🦅 Should you incorporate communication boundaries in your contract?
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Hi Reader! One of the tricky things about being friends with your clients is that they will sometimes just shoot you a text, rather than sending an email. This happened last week when a client got a fake-looking government notice in the mail and had a question about it. She sent me a photo of the notice and asked if it was something she needed to care about. I get it, sometimes it’s easier to send a text than an email. When I’m acting as your lawyer, our conversations are protected by attorney-client privilege. But that line gets really sticky when our text thread has photos of our dogs and random memes mixed with legal questions. So I shot her a reply saying, FYI: Texting me these kinds of questions isn’t always 100% protected by attorney-client privilege. I’m hopping in your inbox with the answer. And for your protection, let’s have these conversations via email. When I first had my business, I did include “communications boundaries” in my client contract. And explained why it was better to email me, rather than text. Inserting them back into my contract probably wouldn’t have avoided this situation. Because we text multiple times a week, it's probably just her default to ask me simple questions. But as I’ve been putting the finishing touches on next week’s workshop on how to incorporate your business policies into your contract, it’s something I’ve been thinking about. And that’s your challenge this week as well! 👉 Your action item: Consider whether it would make sense to incorporate your communication boundaries into your contract. This might include:
Let us know what boundaries you do/might include in the LinkedIn or Facebook posts, and any questions you have about how to incorporate them! I'll be sitting at my computer until about 9:30 AM Pacific and I'd love to know if you run into any roadblocks in completing this week's task. (And if you are reading this after then, please reply! I'll get back to you ASAP.) Chat soon,
P.S. Do your refund and rescheduling policies protect your calendar, your energy, and your other clients? If not, then join us next week to update your policies so that they are kind, match your workflow, and remove the pressure to make case-by-case judgements. Not sure if this workshop will benefit you? Here's what Kristen Girard of Radiance and Grit said about the Shield Your Studio series so far: "These workshops have helped me reevaluate how I am approaching all the legal issues we are working through in a way that was interesting. It's also just enough within my comfort zone that I am able to learn and do the work. Of course, your kindness, approachability, and friendliness help, too!" Grab next week's workshop on refund and reschedule policies for $39 or get all six workshops (and have instant access to three of them) for $165. How to have happier clients: create client policiesYour clients don't need flexibility; they want the outcome they hired you for. Your client policies show you have a plan to get them there.
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