EP33: The Power of Setting Graceful Boundaries in Business & Life with Chanel Robe

Have you ever felt drained, overworked, and yet still unappreciated by your clients?

That's where Chanel Robe found herself, not once, but twice. Now, she passionately advocates for balancing client needs with personal boundaries. 

In our conversation, Chanel shares her own journey from burnout to brilliance, illustrating why setting healthy boundaries in business and life with grace is so critical.
Boundaries that honor not just the client, but also the business and your personal needs. 

She shares her three-pronged approach to setting graceful boundaries, and shares how setting boundaries in contractual and retainer relationships can nurture a healthy client-business relationship.

We navigate through the complexities of difficult conversations, exploring how understanding and empathy can deflect conflict.

Guest bio:
Chanel Robe is the owner of The Robe Way & an authority on achieving customer success with less work. She helps business owners run profitable, impactful businesses and maintain client relationships without sacrificing their personal boundaries or quality of life. As a 2x burnout survivor and former people-pleaser, she is a speaker, author & passionate advocate for serving others while honoring yourself. On a regular day, you’ll find her traveling, belting out random songs, smiling contagiously, or lifting others up.

Connect with Chanel: https://en.gravatar.com/chanelrobie

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Business Blast for Me podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, Sarah Kahn, speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit Business Blast for Me, let's do it. Hello, hello, blast femurs. How are you? I hope you're having a wonderful week. I am very excited to have this conversation with Chanel. She is my guest today and we're going to be talking about something that a lot of people, a lot a lot of people, struggle with, and that is boundaries. Hi, Chanel.

Speaker 2: 0:56

Hi, thank you for having me. Hi, I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to have you.

Speaker 1: 1:02

This is going to be a good conversation. So Chanel and I have been connected for a while and we had a conversation maybe a week or so ago. We had a coffee chat. It was really, really fun, it was very casual and we started to talk about boundaries and the way she talked about how she sets boundaries in business. I was like you need to come on the podcast, because this is a conversation a lot of people need to be privy to, and so that's what we're going to start with today, and then we'll just see where it goes, because, you know, this show is usually just we fly by the seat of our pants and sometimes it's just a giant chaos, monkey.

Speaker 1: 1:31

So let me introduce her formally to Chanel Robes, the owner of the robe way and an authority on achieving customer success with less work. She helps business owners run profitable, impactful businesses and maintain client relationships without sacrificing their personal boundaries or quality of life. So so important as a two time burnout survivor, I'm going to high fiver there because same girl, same and former people pleaser. She is a speaker, author and passionate advocate for serving others while honoring yourself. Now I'm going to pause here for a second before I finish her bio, because this part, when I read it, brought me so much joy says on a regular day, you'll find her traveling, belting out random songs, smiling contagiously and lifting others up. Chanel, I am so pleased to have you here. How are you, my friend?

Speaker 2: 2:23

And I'm smiling like all 32 to show you know here, and I'm good as I am listening to my bio being read I'm like damn, that girl sounds amazing.

Speaker 1: 2:35

I sounds pretty cool. Yeah, you're a good friend to have. Yeah, awesome. Okay, the way I start every guest conversation is I want you to tell me a little bit about your journey, how you ended up here and why this is like your hill.

Speaker 2: 2:53

My hill or my house, stop right. Yeah, let me tell you I was always a big advocate for boundaries. I would talk to my friends a whole lot about it. It's just like oh you know, you need to set those boundaries and ensure that you're making space for yourself. But I was somewhat of a hypocrite because I was talking about all of that but I wasn't doing it myself, or I thought I was doing it but I wasn't doing crap.

Speaker 2: 3:20

And what happened is I remember my probably within a year and a half into my first corporate job. I was so busy trying to serve clients as a consultant and trying to get the best and go above and beyond and being all of those long meetings and just work these long hours that I burnt out. I got to the point where I was literally in a client project far away from home and my anemia. It got so bad that my anemia started acting up to the point where my body could not regulate temperature properly. But I kept going because guess what? We got work to do. We have people to please, let's do this right. Even though there was family stuff happening back at home, I still stayed because I felt my clients needed me and I remember I went off on vacation shortly after that. I was so exhausted I slept for like a week, right, just slept, and so that was my first burnout. I didn't think I would learn from that. I did learn a couple of lessons, right, but I learned lessons that made me better at getting client success, so we can get the client success of work with less work, we can set the expectations and so forth and keep things going. I learned that lesson learned to manage people better and all that stuff but I did not learn the important lesson for me, which was that, girl, you're a people please off, and it's not a problem about setting the boundaries, but having the courage to maintain them and feel like you're able to do that with a level of grace.

Speaker 2: 4:51

And so a couple years ago probably like three or four years after that, I find myself once again struggling with health issues, having feeling like I don't have time for relationships and friendships and family, and just feeling so exhausted and busy. And everybody would ask me how are you? And the first thing that comes to mind is like oh my God, I am exhausted, I'm tired, right? That's the first thing that comes to mind, and somebody asked me and it did not click for me until I got to the point where my health became a concern and I thought, lord, what am I going to do? Like I find myself back in the same boat again? And he said to me leave corporate.

Speaker 2: 5:31

And I left, and it was in that, leaving all the business behind. We're working those long laws to the point where you're not sleeping properly because you're getting up in the middle of the night a couple of times, check your phone. And I said stuff and all that stuff. In leaving I finally got the space to actually start to see me and to see the toxic problems that I had, the toxic habits right, the toxic behaviors around how I dealt with people and how I felt I had to bend backwards for people at the expense of myself. And so, in healing from those habits and healing from those behaviors and getting to the root of that, out of that sprang even more passion for helping other businesses. I'm not a, I don't consider myself a coach, I don't know anything with mindset. I'm literally the one who is going to practically help you structure how you serve your clients so that you're able to set those boundaries and maintain them in a way that is graceful.

Speaker 1: 6:32

It's full of grace yeah and that's, that was, I think, the thing that that really made me kind of go. We need to talk about this because you said setting graceful boundaries right, which I've never heard it put that way before.

Speaker 2: 6:44

Yeah, and so that's what I, that's what I do and that's how I, kind of like, ended up here, did my healing, and I realized, oh crap, this is. This is the thing that I'm going to show from every host up, or show from every hilltop. You need to serve others. Yes, beautiful, you want to make an impact. Beautiful, right, you want to serve a whole lot of people. Fabulous, I love your heart for that, but do not do it at the expense of yourself. Serve others now. You will serve others. Honor your boundaries, serve others, have that space for an excellent quality of life. And so that's the hill I'll die on.

Speaker 1: 7:20

Yeah, I love that. I love that. I know from from having had a corporate career myself. One of the big challenges is that you are really programmed like it is. It is really drilled into you that the work comes first. The job comes first, right. And so I know, for me personally I mean I've talked about this on the podcast before I tend to punish myself with work and reward myself with work, right. So it's, it's because it's the only thing I can control, so it's the thing that I know.

Speaker 1: 7:49

If things are getting out of hand in other areas of my life, my work I can control, and so you dive into it, right. And that's when your boundaries become blurred. And then there's the whole people pleasing aspect. And then there's the aspect of, well, the economy. Right now I can't. I can't lose clients, so I need to make sure that I fulfill their needs and I make them happy.

Speaker 1: 8:05

And it's funny I am this is a little bit of a detour, but I so I have struggled with allergies most of my life and I have this one really weird allergy that no one has been able to figure out and it's it's like we don't know what the trigger is. We don't know. I've had all the testing done, it's all come back inconclusive, but generally what happens is my eyes will swell up and the skin around my eyes will get it looks like contact dermatitis. It's. It's not technically that, I always thought it was makeup, and so sometimes I will stop buying certain brands of makeup and I've gone through this whole thing over the years of these brands don't work. These ones do, but sometimes the makeup I've been using for years will suddenly trigger an allergic reaction.

Speaker 1: 8:48

And I was talking to a friend of mine today who's a holistic healer, and she made the connection, one that I have not made in 47 years on this earth, and she said it sounds like something that is triggered by stress, or you know, there's something going on in your body that is being triggered by stress, is causing this. And I sat back and I went well, shit, because because I have I have been super stressed for the last few months. I've not had an allergic reaction for months and now, suddenly, this pops up. And that's when I started to.

Speaker 1: 9:22

I sat down this morning and I was like you know, it's timely that we're having this conversation, because one of the biggest contributors to my stress over the last few months is a very clear lack of boundaries with my clients and with other people in my life, not just clients. I'm not going to just blame them, or you know, but that's so. This is why I think this is like you know, hey, this is divine intervention, but we're having the conversation that we need to have, and the reason I'm telling this story is because we think of stress as being something that leads to exhaustion or burnout, you know only, but it doesn't there's. There's a host of physical elements that you can have, emotional elements that you can have as a result of stress, that we don't actually think about the connection. So when you say serving others in a way that honors your boundaries and quality of life, like what does that mean to you? Why is it so important for particularly entrepreneurs to understand what that means?

Speaker 2: 10:17

I feel like we are made for so much more. I feel like there are so many elements to our lives that we are called to stored. And when we put all of our energy into just storing the business because the business is the area that bring in the money and the business is where we're supposed to make an impact we miss an opportunity to have so much impact and explore a potential outside of the business. And so for me, for example, two years ago, three years ago, two to three years ago, my time runs fast, really fast.

Speaker 1: 10:52

It's like a flat circle yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:54

It looks like it's a school. They're like well, what year are we kind of in now? I remember there was a point when I was so busy working with clients and so forth, and I kept saying oh I am, I want your things, I want to do your things, I desire to do, but I am so busy I don't have the time to do it. I wanted to have better relationships with my family and friends and so forth. I didn't have the time to do it because guess what? I'm sorry, it's not my time. The business is, it's not my time. There's supposed to be done. I wanted I've been saying I wanted to write a book for forever.

Speaker 1: 11:28

Oh, I'm feeling called out now.

Speaker 2: 11:33

And let me tell you, my book is now about, it's now published and it will be available for sale in like the next week and a half. Ooh, exciting, okay. Yes, girl, and that's because I started to serve others and honor me right, honor the desires and our needs, right. And you'll be so surprised that when you start to set those boundaries with your plans and you start to actually meet that space of your life, it actually opens up space and time for you to do so much more and to be so much more in other areas of your life. I like to call it the exceeding abundance. So we have living life exceedingly abundantly, above anything that we could ever hope for, even begin to imagine. Right, and the only way that happens is when we start to store one particular area of our life. So let me know. And then we start storing the other areas. So stewardship issue I like to think of it. People pleasing problems with boundaries is our people. Time is a stewardship problem.

Speaker 1: 12:32

Stewardship, right, yeah, okay, okay. So can you then break down, I guess, the process or the steps, or like what is? How do you set back, like it likes, let's get practical? How do you then set boundaries that honor your clients, that honor your business, that honor you, so that you can, you know, move into that area of spaciousness?

Speaker 2: 12:52

I look at it in three areas. See, I do it. I can't even call it. I'm holding up four fingers and saying three, but there's three areas that I normally encourage my clients to focus on. I call it the right clients, I think, the right fit plans. Who are the clients who are best equipped to get the results of the service that you offer right? What do they have? The skills and abilities that they need to strive? Do they have the resource? Do they bring the resource relevant resources to the table that they need to thrive? Are you actually considering what you need to be given them in order for them to thrive right, and are these people actually going to be people who light you up? It's not just about saying that this person have a credit card and have the pain points that you help them with. They have to be at the right stage and bring the right things to the table in order for you to help them in a way that is easy for you and easy for them. So that's the first pillow. What a novel concept.

Speaker 1: 13:47

I mean, it sounds like you said that. I mean that's a whole other conversation, right? Yes, okay.

Speaker 2: 13:54

This is like wow, it's nothing my mind a lot of what the second area that I talk about is the right path to results, and what do I mean by that?

Speaker 2: 14:05

A lot of times we think once we have the resources and once we have certain activities, we can throw everything at our clients and it will magically just work itself out right.

Speaker 2: 14:16

But the thing is we forget that we're dealing with human beings, persons who, on a regular basis, don't like change, and if you're offering a service, you're kind of like helping them change from point A to move, to transform to point B, right.

Speaker 2: 14:31

And so in thinking about that, even as you're structuring the activities and the resources that is actually going to help your clients to get from point A to point B, you actually have to pause to think about the human element in it.

Speaker 2: 14:44

Like, how do I ensure that things flow when there are places that there are gaps of in terms of knowledge, in terms of resources, that are actually going to trip people up or make them confused and cause them to get into analysis process mode and not want to do anything? Because I feel like a lot of times, business owners will be like, oh, my clients really don't want to do the work, and it's not that they really don't want to, it's just that they're not. You haven't equipped them to do it. You haven't equipped them upfront. And so, because you haven't done that proactive work about creating a simple path to results that is easy to follow and easy to get through and easy to support your clients with, you end up in a reactive mode of bending over backhorses and having to go above and beyond when shit hits the fan right.

Speaker 2: 15:30

And so it's thinking about those activities, thinking about the feasible time that you actually need to get things done, and being able to come in Once you've gotten that out. You're able to communicate that upfront, to be like, hey, here's the journey that I'm going to take you on at a higher level, here are the milestones that we're going to be working through, here's what I expect from you and here's what you can expect from me. And then you have something that you're able to match against as you're going through. You have something that you're able to hold people accountable to in a way that's easy for them and easy for you. And that's number two the right path to results. I love it. And what's number three the right support. Now there's a typical thing.

Speaker 2: 16:09

I hear a lot in the online space where it's like, oh, we want to create this safe space and that my clients should come to me with questions whenever they have questions.

Speaker 2: 16:20

And I feel like I get it, but I don't agree with it.

Speaker 2: 16:26

And here's why Sure, your clients are adults and they'll have questions and they should be able to come to you when they have questions. But you're the expert, you're the one who is able to spot when things are going wrong way before they will see it. They'll probably see when shit hits the front and they're like, oh my God, no, we're interacting, we're trying to get this done, and so when I talk about the right support, I talk about giving that timely support to clients where you're monitoring how they're going as they're going along that path to results. You're monitoring how they're going about it, you're seeing the risk, you're seeing the issues way before they come up and you're handling them in a proactive mode so that your clients are able to continue going along with as little issue as possible and you are able to avoid the firefighting of things when it becomes a file. And so that's what I talk about when I talk about the right support is giving your clients the support they need when they need it, versus when they want it.

Speaker 1: 17:24

Oh yeah, that is a point that I think is going to stick for a lot of people because, without getting too on a soapbox, a lot of coaches, particularly they don't understand really the breadth and depth of support that a client particularly needs, and it's very much a reactive kind of.

Speaker 1: 17:45

This is the process that I know, and so this is what we're going to go through, whether or not the client actually needs that. So, okay, two questions then. What do you suggest people do when clients are pushing back on those boundaries? Or you know, because I think we've all, like most of us maybe, have experienced when we set boundaries with a client or we say something that we know is the better because we're experts, like you said is the better option for them or the better next step for them, and they flat out refuse to honor that. I mean, when it comes to their business, obviously they are in charge, they get to make the decisions they want to make. But, like, how do you balance that sort of the autonomy that a client has to do, the things they want to do with? They've hired you to help them achieve a particular thing, but they're making that really difficult for you, I think, when we set the boundaries, the right boundaries.

Speaker 2: 18:41

I like to think about it, because boundaries actually helps you from a contractual perspective too, because now you're able to say that here's what you can expect from me, here's what I can expect from you, and it prepares you to have those difficult conversations of hey, here's what I'm recommending.

Speaker 2: 18:58

Here are the effects of you not taking that path and then leaving them to make that decision. That allows you as well, even from a contractual perspective, to be able to say no, okay, I've done my due diligence around this and I've advised you as to what needs to be done, and you've chosen to take an alternate path, knowingly, knowing the effects of what will happen when you go down that path, and therefore, because of that, those are the consequences. Right, and so when I even talk about setting boundaries with grace, you're able to do that with a clear conscience, because you're not now going having to get into that place where, oh my God, I'm going to have to bend over backwards to fix this, I'm going to have to bend over backwards to try and convince you to go down the road that I know is going to hurt you, Kind of like when you tell a child don't touch the fire and the child won't touch the fire.

Speaker 1: 19:55

It's like, yeah, you get burned right. Having a child, who would do that? Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 2: 20:03

And I was a child who would do that and it was like you learn that lesson. But then I think some of the times, when you love people the way that overgivers do, you try to take responsibility for their actions, you try to take responsibility for everything that they do. When I think there is such power in being able to say to somebody here's the facts, here's what I'm seeing, here are the consequences of what will happen if you go down that path, based on my expertise, and you leave them to be able to make the decision from there.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Okay, so this, I like this, and here's my follow-up to that. Let's say they choose the path that is not the best path for them. You know that this is going to either be detrimental or a disaster or whatever, but they opt to go down that path despite you setting those boundaries. What is your recourse then? Are you now like we're canceling our relationship, I'm no longer working with you, or the client realizes yeah, I did actually make a mistake. Can you now fix it? How do you then navigate that as somebody who is trying to set good boundaries?

Speaker 2: 21:09

I love this and I'm going to share with you a situation I dealt with recently. We're doing some work for a client, right, and we agreed on the scope of what needed to be done. We agreed within the timelines to get some stuff done and we had everything. Because I really am very, very set when it comes to setting the scope of stuff and everything, because I want to protect my energy, I want to protect my space and all of that, and I want to ensure that I am able to give the best to my clients too.

Speaker 2: 21:35

Halfway through the engagement, my client decides hey, I know, we said that this is what we wanted to do. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to expand, take it a whole bit further. And I paused and I said well, here's the reality of this situation, here's the facts, these were the expectations we set up front. This is the scope of whatever we needed to do. If you're choosing to go down that path, here's going to be the effects as it relates to me and you, and I'm going to need to send you a touch-in request, because it's going to mean more time for me, it's going to mean more money for you and that's the funny thing is, I've worked as a consultant for more than 10 years and I feel open as a man and I'm quite young. When you're able to state the effects from the perspective and I like to think of it from a money perspective, a scope perspective and a quality perspective a lot of people will tend to maybe.

Speaker 2: 22:31

I shouldn't be doing this.

Speaker 1: 22:35

When you make money, the bottom line they're like maybe not yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:38

Yeah, money, time and quality. Those are like the three factors around a lot of work. When you're able to hit those three points with a lot of plans, they'll drop really quick to realize that here, road, and I'm going down mean not be the best, right. Which is why I always, when I talk about even setting the boundaries, because when you set those boundaries up front, you're setting the timepiece quite clearly, you're setting the money piece is pretty crystal clear, right, and then you're able to calculate. So you said, okay, you want to go down that course.

Speaker 2: 23:09

That's going to change things up. Here's what that's going to look like for you, right, and that gets them back in line. And now, place that feels good for you, then, a place that feels give them the reality that they need in a way that doesn't feel like you need to fight them or strong arm them and then go, let them go, screw crap up, and then you won't have to fix it afterwards because it's still your time, still your energy. Hold on. I'm making a note. Okay, I'm so curious about that note.

Speaker 1: 23:36

No, you actually just between you and me. You actually just reminded me, like what was coming up for me there was when you are. I mean, I guess it's easier to do that and maybe I'm wrong. Please feel free to tell me I'm wrong I feel like it's easier to do that when you are working on a project basis with somebody. So you know, you have a very clear scope, you have a very clear definition of the work that you're going to do and how long it's going to take and how much you're going to charge. How do you do this? When you are in a retainer relationship, let's say so. It's ongoing work, it's not a bucket of hours, but it's like. This is. You know, this is how much I get every month and this is the general scope of the work I do 90% of the time. That scope evolves over time. You know you get more comfortable with the business, but so, like, how do you suggest?

Speaker 1: 24:23

Having that conversation, having that conversation For looking at that situation. Yeah, so I guess, like, how do you retroactively set boundaries if you've been in a relationship for a while and you're like you know it started out great and now shit's getting a little bit muddy? Like how do we go back and now reset those boundaries in a way that honors both of you?

Speaker 2: 24:42

No, even in a retainer situation. I had two thoughts as I listened to you. If, in a retainer situation, you're still allocated a certain amount to hours to get stuff done right, it's not like they have access to you all around the clock and even in that bucket of time that you have to get things done for them. When it's on a monthly basis or on a weekly basis, etc. There's still key things that you need to do. That has repeat effects on other things that you need to do.

Speaker 2: 25:09

Yeah, and so if somebody is going to your client is going to go down the road of saying that, hey, I know we agreed on this thing that we've been working for for three months and we're almost on the tail end of it and I want to change my mind.

Speaker 2: 25:24

You can now have that composition to say, but hey, I don't recommend you doing that because of X, y and Z and also looking again at the time, the quality and the cost perspective.

Speaker 2: 25:35

Here's going to be the repeat effects on all the other things that we have in the pipeline, because it's still one I use, still a one team, and so even then, in terms of having that composition, from that standpoint, it's not a project-based thing. It's the reality of the thing that I do these 10 things for you on a monthly basis, and if you go screw up, if you basically go change up on how we're doing one at the last minute, it's going to affect the other nine. That's the reality of it, and it may cost you some money, because now we're going to be pushing things out, we're going to. It may affect the quality of stuff, because guess what, if we're working with a certain vendor or a certain group of people on this thing, they may not want to come back, and so it's going to have to be done internally because it's going to cost you extra money, right? And so it's still possible to look at these situations in a recurring basis with these three things quality, time and money Boundaries are a weird thing.

Speaker 1: 26:27

They really are. You know, we all like to think that we have really clear boundaries, but especially when you're in a long-term relationship with a client, it can get really challenging because you obviously develop a relationship with that client and then things can get a little bit, you know, like, oh, I don't know how to bring this up, or I don't know how to bring that up. Now. You brought up, before we started recording, three types of business owners and how they set boundaries. I want to talk about this because this was really, really fabulous, so share with us those three types of business owners.

Speaker 2: 26:56

That's the first category that I call. Well, we all use this online space. The boss bitch even though it can be a guy.

Speaker 2: 27:02

It can be a guy too, and I like to think of it. Not that I'd say a guy is a bitch, but you get what I mean. This is a type of entrepreneur who's like I'm all about my boundaries and how they benefit me and my clients. Just get in line where they possibly, where they can, even if it's not going to meet the clients' needs any at all. I like to think of those, these type of entrepreneurs, as the ones who are. You really don't care, you love your clients, but you love you way, way, way more, and so the clients just was left. All right. Yeah, these are my boundaries and y'all is. Either y'all getting in line with them or y'all leave.

Speaker 1: 27:43

Yeah, so they're setting their boundaries with. They're setting their boundaries with like a barbed wire, basically, oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:51

Oh, prickly, that's it, that's it, that's it.

Speaker 1: 27:54

I just had this visual of like a barbed wire fence, of like either you like it or lump it right.

Speaker 2: 28:00

Yeah, you like it or you lump it. I'm going to leave it that. So that's number one. Number two is the.

Speaker 2: 28:07

I like to think of them. Those are the overgivers. These are people who love people more than themselves. These are my favorite type of people to work with, because they love their clients. They just need to learn how to love them Now. These are the people who will bend over backwards, who will go above and beyond, who will literally do some magic to make things happen for their clients, because they love people so much and they value relationships so much.

Speaker 2: 28:33

Right, yeah, now, I personally don't like any of these extremes. I think of the prickly one, as they somebody who probably have some work they need to do, because it's just like you know, somebody broke all of their boundaries, and now you know what I'm going to be the villain all the time, and it's my boundaries are. So what? Right, yeah, I'm protecting that. And then the other side is just like you know, I love people so much, and because I love people so much, I want people to love me too, and I will do anything to make it happen.

Speaker 2: 29:07

I don't want to do that, but I love to get my people to where I love to get my plans to is a more healthy form of this, where they are literally working with clients in a way that honors them and honors their clients. They're working with clients in a way that think about their needs and their clients' needs and they're actually put a solid foundation for serving people in a way that honors both sides right, and I strongly believe that's possible. I've helped a lot of clients do it. I have personally done it for myself too, not just with clients, but even in terms of personal relationships and all of that. I believe that it's possible in every single year of our lives, where we're able to serve people in a way that honors them and without dishonoring us.

Speaker 2: 29:55

And I love seeing when it happens.

Speaker 1: 29:58

I bet, I bet. Okay, so we've talked about how to set boundaries and the good kind of boundaries that you should be setting, but it's kind of one of those situations where, like I know the mechanics of it and I'm still struggling, like, what kind of advice would you give someone who is maybe struggling from a mindset perspective or a confidence perspective? Like I know how to set good boundaries and I know what I should be saying and what, but the execution is a challenge, because they don't have the confidence to talk to their clients in that way.

Speaker 2: 30:28

I want to share a story. When I was just starting to get into that place, just landed in the online space, and a friend hired me. You know that make it a little bit more difficult. Yeah, a friend hired me and probably we had a contract in place when we needed to be done, etc. And then a couple months down the line, friends started having some financial difficulties and the conversation around compensation needed to be had, and I remember I sat on it for like probably no, there was something in my contract that actually talked about the stipulations around that. I knew how it needed to be handled, but guess what? It was my friend. I love my friend and I wanted the best for my friend. I wanted to continue helping my friend as best as I possibly could. And I remember I sat on it for like a week like, oh my God, I need to have this conversation. But I want to have it because I'm thinking my friend may not be my friend anymore after I have this conversation.

Speaker 2: 31:33

I don't even know how to go about having the conversation first, because I was I was recently just also people pleasing and everything and I sat down with my friend and I explained this to her. I said to her I know this is what we agreed. I realized that this is where we are at right now. But here are the terms of the reality of what we're in here, the terms of our contract. And the terms of the contract basically says I give you 30 days to settle your balance or then we stop working together. And that was probably the easy part. I realized that was the easy part because my friend was like, yeah, she understands, et cetera, and then she'll get things worked out. Now it's so happened that things did not work out the way that she expected within the 30 days. And I remember on day 30, we were supposed to have a meeting, right, and I remember I was just like my friend messaged me to say hey, can we change the time for a meeting? And I said to her remember, based on our contract and the conversation we had here, is we won't be able to work together until the balance is settled.

Speaker 2: 32:47

And my friend heard me and said nothing a couple of days after, and this is why, if I have ever believed even more in the need to set boundaries with Grace, I felt a way about her not responding, but I knew I had done what needed to be done in a way that honored me and honored my needs and honored her. A couple of days later, I got an email from my friend. Well, I got two emails, one with the payment and the other with my friend, literally thanking me for honoring her enough to have that difficult conversation and honoring her enough to hold the boundary around that, because it made her have a couple of realizations about how she was running business and how she was doing things Right. And I cried. I cried Right, yeah, and that's the thing is. We think setting boundaries is just for us, but it's also for persons. There are things that people need to learn about themselves that they will never learn until somebody have the courage to hold that boundary with them.

Speaker 1: 33:58

That is such an interesting take because there's been a lot of talk recently online around boundaries. For a number of reasons, I'm not going to get into them because I'm not interested. You know celebrities and text messages and you can take from that what you will. But there's been conversations and I heard even this morning one of the therapists on Instagram talking about how boundaries are solely for you to set, so that you, like you are. I can't even remember how they put it, but it was.

Speaker 1: 34:28

It was clear that boundaries are about your needs and not in not imposing them on other people. Now, I understand that you don't impose your boundaries and other people, but when you say that boundaries need to honor both the person that you're setting the boundary with and yourself, that feels better because you can set boundaries for yourself as much as you want. If the other person isn't willing to honor them, that's fine. That's their decision to do so, and I'm not being as eloquent about this as I want to be, but I sometimes feel like if they're not honoring them, it's probably also because there's something about the way you're setting the boundary that is rubbing against them the wrong way. Would you agree with?

Speaker 2: 35:09

that, yeah, okay, I definitely, definitely agree, because the thing is it's a relationship, no matter if it's a personal one or it's a business one. Whenever you enter into an agreement with a client, it's a mutual agreement that, hey, these are the things that you're doing, to be doing here, the things that you can expect from me. And I think a lot of people miss that, especially in the online space, I see it a lot where it's almost like the business owner is pretty clear on what they need to do and the client is like literally continuously caught. Surprise, like it's a birthday party where you're jumping out of a cave and surprise is what they need to be done. And then the business owner will be like you know what you're doing, the work, you're disengaged and all that stuff, when the truth of the matter is, you literally just caught me with my pants. You continuously put me in a position where I'm always with my pants down and then you're expecting me to be my best, right. And so when we talk about going back to what you were saying about this, on setting boundaries in a way that honors your clients and honors you, it's about being able to set those expectations right Off to go Right, I believe that on board, that season around contracts and on onboarding is so critical, right yeah, my background is in project management, is in program management and data analytics and all that stuff, and one of the most, the one of the key things to make a project very, very successful was a kickoff meeting when everybody came together and every expectations were clear, as in all, these are the things that we're going to be doing here at the time and the timelines that we're going to be doing it.

Speaker 2: 36:43

Here's a budget that we're working with, et cetera. So everybody was on the same page, right yeah, and that's something that's missing a lot with business owners. You start working and you know what you're doing and the client just gets surprised along the way like your birthday, yeah, jump up, yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:58

Absolutely. I love this. I think that you know that's something that we tend to miss a lot of in our society and our culture these days. It's such a me centric society. You know, everything is about me and I must be comfortable and my needs must be met and everybody else can like it or lump it, and I feel like it's such a it's such a departure from the way we really should want to do business and want to have relationships, because when you are constantly stuck in that me centric view, it's all about me first.

Speaker 1: 37:32

Like, yes, honor yourself Absolutely. I'm not the. I'm not going to sit here and say you need to people, please, or anything like that. Like, absolutely, honor yourself, but remember that it's a human. On the other side of it too, right, and nobody I mean okay, I won't say nobody, because nothing is around 100%. But very rarely do humans set out too intentionally cross your boundaries to intentionally cause you harm, to intentionally make you feel however you are feeling about a certain situation. Very, very rarely in life does that happen intentionally. And so if we can start coming to these conversations with an understanding that that person is a human, they are trying to get through this just like you are yes, right, then maybe we can deflect some of the conflict that seems to be cropping up in business situations and whatnot. What do you think?

Speaker 2: 38:26

I definitely 100% agree with you. I co-signed that, co-signing yeah, with everything on it, because you are definitely right. We need to understand that no money is an island and, at the end of the day, is two people working together, whether it's you are working directly with your client or your client is working directly with your team. So people working together and one of the things that I know, for example, my client's love is maintaining relationships, because guess what? The money is also in the relationship.

Speaker 2: 39:03

It's not just a one-off thing of working with a client. These are clients who, if they love you and everything works out well and it's a good experience for them they are the same ones who want to work with you again. They are the same ones who want to sing your name abroad because, guess what? This is somebody who is reliable. This is somebody who honors me as a human being and who honors themselves as a human being. We have come together to make such an experience around that, so I definitely definitely agree with you around that. Definitely, I have.

Speaker 1: 39:38

I have often said sales is the byproduct of genuine connection, and when you're able to do that, then that's when the money starts to flow. So I'm glad that we got on the same page about that.

Speaker 2: 39:51

I know it's not about customers' success from a money perspective often.

Speaker 1: 39:55

No, but it's all tied together. Let's be honest.

Speaker 2: 39:59

Yeah, it all yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:01

Amazing. This has been such a great conversation. Where can people find you, chanel, if they want to get in touch?

Speaker 2: 40:07

Before people can find me. You asked an interesting question earlier about how to. Yes, like you're already in the relationship, things are going haywire, yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:17

Like what can you re? I like to call this the pivot. You can reset your boundaries at any point. You can set new expectations at any point, especially long standing relationships. Right, the Sucat and man and Woman relationship. We are the same person. If we've been with our partner for a while, we're the same person we were when we started with them. Expectations change and it's okay to adjust. Right. It's same with long standing business relationship. Expectations will change. The scope of what you're doing with change is okay to take a pause, assess where you are at and then reestablish boundaries from there. You do yourself a disservice when you don't. You do your plans of disservice when you don't. I love it.

Speaker 1: 41:00

I love it. You're allowed to change your mind. You're allowed to change your mind.

Speaker 2: 41:08

You are, you are, so that's. Oh, you asked me, where can people find me?

Speaker 1: 41:14

Yes, where can they find you? Because they need to yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:18

Two main ways to find me. You can find me on Facebook Chanel thinking Coco Chanel. I'm Chanel number one, never Chanel number five, chanel number six. Yeah, I like that. That's my name. My name is so unique Chanel and robe. On Facebook. Or you can drop me an email at Chanel, which is my first name at the robewaycom.

Speaker 1: 41:42

Wonderful. There you go, get out, connect with her. She's amazing. Thank you so much for being here. This has been such a great conversation. And remember you can have success without the BS. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the business blasphemy podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help us this throughout by subscribing and, if you're feeling extra sassy rating this podcast, and don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to business blasphemy podcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.