Setting Boundaries / Meeting Notes February 2019

Location: Alloro Restaurant, Holiday Inn Burlington

Attendees: Jenn, Jacquie, Pam, Marianne, Christine, Salma

Guests

We welcomed two guests at this meeting:

Christine:

She came all the way from Georgetown. Currently she works full-time as a school secretary but is anxious to move on from that. She does transcription work on the side, but wants to start her own business. One interest she mentioned was social media. She’s interested in joining the group to help give her the motivation to get started, and also to confirm that it’s the right decision to do.

Marianne:

She came from Oakville and is a full-time admin person at Sedexo. However, she has been operating her own business “Time Flies Admin” for the past 5 years. She does invoicing, data entry, blogs, Mailchimp/Constant Contact, etc. One thing she shared was that she did lots of networking to get started. She was interested in finding out about the group and what things she could learn or might bring to the table.

Agenda Topics

Next Meeting:

All agreed that we liked Alloro and would use it for our next meeting.

Work on Your Business Day:

We discussed this. Everyone thought it was a good idea to find time to focus on business improvements and to get things done that always fall behind.

Future Meeting Topics:

The new members were very interested in some of the experience that Salma had, especially when she was talking about various Linked-In apps to use, and that sort of thing. We all agreed that Salma should get a meeting to discuss some of her computer/social media tips! She thought that maybe a Tuesday in mid-June would work for her.

Other News:

We’re all very excited for Salma’s trip later this year!

Client contacts you at end of day

1. Don’t answer the phone if it’s after your “stop” time
2. Answer the phone but only get enough information to call them back another time, although this risks a half-hour call if they have a lot of information to share!
3. Answer the phone but ask them to email the details rather than explaining, and say you’ll get back to them next business day.

Client requests different work

1. Refer to someone whom you know does it
2. Agree to do it but make sure that you are clear about expectations and costs. This brought up a discussion about contracts and whether people had them or not. Half the group did, the other half did not. It was commented that this is a good idea not only to communicate your rates and terms, but also the scope of what work you will or won’t do. But some people have never used them nor saw the need.
3. Agree to do it and then learn it later!

Client phones during evening or weekend – do you answer?

There were a number of perspectives (and these comments weren’t necessarily restricted to calls during evening and weekend, but calls at anytime)

After hours and weekend:

1. No, because then you’re setting a precedent that you’ll be available to them 24/7
2. Maybe, only if you happen to be working.

Some people take Saturdays off but work Sunday, so would never pick up anything on a Saturday.  Others might be working all weekend, but will only pick up if they recognize the number and were waiting for that information. They would pick and choose – but then they didn’t mind their clients knowing they sometimes were available.

During a regular work day:

1. No, because you don’t want them to think you’re just sitting there with nothing to do so that you can take their call. Also, you don’t want to set a precedent that you’re always there to answer.
2. Yes, because availability and responsiveness are things that a client values. However, this does lead into a bit of trouble because if one day you’re not as responsive, people keep calling to find out if you’re okay!

Client emails during an evening or weekend – same issue.

The answers were the same as above, but then an interesting tidbit came up: In Outlook, you can respond to emails during the weekend, but “defer” them so that they don’t get sent until Monday morning. Therefore nobody knows you were working on the weekend, even though you were able to get a fair bit of work done. This was from Salma and might be something for her to show during her meeting in June.

Partner or child insists on hanging out in your office while you’re working:

It was agreed that everyone should set strict guidelines. A partner should really know better, and should also help with the child.

1. A good solution is time-blocking – set times when the children can come in for a visit, so that they know when they can.
2. Set clear guidelines for the partner – maybe if the door is closed, or a file box is blocking the area, they are to know “do not disturb!”

Other:

We discussed how emails take up a lot of time.

Some people suggested that they only checked emails at certain times. Others try to attend to them quickly as they came in if they would take less than 5 minutes.

There was a discussion about whether you should reply to an email saying you’ve received it and will get back to them – it was agreed that if it was taking you longer than “normal” to respond, that you probably should do so.

The Outlook option of deferring emails was another option – to answer but send later so that they didn’t think you jump on them every time.

Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels