope to see you there. We're excited to help you identify which area of growth will help support your writing business the most.

Marie:
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Copywriter Collaborative Podcast. Make sure to visit our website, northstarmessaging.com/podcast, where you can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, and more.

Jessi:
If you found value in this episode, we'd love for you to leave us a review on your favorite podcast app and share it with your friends. Thank you, and happy copywriting.