FREE  INFOSESSION: How to Become a Virtual Assistant. For stay-at-home moms, military spouses, teachers, and career-changers. What you need to know about the VA industry so you can figure out the best way to make money from home using your brain. If you've been wanting to get started, need the building blocks, and want to know how to get your foot in the door, join us!  

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the demands of your freelancing gig? Maybe you’ve had that one client who never seems to respect your time, or you’ve found yourself working late into the night, sacrificing your personal life for client deadlines.

Setting boundaries will help you be happier and more productive. You’ll actually enjoy your work, your relationships, and your personal life. And they’ll help you make more money. It's okay to say no to unreasonable tasks, deadlines, or clients that push your boundaries. 

When communicating with clients, the key is to be kind and direct– not fuzzy.

Listen to learn more about

• The importance of setting boundaries early with clients
• How to set and communicate them effectively 
• Real-life examples and scripts for tricky client situations
• Why having clear boundaries boosts your business and confidence

If you're facing challenges with client management, setting boundaries, or scope creep, you need to tune in. And remember, you are worth setting boundaries to build the life and career you want!

Sponsored by the UDMA School: Join the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School. This course covers in-demand, highly sought-after digital marketing implementation skills for freelancers to be able to help online business owners build their businesses. Learn the mechanics and strategies of digital marketing in a 12-week online group coaching program and course. Get on the waitlist here! 

Links mentioned in the Show:

• The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free by Melissa Urban
• Braden Drake’s Contract Club – only $30

Connect with Emily:

• Facebook Community: Emily’s Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant Lab
• Instagram: @emilyreaganpr 
• Facebook: @emilyreaganpr

3 ways we can work together: 

1. Get on the waitlist for the Live Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School. My signature course on digital marketing implementation will give you the confidence and teach you HOW to do the work that’s in demand and highly marketable. This is the secret weapon to getting booked out. Or get started now with the Self-Study version of UDMA School here.
2. Got the skills but need help getting your digital marketing services business to take off? I’ve got an advanced tight-knit referral and networking community that can help and I would love for you to apply here for the Digital Marketing Workgroup. You’ll get the latest updates and trainings, networking opps and job leads from online business owners who are looking to hire digital marketing implementers and assistants.
3. Looking for a fast way to get your foot in the door with up-to-date skills? Take my 2-hour Quickstart to Facebook Community Management workshop and learn how to help online business owners like course creators and membership site owners manage and engage their community

>>> Download my Top Ten Most Requested Digital Marketing Tasks & Services 

I loved Emily's direct style of teaching inside Udma school. She gives you a glimpse of the strategy, but then exact step by step instructions on how to actually do the work, which is exactly what I was looking for. My name's Rachel. I live in England, and I used to be an administrative assistant, but now I'm a business transformation specialist. Boundaries will help you be happier, more productive, actually enjoy your work and your relationships and your personal life, and they will help you make more money. Hey, everyone. I'm Emily Reagan, and you've discovered Unicorns unite. This is a podcast for freelancers, service providers, virtual assistants, and curious listeners who would like to experience the freedom and flexibility of working virtually.

We're the magic makers, movers and shakers, and the real people doing the work behind the scenes of online businesses. Welcome to Unicorns Uniteveregh. Hey, welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Emily Reagan, a fellow freelancer. And I have lived through the hard knocks of life of being a freelancer. Balancing being a stay at home mom of four kids, being a military sauce and moving all the time and juggling the client work. And there's one thing that I have seen that can make or break a freelancer. I know I talk a lot about the soft skills that we have to have to be self reliant, to be diligent, to persevere, to not fear rejection, all of that is important.

But when it comes to success, to being profitable, to working with great clients who treat you well and pay you well and value you, boundaries are what make or break us. And it's really hard when a lot of us come from different backgrounds. We have people pleasing tendencies. We have trauma that's still inside, that we're working through. And then when we go into this weird area of self employed contractor, but yet working with four clients, it can get a little fuzzy. And boundaries are what protect you. They protect your behavior and how you react to things, not necessarily them. What I hate saying is, when a new freelancer works with a client who just doesn't know any better, and then the VA or the freelancer, the marketing assistant, doesn't know any better either.

And then it becomes a working relationship that makes you anxious, that makes you feel not valued, that makes you feel stressed, which leaks your energy. And that's not what I want. And we're gonna practice flexing our boundary muscles through the course of being self employed. I mean, we do it in the workplace. It's just sometimes not always as obvious. But we have clear job descriptions, you know, clear hierarchies and chains of command who we work with. But in the online space, it's really up to you. There's no HR department that's going to come protect you.

It's up to you to stand up for yourself. And so I really recommend if this is something you struggle with in your personal life, the book of boundaries. Set the limits that will set you free by Melissa Urban. She was a co founder of whole 30, and she has a great book on this. And you can go way beyond any kind of workplace boundary if you have this problem in your personal life, if you find yourself putting others needs before yours, this would be a good sign. You need some boundaries in your life. And really, this is to protect you so that your business can be successful. Because what will happen? Clients will cancel appointments.

They'll be in long Zoom meetings. They'll pull you into task that day. They'll pause on something and then restart it and expect it to be done really quickly. They'll expect you to be accessible, or even when you're on vacation or after 10:00 at night. They might ask you to do questionable things. They might micromanage you and not make you feel like the expert that you are, that you've worked up to be. So this is why we need boundaries, so we don't feel guilty, anxious, and scared. So the last podcast episode, we talked to one of our workgroup members and UdMA students, Ashley sun, and she kind of shared a couple stories of her learning what's okay and what's not, when to flex the muscles and when to stand up for herself.

And what I see happening for me personally is if I can just practice the little moments of like, actually, no, this is a hard no for me. I'm going to hold this boundary. I'm not going to rescind my boundary. Your confidence grows. It's actually a good exercise for you to feel more confident as a freelancer. And here's the thing. When you can get on a discovery call, go over a proposal with a client, and you're very clear about what you do and what you don't do and how you work best, and say, listen, this is my zone of genius. This is where you'll get the most excellent work, and this is what you deserve from me and anything else that puts me in, that will not be helping out you and your business.

Here's the thing about boundaries. Once you get started with a client, you might have to go back and restate them. You might have to have another conversation, especially if you didn't set one in the beginning. And this is so normal. So if you feel it, this, like, creepage with your clients, that's okay. And it's not too late to enforce boundaries. So I wanted to go over this a little bit, because I see the most talented people out of the gate get one bad client, and it can ruin them. It can make them want to quit.

And we all know the panicky moment where we're like, oh, God, now I'm losing time and energy and profit. Something went haywire. Now this client wants more and more. Now I'm giving away more than what I originally said I would do. I don't feel like I'm charging them enough. Like, listen to that little voice. And here's the thing is, our clients aren't mind readers. Most of the time, they're just in their own business, not really thinking.

Most of them are not doing this maliciously. They want the best out of you. They want the best work quality. They want you to love their business. And most of them just don't know. But you have to tell them what your limit is. Now, Melissa gives us three steps for boundaries. You identify it.

You set the boundary with clear and kind language. It feels scary, but it's kind. It's kind to let people know, and they'll know what your hard limit is. They'll know what the consequences. And then the third step is actually holding the boundary and keeping yourself accountable. You might have to restate it, reinforce it, and this is on you. And I just want you to know that there are very high level, established service providers going through this. I actually just had a mastermind meeting the other week, and someone who's very high up in the coaching world was saying she struggled with the same thing.

She didn't set boundaries early, and it's gotten to the point where it's kind of eating her up. She did the big, brave thing, sent the email, asked to get on a call so she could talk about it. Boundaries are not about constriction. They're not about scarcity. It's not like a diet. But they are a contract agreement between yourself and other people, and in this case, clients, because that's what we're doing. We're offering a digital service. We're working with clients in an independent contractor level.

Boundaries are about creating a culture for yourself, where you enjoy your life, because isn't that the point of why we're freelancing? We don't need all this crap hanging over us. If we have decided that our work day ends at five. It ends at five. You want a joyful life. That's why you're here. That's why you're doing it. So how do you know when your boundaries aren't working? Well, it's that burned out, that taken advantage of failing, that guilty feeling. And that's not good for you.

Like the high spikes of cortisol, that stress hormone, that's not good. It's not good for your body. That's why we just had Erica diamond on the show talking about a self care and burnout and making sure that we prioritize ourselves so you don't become sick, tired and depressed or decide to walk away from your business. Boucies will help you be happier, more productive, actually enjoy your work and your relationships and your personal life, and they will help you make more money. I think that's the thing people don't understand. In your business, the most successful business owners, the most successful service providers have solid boundaries. They communicate them and they enforce them. Otherwise, we can fall into this cycle of self sabotage and we lose our power, we lose our confidence, and it arose away at us.

So you have to know what you want. You have to brain dump everything you want in your life that makes you happy, from work to relationships. How you use your time and then brain dump everything you don't want. And do this in one setting. Keep it out, work on it through the week. Have it this ongoing, evolving brain dump. Think about how you want your time to be, what needs to be on your calendar, what you want to prioritize, and then think about what you want your day to feel like, your week to feel like. So that's a good place to start.

And letting someone else run over your time or dictate your schedule is exactly why we are not employees. And also, FYI, I know you've heard me talk about this before, but if you are a contractor, you are not an employee, and your clients cannot tell you when and where and how to do the work. It's a whole thing in the contractor world so that you don't get in trouble with, you know, the Department of Labor and the IR's, so your clients don't. And then I want you to think about your relationships, your personal life, your business life. What do you actually want? Be selfish. What do you want and what do you want to feel like that. Define what you want first. And then it comes to communication.

I think this is the hard part. So I was going to go over a couple examples of sticky points. As a service provider. Now we talk a lot about this inside Unicorn digital marketing assistant school, which is opening soon. We also talk a lot about this in the work group because once things get going, it can feel difficult and heavy and yucky and scary to walk it back and have this conversation. And sometimes having cheerleaders in your corner encouraging you to do it, telling you how they did it, giving you the right script, can make all the difference. Inside Edma school we have weekly coaching calls, and a lot of those are actually focused on the business management and the client management. How do you communicate with your clients? And the key is to be kind and direct, not being fuzzy.

And we talk about how even our proposal and our contract is really the basis for us to have these continued conversations. But it's a refining process. You're going to make mistakes and it's okay to have that shitty first draft, right? It's okay to just get started, not overthink it. Just don't lock yourself into a one two year contract because you can always renegotiate the scope, the communication channels, office hours and all of that. Now, one key way to phrase things is what you want rather than I need. I want this time together to be exciting, helpful, practical. That's different than I need it to be. It makes it a little bit more whiny and about you.

So really pay attention to your tone and how you communicate and ask what the other person wants. Make sure you're on the same page here because you can go into negotiation mode and work through some things, but you need a starting place here. You know, we already swim a little bit against the work culture because we're freelancing. We're doing something a little bit different. So use this as energy to do this for yourself. What if you have a client who's imposing ridiculous deadlines? Well, if you want this in two days, I'll have to drop something else. What would you like prioritized? If you want me to focus solely on this project, will you authorize overtime? Will you pay the rush fees? Get your client to say, yes, this is what I want. I could make this deadline, but only if this happens.

Your call. It's a good way to handle clients who make their rushed mistakes and failure to plan your problem. Okay, so then they keep putting stuff on your plate and you're already at capacity and yet they don't have the budget. And then they have you feeling guilty because they don't have the money for it or whatever. Oh, just one more thing. One more thing. Can you get this done or. I just had somebody say, oh, I'd like it by Tuesday.

I'm like, no, actually, Tuesday doesn't work for me. You can have it by Friday. I just had this conversation. I can add this to my workload, but you'll have to take other tests off my plate. They'll have to be pushed to the back burner. Like, this is what I'm working on. This is the percentage complete. This is the status, these are the deadlines.

Like, which ones do you choose? Again, your choice. Let the client say that. And there's nothing wrong with saying, I'm at a breaking point and I actually cannot handle anything new right now. And this is why VA is not going to save your business and take over everything and be the Frankenstein role for everything. At some point, your clients will need to hire additional people, augment with other contractors, get someone specialized. It's normal to bring someone in during a launch or marketing campaign to help. And that's cool. They can do that.

That's not on you. You don't take on more and more work. What about when they ask you to do something at the end of the day? Oh, I feel like this always happened to my husband. 04:00 Friday Pentagon everything is important. Must stay late. And you say, I can't tonight, but I can help you Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I think it's important that you give them a picture of when you can. And you're not just saying no, you're saying, yeah, I'd love to.

And this is when my calendar will allow it. And this is just standing up for yourself. Right. All right, so you have the client that's constantly chatty in the zoom meetings, and the meetings just are kind of worthless. They become like shoot the breeze, you know? Yes, we want connection with our clients, so we also want to move on with our day. And yeah, you're charging for these meetings. Make sure your client knows from the beginning, from that discovery call, from that proposal, from that contract that you charge for all meetings and all communication. That's the question I get all the time.

But if your meetings are running long, say, hey, I only have an hour for this meeting. You want to give me an agenda ahead of time or prepare an action list ahead of time? Or, you know, I only have an hour for this call, so let's stick with our agenda. You can also say, I have a hard stop in 30 minutes and we can continue the conversation in email or slacken. You set the tone at the beginning, and this is a good discovery call tip we talk about in unicorn digital marketing assistant school. You start off the call with that expectation. If you're exploring your options, if you're doing your research, if you're collecting all the ideas, and if you're looking for ways to work digitally, I invite you to attend my free info session. How to become a virtual assistant on Tuesday, September 10 at 12:00 p.m. eastern, I'm laying everything on the table with what you need to know about the VA industry and starting your own business as a digital service provider.

This is so you can work from home, offering skills that are in your wheelhouse with all of the freedom and flexibility that you need in your life. If you've been wanting to get started, need the building blocks and want to know how to get your foot in the door as a virtual assistant and beyond, make sure you save your seat. It's a no pitch, safe place to learn the ropes of what you need to know to run your own independent contractor business with a Q and A at the end. So tell your smart friends about it and make sure you sign up. The registration link is in the show notes. You can also go to emilyragenpr.com info to sign up for our info session. How to become a virtual assistant I'll see you there. What about the client that's constantly cancelling appointments on you or showing up late? And they ignore your 24 hours cancellation policy, so make sure that's in your agreement.

Detailed cancellation policy and fees require that they give you a credit card. And if they don't show up, just like the spa, just like the doctor, you will charge them. And if they don't agree to these terms, release them as clients. You want someone who respects your time. Okay, you're going to be late. Thanks for letting me know. Since you're canceling within 24 hours, I'll charge your card per your client agreement. And that's the big trick.

Per our client agreement, per our contract, this is now the consequence. So your contract really sets you up. Now you're probably asking, oh God, I need a better contract. I'll put a link to my friend Brayden Drake's contract vault. You can grab his contract and he has some great trainings. It's only dollar 30. I am an affiliate. I could earn a little bit of money from that.

But really, I just want you to have a good contract and understand we also have a six page lawyer written contract inside my freelance business, Kickstarter and the UDMA school. So we got you covered there. It covers different kinds of projects. And then you have your statement of work so if you're going in for different projects, additional things, you can have yourself covered there. Now, if you have a lot of clients who are bugging you, wanting strategy, just kind of interrupting your day, you're like, hey, I have some thoughts for you. I'd love to talk about your business, but right now I'm at capacity. We can talk at the end of the week. We can talk next week.

Like steer them to your schedule, your calendar, booking link to have those conversations for later. Sometimes they want to continue after a project is over and you still need to have the same conversation. Unfortunately, I can't help you because we have a new contract. This project is over, our time is up, and I've got other clients now, but you can get on my schedule here to continue that. What if you have a client who wants to pick your brain for strategy all the time, but you're only getting paid for execution level task, you're charging hourly. It's a great muscle for you to give strategy. And I talk a lot about going above and beyond, but when it starts to feel icky, when it feels like the clients are running with your idea and you're not being rewarded, that is not good. Sometimes we can keep the ideas to ourself, and I like to train your brain.

Okay, what would I do in this situation? Or what would I advise? Listen, I had a client take my idea and go make 30k off a webinar from my idea. I was not happy about that. I did not stand up for myself. I've run into situations in the work group where clients have wanted to take their designs or their work or their copy and sell it and not even ask the service provider if that was okay or part of the contract. That doesn't feel good, especially when somebody is making money off of you. And that's what strategy sessions feel like. Now I have a whole podcast dedicated to becoming a strategist. There is a little messy startup phase where you're gaining your confidence and learning how to do it.

But once you're solid, once you have that strategy call on your offer page that we talked about, this is what you will say. You have to set these clear boundaries with a professional tone. You have to to protect yourself. This is money that is not going to your family's bank account because you're giving it away free and it should be higher. Most people charge 100, 200, 300, $500 an hour for consulting a thousand. I know people who do a thousand, so don't give it away. Hey, I would love to help you strategize but this falls out the scope of the current work we've agreed upon. Our current work focuses on execution tasks.

If you'd like to explore strategic planning together, be happy to discuss a separate engagement for that and then give them the booking link that has the price. This approach highlights that you're open. You're setting clear expectations about what you're actually getting paid for, but you're still open and committed to their business. And be enthusiastic like that. So what if you're on vacation or you're planning for vacation and they expect you to reply to email? You don't want to hose yourself and say, oh, I'll get back to it first thing because you know, coming back from vacation, it doesn't go down like that. Reentry is a bitch. You don't want to say, oh, I'll just be on my email a little bit. Like, don't do that.

We all know when you go on vacation we don't want to be on our email. Unless you're avoiding someone or something or you get really bad weather, you will have your phone there in front of you. But you do not need to be checking email and getting assignments and having to log into project management tools. So do not say, I might be able to check it here and there. You'll say, I'm out next week. You have any questions, you can ask so and so, but always remind them I won't be on email. I've turned off my slack notifications. So and so has taken over for the project, so we worked ahead.

I don't anticipate anything, only text me if there's an emergency, but don't text me and then put your away message on in your inbox. You can also send emails out and apply this to evening text. If your clients are texting you too late at night, don't even respond. Don't enable them, don't teach them. If you want to work that night, you can set your emails to go out 08:00 a.m. the next day. Don't let your clients see you working late at night. Don't be a voxer holic where you're constantly checking your apps and your notifications and being completely accessible because you're training your clients that you are available.

If this has already happened to you and you've gone a little too friendly with clients, sometimes they'll say, hey, I'm going to send you voxers at five in the morning. They are not important. I just need to get it out. I'm like that's cool. I have all my notifications off. And by the way, if you're just listening to this and you don't know, voxer is a walkie talkie app that I love. It lets you have asynchronous conversations with your clients. If you just need to avoid a Zoom meeting and have a quick little conversation, quick little clarity.

If you don't want the work holding you back by your client or something they need to tell you. Voxer can be great, but it can also feel like a doorway to your life that they can enter anytime they want. So you can say, hey, going forward, if it's after hours, can you please not text me unless it's an emergency? Slack and email is better after 06:00 p.m. i just won't be answering it. Thank you. Like call it out when it happens. I did have a client who used to text me at 10:00 p.m. with her ideas.

She was so excited about her business. Problem was, I was too. These boundaries were for me, so I was more present with my kids so I could turn my brain off and actually rest and give it some downtime so I could come back and be even more creative and on fire with her marketing the next day. When you're available all the time through this technology, it will wear you down occasionally. We've had somebody ask, I've heard some stories in the work group to do something almost unethical or just didn't feel right, and this is where you can say no to, because in the end your reputation is at stake. I'm not comfortable with that. We've had issues of clients wanting to copy what other people are doing, from words to design to just stealing, straight up stealing, to logging into someone's course and taking information say no, I'm not comfortable with that. I'd rather not be involved at this stage.

Thank you for respecting that. Now my clients, they always trust me and they deserve to hear the truth, and I'm just not comfortable with that. But I'd rather focus on XYZ. What else we're doing. One of the things we come across a lot is test projects prospects asking you to give away free work but not paying for it. And that's also a boundary. I'd be happy to do this for you and demonstrate that I can understand and adapt to your business and help you out. But I only do this as paid work.

The most successful people say no to the things that are in the way of what they want. No becomes easier when you start practicing when you stand up for yourself, when you deeply, deeply know you are worthy of that protection as well. Sometimes we hit these rock bottom moments where we're like, damn, I gave that away. That didn't feel good. I said yes to a project right before a vacation, and I should have said no. And then it's easy to beat yourself up. But that's okay. It's not too late.

You can turn it around. You can practice saying no again. In the future, you're going to have another opportunity. You're going to have so many opportunities to say no. And every time you do it, it gets stronger. And I don't know about you, but I want my girls and my son to be good at saying no. So in those rough situations that are going to happen, that they do the right thing for themselves, you could turn around and say no again in the future. If you have avoided, if you have deferred, if you have felt too guilty, felt too anxious and nervous, this is all good.

Inside Unicorn digital marketing Assistant School we have a confidence training that we do at Jen Gross. So to really help you feel it, to teach your body this even when you don't believe it, and the more you practice it, it will come true. And there are science based neuro things you can do to build up your confidence rather than just faking it till you make it. I also have an episode with Jen Grosso. You could go listen to that if you need that. Right now. We have a whole mindset series that we did last summer, three really good episodes that will help you with confidence and imposter syndrome because it's going to happen. We all have those little voices in there.

But the successful people stand up for themselves. They set the tone in their working relationships, and they adhere to it. If you're already freelancing and working with clients, you know it because you're so eager to please. You want the good testimonial. You want the good results. But I remember the story that Amy Porterfield shared where they had a copywriter and they knew, oh, my gosh, we have to get the copywriter everything before the weekend because she will not work on the weekend. So we got to get our acting gear. Clients will prioritize the service provider with boundaries.

I hired Savira Regent to help me with my sales page, and I knew I only had a week with her. She was very clear from our discovery call to her statement of work, to our contract when our project started and when it stopped. And I knew that I better get my butt in gear and I better listen to her and respect her boundaries and her timeline and how she chooses to spend her time. She doesn't want to be thinking about my business twenty four seven and I cannot blame her if you have clients who expect that it will probably be time for a new client. I have another good episode coming about client management that we'll talk about next week, so I hope you found this helpful. A little bit of a tough love. I would love to know in the DM's could you just let me know? Like what boundary, what little client sticky situation are you struggling with the most? Because I would love to be able to answer that. Maybe I could do a real or just give you a pep talk back in the DM's to help encourage you what to say, how to take your emotions out of it and just set a really strong boundary so you can love your work again, so you can work on the things that will make you the most money and you'll love your life.

That's my goal for you. Make money, love your life. Could that be more vague? Don't forget the unicorn digital marketing assistant school is opening in October. If you are an alum or a self starter student, you are welcome to join us in this live cohort. It will go on through Christmas over twelve weeks where we'll be learning the marketing services, the client management, the business setup so you can be successful, work from home on your own terms. You can go check out what's inside Udma school and join our priority list so you're the first to be notified when it opens@udmaschool.com. i'm also here for any chats in the DM if you have any questions. If this is the best fit for you, I'm here to support you.

I'm here to encourage you. And I just want you to know that you are worth it. You are worth having boundaries. You are worth going after your dreams. You are worth building the life you've always wanted. We'll see you next week. If you want to start earning income as a digital marketing service provider or digital marketing assistant, you only need your laptop. You can tap into what online business owners really need help with by downloading my top ten most requested tasks.

These are the services I did for years for my clients behind the scenes. You can take this download and apply it to your own business and start by offering these very same services. If you want a niche down in digital marketing, this is your guide. Just use the link in the show notes or go to emilyraganpr.com services. I am not going to change. I am not going to. What's the word? Oh, great. Here comes the lawnmower.