KimOn this segment of Q & A Day, I discuss how to avoid burnout in your business. Previously, I’ve spoken about connecting to your overall vision and the art of delegation and automation. These skills are key to building a solid foundation and having a concrete plan to move forward in your business.
In this segment, I want to talk about something that I feel is largely responsible for service industry entrepreneurs experiencing burnout: boundaries. In a service based industry, it is important to ask if you have firm boundaries in place. Let’s face it, the answer might be no. You might find yourself bargaining your time and knowledge for clients in the form of free consultations, but in the end feeling drained. This might be due to the lack of firm boundaries in place.
Why Boundaries are Important to Avoid Burnout in Your Business
The importance of boundaries and how to set them has two parts.
- First, creating firm boundaries starts in the sales and onboarding of clients. For the purposes of this series, I want you to start getting your mind focused on boundaries around your business at the moment, whether that is on the tasks of present clients or potential ones. Do you find yourself in multiple consultations and struggling to ask the right questions or find ways to move forward with a potential client’s issues? Having a clear understanding of what you want your consultations to entail is crucial for creating solid systems that work for you and the client. Creating this system helps you be more confident and convert those prospects into clients more effectively.
- Another part of boundary creation is understanding the line between helping a client complete a task and enabling a client to be complacent in having you do it for them. How often do you find yourself answering the same questions for clients even though they have all the information to answer it in front of them? How often do you, instead of repeating the answer, just end up doing it for them? In a lot of service industries, like coaching, the abundance of help for your clients can be seen as a good thing, but you also run the risk of what happens when you have too much of a good thing. Providing help is something we strive to do, but too much help often leads to disservice to our clients as they are enabled to stay in that rut.
Evaluate and Set Boundaries for Your Clients to Avoid Burnout in Your Business
Creating boundaries and sticking to them is so important as a business owner. When you have a structure in place, understand your plan of action, and know your daily action steps, setting boundaries becomes much easier. Take a step back and really evaluate where your boundaries might be sliding in your business. This perspective can be key to discovering any issues in your systems, instances where you might be taking more work from clients, or even any instances where delegation is needed.
Have a question you’d like answered? Send to: support@kimkelleythompson.com
