I’m sure you’ve been here…

You start working with a seemingly perfect client – wahoo! It’s super exciting and you’re still buzzing because you get to work with such a dreamy client. But then you slowly start seeing red flag after red flag 🚩🚩

They cross your boundaries once, to which you say: “oh well, isn’t that just business?”. But then they cross boundary after boundary and now it feels like it’s far too late to communicate your grievances with them. So instead, you start to dread doing work with/for them.

If that sounds all too familiar, you’re definitely not alone! Almost everyone has struggled with setting client boundaries at some point, fearing that it might alienate clients or make us seem unprofessional. But let’s flip that script and realize that boundaries are a sign of strength – they show that we value ourselves, our time, and our work 💪

But if you’re still feeling icky about setting client boundaries, you can always just automate them! That way, *you* won’t technically be setting the boundaries or having to convince yourself to do so when the time arises – your software will do it for you.

Here’s how to make “automating client boundaries” your new best practice:

Late Payment Reminders

Set up automated emails to remind your clients when their invoice is overdue. This way you don’t have to remember payment due dates, nor do you have to feel bad for asking people to pay you for the work you’ve done if someone has missed a payment. Instead, your clients will just get a friendly lil’ email to remind them to pay their invoice.

To take it one step further, schedule an email to send a few days before the payment due date. This way, clients who forgot their upcoming payment will receive a reminder and have a few extra days to arrange to pay you.

Contract Not Signed Reminders

I never start work without a signed contract, and you shouldn’t either! In my world, a project is only booked once the contract is signed. This motivates clients to sign the contract right away to get their project started. If you’re sending over a contract for digital signing like I do, set up automated reminders for when someone hasn’t got round to signing the contract yet.

If you are looking for some great templates, I highly recommend Contracts Market.* These are the contracts I use in my biz and they’ve helped me out more than once! Every template is really easy to implement into your biz and there’s a contact out there for everyone. Suitable for Canada and US-based businesses 🙂

* This is an affiliate link and if you purchase through it, I’ll receive a small commission.

Communication Boundaries

Make sure you’re utilising your welcome emails and guides to communicate your communication boundaries to your clients. Here are a few things you could include:

• what days and hours you work
• how long they can expect to wait for a reply
• which platforms you’ll be communicating through
• what to do if something is ‘urgent’
• any upcoming out-of-office days or vacations you have planned

It could also be helpful to include some of this info on the contact page on your website. The more your client knows about how best to communicate with you, the happier you’ll both be!

Questionnaire Deadlines

If you have your clients fill out a questionnaire before you get started on their project, setting deadlines around when they need to complete things is really helpful. And setting automated emails to go out to remind the client to complete the questionnaire they haven’t done so already is also really helpful!

If you’re struggling to get people to complete things on time, automate an email to go out after the deadline is missed, letting the client know what will happen if they don’t complete it in X amount of days. This method encourages people to take action. By automating these emails, you won’t have to remember to send them yourself, and you can avoid the dread that comes with doing so.

Bonus tip – make sure your contracts outlines what will happen if the questionnaire deadlines are missed. Is there a penalty fee? Will the whole project get rescheduled? Will the the project get cancelled with a non-refundable fee?

Ready to streamline your client communication and set strong boundaries? Start automating today and see the difference it makes!

Let’s make this the year we stop bending over backwards for clients at the detriment to our own health and start setting some healthy boundaries. We both know you deserve it ❤️