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Self-Employed Freelancers & Small Businesses :How to Set Professional Standards & Boundaries in Your Home-Based Business
by Maria Marsala
Summary: Guidelines help us keep our focus! Use these ideas to create your
own professional standards and boundaries.
Create Professional Standards & Boundaries for Your Freelance Small Business
Professional
standards are strong guidelines for how you treat yourself within
your home business or freelance career.
They can include a code of ethics, guarantees,
how many hours you work, etc. Professional boundaries are about
how you want your clients to treat you within your business. They
can include requesting to be paid on time, honesty, how to cancel
appointments, how often they can contact you, etc. As each of
us evolve, it is common to "raise" our standards and
boundaries. January is an excellent month to review your "Professional
Standards and Boundaries". "10 Keys To Understanding
Boundaries and Standards" is one of my favorite articles
on this subject http://www.topten.org/public/BJ/BJ28.html.
Professional
standards and boundaries create a professional atmosphere around
your small business.
Sometimes they help you attract a higher caliber
of clients. Other times they reflect that your time and effort
are now worth more than they previously were . Whatever reason
you have for creating standards and boundaries, make sure that
you can stand by them, no matter what!
Your
new or updated standards and boundaries may - and will - annoy
customers. You may even lose clients.
Any time you set a new "rule",
someone is bound to be annoyed - and they'll let you know, too!
You are bound to hear things like "X" does that for
free, I'm only asking for 15 minutes of your time, guess you don't
want clients, among a variety of other things you'd prefer not
to listen to.
Learning
to not take things personally maybe difficult, however, it's a
very necessary part of evolving. One of the other big lessons
of setting boundaries - whether business or personal - is that
you don't owe anyone an explanation on the changes you're making.
We humans seem to think that when we say "no" we have
to explain ourselves. Yet, when we say "yes" we never
explain ourselves! When someone asks you why you've made a business
change, it's OK to give a simple answer like "it's a business
decision" or "it's best for me this way".
If
your home-based business is to continue to evolve, then now is the time to
review your Professional Standards and Boundaries.
I've set some
hefty ones myself within the past 12 months and will share some
of them with you as examples, as well as to let you know how my
services have changed.
I challenge you to create or update your
small, home-based business' professional standards and boundaries this month, too.
I
provide my clients with the highest level of services in a professional
manner. And then I come up with ways to make those services
even better.
I
continue to provide one free 30-minute consultation to individuals
who are interviewing coaches as part of the process of hiring
a coach. I have a new form for individuals to complete at www.coachmaria.com/consultation.
I no longer provide a free 30-minute consultation to everyone
who requests a consultation.
I
provide a special page of links to coaching schools, newspaper
articles about coaching, coaching referral sources, etc. to
anyone who is considering coaching as a career. www.coachmaria.com/business/coaching.html.
I do not provide free 30-minute consultations unless individuals
are conducting interviews as part of their process to hire a
Mentor Coach.
As
a benefit to my e-zine readers or members of organizations I
belong to, I provide between 15-25% off six months worth of
coaching-consultation services. Readers also receive 10% off
any teleseminars offered that cost over $50.
Every
teleminar or class taught in 2002 now costs "something".
$5 is still something! A complete events, speaker and teleseminar
listing has been updated at my site and can be viewed at http://www.coachmaria.com/events/index2.html.
For
individuals who are "thinking" about coaching but
are not ready to hire a coach at this time, I will continue
to provide "Free Friday's" a few times a year. These
sessions last 15 minutes each. Dates are announced in my e-zine
or in press releases and will not appear on my web site.
I
used to have one fee structure for my services. To make sure
that my services are available to the most individuals, I created
7 different types of coaching programs ranging from $40 to $1000
per month. I do provide partial scholarships, however, each
person who receives a scholarship provides me with services
equal to the scholarship amount.
I
have been a volunteer for more than 30 years. Now I volunteer
less outside my business realm. Instead, I volunteer my services
- locally as a speaker or to a client of a non-profit center,
free, for a certain amount of months.
My
clients receive referral fees when they refer my services
In
general, promoting competitive businesses is a bad marketing
tool - unless a business is overflowing with clients! Even in
my e-zine, I rarely promote businesses of other life and business
coaches or consultants. When I do promote another coaching business,
the business usually belongs to my coach (or former coach),
my clients, or a student from a class I've taught. Or I may
promote the business of a coach who does not coach my ideal
client.
Professional
standards and boundaries help our freelance businesses most often by adding
a new level of consistency to self-employment structure.
Michael Gerber, in his
book "The E-myth Revisited" says, "The business
development process is not static. It's not something you do and
then are done with. It's something you do all the time."
This
month, take a look at your Professional Standards and Boundaries
and raise them to the next level.
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All Freelance Work is a Community for Freelance Workers Including Free Portfolios, Job Search, Job Posting, Helpful Articles, Forums, & More for the Self Employed.
