In today’s competitive market, many small business owners, especially those engaged in professional services, are experiencing burnout.

The overwhelm and exhaustion can stem from a multitude of reasons, including working with clients who don't meet expectations, struggling to maintain a healthy balance between work and personal life, and feeling that their businesses aren't reaching their full potential. 

In this straight-shooting episode, I cover the high cost of energetic loops in professional services businesses, and provide strategic tips for managing 1 on 1 client work, so you can streamline and simplify your processes, reduce stress and avoid leaving money on the table, all in one. 

The reality of a sole proprietor business,  while it can be simple to start and easy to run, can present challenges in managing open loops due to the nature of client service work.

These open loops encompass various stages of the client service journey, from consultations to onboarding, and from drafting and review to concluding the engagement.

The inability to address these open loops can lead to mental and emotional strain and negatively impact the overall success of the business.

Let’s break down what you will learn in this episode:

• Understanding the impact of burnout in client service businesses
• Identifying open loops in professional services
• Strategies to close open loops and boost energy and productivity
• The importance of fostering client satisfaction and feedback
• Practical tips for entrepreneurs to prevent burnout and sustain business success

Mic Drop Moment 🎙️

“These energetic drains contribute to burnout in a serious way, but they also do some other damage. They make us worry about our competency. They cause us to create negative comparisons in our mind between us and our competitors, and they drive fear that we aren't doing enough."

Mentioned in this episode:

Episode #198: Entrepreneurial Evolution: a Client Success Story with Andrea Klunder https://bit.ly/3UKWYmp

It’s hard to identify exactly how to implement what’s truly necessary to close all the open loops in your client services processes on your own, so if you’ve been thinking about making changes for a while, let’s work together so you can actually move the needle. 

I created a special offer for this very purpose because I know how much energy and confidence you gain when you close these loops.  Click here to book a free consult to see if we’re a fit.  

Don’t forget to share this episode with a friend who needs to close some loops in their business.  Here’s a link to make it easy: https://bit.ly/episode-blog-201

Well, hey there, driven woman entrepreneur, today, we are talking about closing the energetic loops in your professional services business. If you do 1 on 1 work with clients, the kind of work that requires their input, their feedback, their revisions, or any kind of back and forth in order to create the finished product or deliverable, whether you're an attorney, a graphic designer, or a copywriter, this episode is for you. And if you use pitching, networking, submitting proposals, consultations, or any kind of screening conversation as part of your marketing or service process, this episode is also for you. Now I had something different planned for this solo episode but based on the number of times I find myself coaching one of my clients on how to make more money without working more hours and also without trying to scale their business or grow their team, I decided to record this instead.

Hey, a lot of self employed professionals are feeling really burned out. Now burnout is not just the result of working your ass off and feeling like you have way too little to show for it, that's just one burnout scenario. What is equally likely for many of us is that we're doing great work, we are attracting awesome clients and we're making decent money. In other words, the work we have done to create visibility and attract clients who value what we do is paying off. But if we don't have the capacity to serve those clients and feel like we're keeping our heads above water, that is a burnout scenario too. Okay, if you were with me for episode 198, the client success story with Andrea Klunder, she talked about making the decision to hire me because she was succeeding in her business, and she was burning out, you definitely might wanna check that one out.

But first, listen to this, hey 1 on 1 client work is very likely the easiest way to get into business for yourself. It is the simplest and potentially the most profitable business model out there and that's just one of the reasons that the majority of small businesses in the US are sole proprietorships. There are no employees or contractors to recruit, hire, train, retain, not to mention manage. But that doesn't mean doing 1 on 1 client work is not without people headaches. I mean, there are different people headaches because people are peopling and no matter how much help they may need and say they want, they don't always do their part to actually get that help from us even though they've paid for it.

Now let me just say, there is not one ounce of judgment in what I am about to say because I have made every single one of the mistakes I'm gonna talk about today. And the impact has been charging too little, scope creep, giving too many chances to people that just weren't showing up for the work, and just basically accommodating the hell out of clients who were never going to hold up their end of things. I quietly muttered under my breath, held the occasional pity party with 1 or more of my biz besties because they were doing the same thing. This stuff is very, very common, so there's no shame in this game but I believe that it's actually harder these days to keep both our financial boat afloat and our mental and emotional well-being intact as solo business owners.

Which means it's a really good time, in my not so humble opinion, to think about making some changes to our policies, practices, and procedures that allow us to have a sustainably successful business in the face of challenging circumstances, the kind of circumstances we're in right now. Now in this solo episode, I wanna talk about what I call open loops, the kind of open loops that I see often in professional services businesses. And you might want to think about closing them. Now if you have listened to this podcast for a while, then you already know I'm really not very woo woo. I'm much more of, you know, hashtag team neuroscience. However, I do understand that we humans are energetic beings. It's just that my version is more like EEG and EKG than law of attraction and raising your vibration.

And as a person with both ADHD and chronic pain myself, I know for a fact that I need to acknowledge that while my creativity and drive are limitless, my energy and energetic capacity just aren't. I need to practice time management, energy management, and obligation management, or I will burn out. It's not a matter of if, but when and this probably applies to you. So I'm gonna talk about some of the most common open loops that I see with my clients who have professional services businesses. Why we tend to avoid dealing with them? Some suggestions for what you might try and remember, if you're not my client, these are just suggestions. They have been helpful to me, and they have been helpful to my clients that I have advised that they try them but you and I both know that there's no one size fits all.

There's no cookie cutter solution, and there's no must do's for anything. But that being said, it's entirely possible that I just might say something during this episode that honestly feels like it was tailor made advice for you. And if that happens, use it, use it with my compliments, you are welcome. Or you might wanna take the basic idea and kind of zhuzhu it a little bit so that it suits your business better, and the way you like to serve your clientele. And that actually might be even better because then it's yours and you own it. So you ready? Here are a few places that I look at with my clients for open loops in a professional services business. I'm not gonna do the drum roll. I don't even have the tech for that.

I'm just gonna say, here we go. Okay, your consultation process. The most common open loop when you do any kind of a consultation, you tell them what you do, how you work, what it costs, see if they think you're a good fit. And then, you know, probably half the time, you get, “I need to think about it” at the end of the call. So if your process does not include a follow-up and a rule that you keep for how many times you follow-up or how long you keep following up, you are going to ruminate like there's no tomorrow and create all kinds of stories that either make you or that potential client the bad guy. In my opinion, a huge ass waste of mental energy and a great big open loop. So my advice for this one is add something to the end of the consultation process where both you and the person who says they wanna think about it know what to expect.

I like odd numbers, and I like threes. So I tend to tell myself I will make 3 attempts, and I have them booked into my process so I don't have to say, wait, was that number 2, or was that number 3? It's part of my process so that I know if a person says I need to think about it, by and large, they're not gonna do business with you, at least not now. They say they wanna think about it, they're not gonna think about it. They're just being polite because it feels more polite to say “I'm gonna think about it”, than to say “no thanks”. I think it's very polite to say no thanks because then nobody's wasting their time, but most people don't do that.

So close the loop and cut your rumination and obsessing off at the jump by determining what happens next when you get whatever their version of I have to think about it, or I'm not sure I have to talk to the wife or whatever it is. Put it in place to close the loop. I have seen many people literally chase people for months who were never going to buy, and they feel terrible about it so that's number 1. The next one and I'm gonna I'm doing these in the order that you will experience them in a client engagement. So, the first experience with a client is some sort of consultation.

Next up, your onboarding. Okay, yay, you. You got the deal. You got the contract. You got them through the door, but they're still lingering in the foyer, and they haven't come all the way into the business. So people need leadership from us, especially right after they've said yes and paid us. That is the time when they are most likely to be thinking, God, I hope I didn't make a mistake. God, I hope it's gonna be worth it. God, I hope this turns out alright. They need to feel they made a good decision. And if you do not have a process that solidifies that, you're gonna wonder if they did, not to mention them. You know, starting a new engagement with anyone, it comes with some excitement, but it also comes with fear of the unknown.

So it is the perfect time to set expectations and clarify roles and responsibilities. Who is going to do what and when? So adding one more step to your process, to your onboarding process, or maybe just like firming it up a little bit if you have one but it's, you know, maybe a little flabby. It just takes a lot of the natural performance anxiety that you're going to have anyway off the table. And it gives that brand new client some reassurance that you are the real deal and deciding to work with you was actually a good decision. Now here's one that is far more common than you might think, but I was just coaching an attorney client of mine through this situation today. Have you ever experienced clients that are sitting on your CRM? They have signed your agreement, they have paid your initial invoice, and then crickets?

Yeah, that's what this attorney has been dealing with and there's a number of them, especially when the nature of the work that you do has legal, ethical, or financial implications. A lot of people just kick the can down the road. They know they need to hire you, but they're not really quite ready to do the work because they have fears and it's just frankly, probably not that interesting to them. It's kind of one of those things they need to do, but they don't really wanna do. So they somehow think this magical thinking that if they sign your agreement and pay the fee that they're making progress, no they're not. Now they're in a holding pattern, and it's a huge ass open loop for you because you have now created an obligation. You have created one with them, and nothing's happening.

So because they've paid you, because you are under contract with them, but you never actually know if and when they're gonna decide now's the time to do the work. That is a huge, huge, huge energetic drain. So this is another place, just tighten up this little part of your client onboarding process so that they know if they sign up with you and then ghost you, which may seem bizarre, but I hope I have taken a little bit of the mystery out of that. People, they know they need to do things, but they're not actually ready to do them. And then they feel, like, embarrassed or guilty for avoiding your attempts to engage them, so they continue to ghost you. I think it should be part of all of our process that this is the timeline.

These are the roles and you can even think of it this way. Rules, roles, and responsibilities and make sure it's all factored in and it's all spelled out so that you are not thinking, well, do I just keep them on the books? And do I just keep emailing them? And how many times do I have to email them before I just I don't know and then what do I do? Do I give their money back? Depending on your profession, if you're an attorney, you might need to do that. Make sure you check with the laws in your state for what that timeline and process looks like.

Okay, next opportunity for an open loop is your drafting and reviewal process, especially if you are a graphic designer, do any kind of creative work. There is nothing that interferes with momentum more than when the ball starts rolling and then inexplicably comes to a screeching halt. As long as we're in momentum, the initial anxiety of, am I gonna please a new client? Are they gonna turn into a freaking nightmare? It starts to feel easier, your confidence builds, their confidence builds, but when the communication breaks down, and that, you know, wonderful collaborative feeling just stops and you have no idea why, what do you do? I mean, besides obsessing, you know, you have to have something in your process because you can't proceed with your part of the work because the client has not given you the information, the access, the feedback, the approval.

So what are you supposed to do? Just sit there obsessing endlessly? I mean, I hear these stories all the time. You send them the first draft of your graphic designs, your website copy, the terms and conditions for their clients, and zippity do dot, you get nothing. This is extremely common for creatives in particular, and endless glasses of wine and a great deal of bitching and moaning accompanies this particular open loop. So my advice, you were not surprised by now, close the damn loop and close it with a clear and compelling statement about timelines and consequences.

Now I know you're probably clutching your pearls thinking, oh, no, I can't say anything about timelines and consequences in my initial language that may turn people off. They may think I'm difficult to work with. They may think I'm demanding, you know what? This is not my first rodeo, and I had all those thoughts myself. You know, I've learned over time through my own businesses and through working with many, many, many business owners. The only people that's stating clear and compelling boundaries, timelines, consequences, the only ones that are going to really be butthurt or offended are going to be the very ones that you are going to have to chase for every little thing, and you might have to fire them anyway. So close the loop, set the boundary, breathe a sigh of relief. You're welcome.

Okay, next up, when you're wrapping up the engagement process. Now you might think there's nothing to be done. They hired me. I served them. I did the work. I was happy. They were happy. I got paid, live moving on. So many of us kind of just let the clock run out because we're usually looking to the next client and when we're done with the existing one, we're just like, check, moving on. It's often true that we are juggling so much that we don't feel that we have the bandwidth to have a strong finish. But not having a simple practice in place to end in a good place, just like we put so much effort on beginning in a good place.

It's kind of how most people do relationships, you know, strong start, weak finish and it doesn't have to be that way. I mean, let's be honest, if you've done good work, it deserves a strong finish and human beings like closure, they really do. So if you hate goodbyes, and many of us do, you can close this particular loop with an email or a cute card that you send, you know, snail mail, the old fashioned way, kind of makes you stand out because nobody does it anymore. So it's no contact, but plenty of caring. And I think it's well worth adding that one little step, because then you don't have to worry about it, you don't have to wonder. You can just finish strong and then move on without the obsession, saves a ton of your energetic bandwidth.

Now here's one that a lot of people don't think about, and I think it's a huge missed opportunity as well as an energetic drain and a loop that just begs to be closed. And that is offering additional services, upsells, or continuity offers. I mean, sometimes it's not over when it's over, and the clients you're finishing up with would be more than interested in purchasing or at least hearing about additional or different service packages or some form of ongoing offer with you, like some sort of a continuity program, a retainer, a concierge service, so that they're not just being ushered out the door and sent on their way. Not closing that loop by coaching, having an ask be part of your finishing up process or having an automated process in place that you circle back to them later.

Like I said, it's leaving money on the table and you know what, people love to be asked even if they know the answer is no. And even if you know the answer is no, it makes them feel good that you invite them to continue to work with you. Now, obviously, you're not gonna do this unless you actually want to continue working with them. Probably didn't need to be said, but I just did. Now no might be no, as in not now, but most of us assume that no as in no as a complete sentence. So if you're keeping them on your client roster for someday, maybe, I promise you that is an energetic drain that will ping you with regret every time you open your CRM and see their damn name.

So close the loop with an email template that you can customize just a little bit for each client. Schedule it to go out at whatever frequency makes sense for the kind of work that you do. That might be monthly, quarterly, annually. It makes it super easy for them to hit reply and hire you again if it's the right time and closing the loop in your mind is so much better than nagging yourself to reach out on a regular basis and knowing you're not gonna do it.

Okay, we're almost at the end of the list. stay with me. You've gone through your entire process, and now you are at the finale. The client satisfaction, feedback, or testimonial process. Now depending on what type of professional service you offer, it may or may not be legal, ethical, standard practice, or even appropriate to ask for a testimonial. However, I mean, when I was a therapist, that was an absolute no go, but that doesn't mean you can't ask for feedback. When people are happy with your services, they want to let you know, trust me. And if they are, like, mostly happy, like, you know, 4 out of 5 star review happy, you need to know so that you can improve your service delivery over time, especially if the same feedback comes multiple times.

Not knowing or assuming creates an open loop in your mind, in your brain, in your energy, in your business, and a leaky loop is much easier to close, and you can just put an end to that slow leak on your energy. Now you may have 1, 2, or wouldn't be surprising if you had all of these open loops in your professional services business. And trust me when I tell you that is extremely common. Everybody thinks everybody else has it all sorted and dialed in and figured out, trust me, they do not. Most of us have really no idea how much mental energy we are wasting on a regular basis coaching about what's going on with that consult that never called back. What's happening with that client who didn't even finish their engagement? Did I suck that bad? And is it too late to reach out to someone I worked with 2 years ago, but I would like to work with again?

So here's my advice, don't be overwhelmed even though I've just ripped the whole can of worms right open and throw them in your lap. Take one open loop, one loop. Create a plan to close it, it's usually one little step. One little step that you can add to an existing process. I'm talking one automated email, one phone call, one thank you card. And if you know you have a few of them and you also know that you're not going to do a damn thing about it without a commitment, there is a link in the show notes to hire me for an accountability day so we can get them all done in one day together.

Now you know that I am both a business coach and a licensed therapist, so I care about your mental health as much as I care about your business. These energetic drains contribute to burnout in a serious way, but they also do some other damage. They make us worry about our competency. They cause us to create negative comparisons in our mind between us and our competitors, and they drive fear that we aren't doing enough. Now these are the very thoughts that prevent us from doing the things we need to do, like raising our rates, seeking out better fit clients, and networking with referral partners and more. So open loops need to be closed, and it's much easier than you think. You just need to start with 1 and if you need my help, like I said, there's a link in the notes. Last of all, if this has been helpful, and I truly hope it has, and you know it would be to one more person, would you do me a solid and share it with them? I would appreciate it, and trust me, they will too.