R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Sing it Aretha!

I want YOU to sing it loud and proud too my Esthy sister-friend 🙂

In today’s fast paced world, everybody is busy. We’re all racing around trying to get everything done and we all have the near daily experience of dropping into bed at night with items left on our to-do list. There’s no sign of things slowing down so now more than ever, we all need to be mindful and respectful of each other’s time. We all get the same number of hours in each day and no person’s time is more valuable than another’s.

In our industry, this means that we do not disrespect our clients’ time by running late and AND we do not tolerate our clients running late and disrespecting our time.

Last week, I shared with you about how a fellow Esthy handled her last minute cancellations. This week, I want to talk about a few ways that you can dramatically reduce no-shows and cancellations.

Step 1: Create high standards for yourself. Keeping in mind that you teach people how to treat you, you must begin by creating high standards for your own behavior. An example would be saying, I will respect other’s time as I wish them to respect mine. Then stick to this.

Standards are the guidelines for how we show up and conduct ourselves in the world, they are what we demand of ourselves in order to stay in integrity and be the kind of people we want to be.

Step 2: Create strong boundaries. Once you’ve created high standards for yourself, it’s time to create some strong boundaries for others.

Boundaries are the guidelines for how we allow others to treat us. You don’t have to have an explanation for them, you just have to be clear on what they are. Then, you have to be sure that you stick to them. They will not be effective if you change them under pressure, out of fear, or to be over accommodating.

Think about your business boundaries or your policies:

• What is your cancellation policy?
• What is your “I’m running late” policy?
• Do your clients get an occasional “free pass” and if so what does this look like?

Think of some other recurring issues in your biz and create some guidelines for how you would like those things handled – do this now before you’re facing the situation.

Step 3. Communicate your boundaries. With boundaries, we have to be sure we’ve communicated them clearly to those around us so they can act accordingly.

You might send a nice informative newsletter listing your polices. You might, post them on your social media pages. I recommend that at a minimum, you add the info to your client intake forms and include it on your website.

• Be Clear – Details are important. Most mishaps (in my biz, anyway) have happened because I assumed my clients understood something, and I realized after the fact, that I could have used more clarity and avoided the misunderstanding all together.
• Be Confident. – I’ll defer to Norman Vincent Peale on this one…

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Step 4. Be a mature and professional business owner (even if you don’t necessarily own the business).

Create protocols of how you will handle incidents that violate your boundaries. For each boundary, have a step by step list for how you will handle things when someone pushes or violates it.

Handle any incidents that do arise from a place of business not emotion. Sticking to the boundaries you’ve set shows you are a professional, while wavering or bending the rules makes things personal.

Sticking to your boundaries might be scary and you might lose a client or two but you won’t lose your ideal, respectful clients. Having high standards for yourself and strong boundaries with others ultimately makes you more desirable and attractive… not less so.

Bottom line: If you want to be taken seriously in business or life, you have to present yourself that way first.