The A to Z challenge and writing about woman entrepreneurs. You may read the previous posts here.
B is for Business Plan
Y is for Yes
In your journey as an entrepreneur the essence of your experience should involve feeling happy and abundant. The act of running a business should make you feel free and uplifted. If all that you feel is driven to slog due to anxiety to make it all work, you are not in alignment with your life purpose. If the only thoughts that come to your mind when thinking about your business are causing you to feel burnout, you definitely need to change what you are doing.
It is time to sit down and think about the reasons why you are trying to run a business in the first place. What do you want to create? The ultimate goal of running a successful business needs to be defined for you. What is correct for you need not be correct for someone else.
Take for instance life coaching. One coach may be happy to help two people in the month, another may have the desire to work with ten people in the same time. However, in order to achieve that goal, they may be burning themselves out, while the person coaching just two people in the month is feeling aligned and satisfied.
Are you feeling the burnout because you are saying "Yes" to others so often, that you are scattering your energies. If there no flow to your work because you can't say "No" to people who want something from you. Your business may have been created to serve a certain purpose for your clients, yet, you need to feel happy and fulfilled when devoting your time and effort towards this goal.
Learning to say "No" is an important skill in keeping yourself rejuvenated. Unfortunately you have been socially conditioned to accept and fulfil unrealistic demands. Most people need to learn how to say "No" politely and without burning your bridges at a chance of working with the same client in the future.
The Exercise
What You Will Need: Clarity and Practice
It takes courage to say no to a potential client. You will need to practice this as you will feel as though you are letting people's expectations down. It helps with the process if you can let potential clients know in advance just what they can expect and no further. A pre-emptive "No" can be worked into your interactions with them through previous conversations letting them know what you are currently preoccupied with.
When it's something you don't do:
- When a client asks you to do something that exceeds the scope of your work, be polite and firm with your denial. You can say something like "I am sorry, but I'm afraid that won't be possible." Then you can go on and explain the scope of what you can handle and why it won't be possible for you to do what they are asking.
- Offering an alternative is also a good strategy. If you can't take on a task that a client wants you to, it helps to collaborate with others who are offering similar goods and services to yours who will do what the client requires. This way, you are not saying a definitive "No", instead you are redirecting them to someone who can do the work for them.
When you don't have the time to do something:
- If the client is extremely pushy, you need to work on maintaining the original "No". Some people simply don't give up easily, and this gives you an opportunity to practice staying resolute with what you have said. You can say something like "I truly appreciate your confidence in my abilities, but at the moment my plate is full and I simply will not be able to take on a project of this size for another six months."
- Be prepared to miss out on the opportunities in the future. If the client can't wait for you, they will find someone else to accommodate them. This means that they may not return to you in the future. So, you should be willing to take the risk of losing their business altogether.
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