Articles about Boundaries for a one person business

Better to set boundaries to avoid negative conversations in the first place!

Always do these x3 things when you set boundaries as a freelancer…

1 Make it clear you’ve made an exception

The client often doesn’t even know you’re doing them a favour.

You need to let t hem know this is exceptional behaviour, that you’re going the extra mile.
Otherwise, they will always expect it, or won’t even know they were supposed tobe grateful…
Then you will be the unreasonable one for resenting it.

2 Put a cap on it.

If you do a favour, it will become the expected behaviour.
So don’t do it, unless you are willing to do it more than once.

The exception? if you set a limit.

So ALWAYS set a limit to the scope of the favour with clients.
🔹How many times will you do this thing?
🔹How long will you help?
🔹What IFs or BUTs will you set?

3 Take responsibility.

Saying yes is the easy option because it’s the path of least resistance NOW.
But it will mean harder options later.

So you need to commit.
If you don’t want to do it, do the hard thing and say no.
Otherwise, make sure you’re happy doing it.

Remember…

Pushing boundaries is just human.
Override your instinct to get annoyed or pushback
People will offload problems onto others.
Your job is to try to be helpful and help as much as you are willing,
but also to decide in advance where the line is drawn so you aren’t caught off guard.

If you agree because you feel forced but then resent the client for it, that’s on you!

If they react poorly, then that’s on them…

Getting asked for free favours as a freelancer is practically a right of passage. It must be something in the name….😅

Ok so here’s why those freelancer favours keep stinging you in the bum!

“give a penny, they’ll take a pound”
What a pessimistic saying! 😖
but it’s often true.

Think back…

Have you ever made a special exception to your policy, done someone a favour, or offered to do a free extra….
only for it to come back and bite you in the bum, as they ask for more and more and more! 😡

So you FINALLY stick your foot down and say “No more! I’ve done enough!”

But instead of being grateful for all those 50 free favours you did, all those hours, all that extra work…
They are the ones who are annoyed when you say no!

WHAT?!

But why wouldn’t they be annoyed?
Here’s why…

From their POV:
They have had it for free so far, now you’re going to charge them for this thing?!
When this happens, you probably weren’t clear about your conditions at the start.

I like to try to force myself to assume everthing is my responsibility, even if it isn’t my fault.
Most often when favours get out of hand, I see it as my fault for not setting better boundaries.
I knew that client was an askhole, so it’s my fault for not saying no more.

You don’t want to be the person who doesn’t help anyone out though…
It’s important to be flexible and generous, not just in business, but in life too.

So if you want to keep doing freebies or favours WITHOUT turning into a Scrooge….
There are lots of strategies for dealing with awkward conversations with clients.
But it’s much better to just set better boundaries to avoid those conversations in the first place!

Always do these x3 key things when you’re asked to do favours as a freelancer.

1 Make it clear it’s an extra

This is important.
The client often doesn’t even know you’re doing them a favour,
they are probably unaware it’s costing you time or stress,
or that you’re going out of your way to be helpful.
So make sure you tell them this favour costs you to help them out more.

2 Put a cap on it.

If you do a favour, it will quickly become the expected behaviour.
So don’t do it, unless you are willing to do it more than once.

But I like to be generous with my clients, and most of the time I genuinely want to help.
So there is a way around this if you want to help your client out this one time…

ALWAYS set a limit to the scope of the favour with clients.

🔹How many times will you do this thing?
🔹How long will you help?
🔹What IFs or BUTs will you set?
🔹What happens the next time they ask for the same thing?

Setting a backstop is the best way to save yourself from resentment.
Pre-address any additions, follow-ons or extra asks.
Now you can be generous, knowing that there is a limit.

Make sure you let them know these when you accept,
Otherwise, it’s your fault that they will keep coming back for more,
if they don’t have an endpoint, then why wouldn’t they?

3 Take responsibility.

Saying yes is the easiest option because it’s the path of least resistance.
But you need to commit.
If you don’t want to do it, do the hard thing and say no.
Otherwise, make sure you’re happy doing it, and do it happily.

So take responsibility.
Try to override your instinct to get annoyed or pushback.

Bonus: Stall

If you struggle to override your feelings of annoyance, then avoid responding straight away as you may react poorly.

Most “unreasonable asks” will catch you offguard, they are often thrown in at the end of a conversation, or after a much smaller ask.

Instead practice this line over and over again:

“hmm, let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.”

It’s very hard to push back on this line without appearing unreasonable:

“What do you have to think about?” | “I need an answer now ”  |   “is it a yes or a no?”

These pushback responses come across as rude, and now the asker is the one who looks unreasonable.

Stalling allows your thinking brain to override your emotional brain.

You can just tell them you’ll get back to them about it later, or by email.

In my experience, if you stall for a few days, most people sort their own shit out anyway.

Give it a day, they usually magically find that email they were searching for, they manage to figure out how to work the printer, they couldn’t wait so they caught the bus instead etc. 😅

Bonus 2: don’t take it personally.

Remember asking for favours is just human behaviour.
People will try to offload their problems onto others. This too is natural human behaviour.

Your job is to try to be helpful and help as much as you are willing,
but also to make sure you communicate clearly,
and decide in advance where the line is drawn so you aren’t caught off guard.
If you agree because you feel forced but then resent the client for it, that’s on you!
If they react poorly, then that’s on them.

Hey Nick,

I’m doing a website for a friend. We agreed on payment but I now find he doesnt have any images, no font nor color palettes. Text is from Wikipedia.

He said that Im free to do whatever I want but If I just throw in some fonts and pick a random color, is that good for either of us?

These things are going to cost extra because I dont want to deliver half baked goods.

Don’t want to end up in yet another situation where Im doing stuff for free.

What would you suggest?

Hey ****

Ooh good one. This is a very common situation!
A lot of web designers will forge ahead, and use their experience and expertise to select fonts, colours, source photography etc.
This is what I used to do.
You find yourself basically giving away a mini branding project for free within the price of a website.

Then you resent the client for the freebies.
But the client probably isn’t even aware.

Your a designer right, you do the design?

Remember this is a natural assumption for the client to make, so you have to do a bit of education.
In future, you’ll know, to always ask these questions during the scope stage:

• “Do you have brand guidelines, or do you need me to quote for brand design?”
  • (and make sure you explain specifically what you need, not just a logo!)
• “will you be providing content or do you need copywriting?
  • Explain why good copy is important. It’s important because it helps you SELL.

Obviously, hindsight is a wonderful thing lol.

What if you’ve already started the project?

So the way to handle this is to get back on the phone,
and just explain that this is the quote you gave was based on a scope for web design only.
Simply explain you’ve realised he also needs help from you for other stuff which you need to design the site.
He’ll need copywriting since you can’t reuse content from wikipedia, you’ll get spanked on SEO.
He’ll need brand design as he doesn’t have a brand.

Normally you work from brand guidelines, or quote for brand design.
Normally client provides content, or pays for copywriting. (Though I always include “tweaking” and optimizing client content for conversion and SEO, it’s one of my unique selling poitns)

Brand guidelines usually include a logo, fonts, colours, as well as the brand in use in a variety of uses such as brochures, mockups, promotional imagery etc.
He doesn’t have a brand in place which means you can’t design the site.

You can help him design a brand for his business, but we’ll need to expand the scope to cover branding. Present your branding packages with specific prices and make a recommendation.

Clients sometimes struggle to understand why it costs more.
It’s just ideas, right?
I like to put things in the context of real-world things they can relate to:

Here’s some analogies you can use to help explain.

• “It’s a bit like trying to design a suit without the measurements.”
• “If you try to build a house without plans, It could turn into a mess!”
• “A logo is a symbol for your brand, but what is it symbolising? Your brand is the thing that’s going to help you attract the right customers and charge more, and this is what we’ll design the site around”
• “Why’s it going to cost extra? Well imagine you got your weekly shop, then at the checkout last minute you realised you also needed butter and milk. You’d expect the cashier to charge you extra right?”
• “I want to get the best result for you, and you’r really going to need a brand and copy to do this right”

Whatever you do, don’t do this…

Beware, when a client says any of these things:

• “Just do what you want”
• “I’m not fussy”
• “Use your initiative”
• “I’m not sure but I’ll know when I see it”

What they really mean is “I have no idea what I want, and I haven’t bothered to figure it out, so let’s do this by trial and error until you claw your eyes out with frustration”.

Design is about solving problems. You must figure out what the goal is before you can design the solution.

You must tease this out of them before proceeding. You can use different tools for this.

• Use questionnaires with multiple-choice answers.
• Ask open-ended questions.
• Get them to provide at least x3 examples.
• Jump on a call and look at moodboards.

Whatever it takes to get some concrete sense of direction from them.

You may find yourself under pressure to proceed, maybe they are in a rush or have a tight deadline.

But do not proceed without this or you’ll quickly find yourself in a spiralling number of revisions and vague feedback.

I promise you, when it all backfires, it will be YOUR ass that gets blamed for lack of results, not their lack of clarity.

If you have to charge extra or this part of your process, do so, as the client will get a better result.

Part of your service may be helping them figure out what they want or need.

This can often account for half of a project budget, depending on the client.

When you go back to the client….

• Don’t take it personally, they probably just don’t know any better. They aren’t a web designer after all!
• Know what you will and won’t do within the existing scope.
• Never do anything you aren’t happy to do, as you’ll only end up resenting doing the stuff you weren’t happy doing.
• Go back with a prepared quote ready, so you aren’t caught off guard and blurt something out.