Boundaries That Scale Predictable Income, Protected Time, & Quality Clients

There is one really important lever that creates more profit, time, and sanity in high-end business. That one thing is boundaries. From weekends off and rush-order rules to order minimums and price confidence, we share the scripts and mindset that took us from reactionary "yes to everything" guys to appointment only. The best thing about defining and holding clear boundaries is it leads to happier clients, healthier margins, and a life you actually want to live. Expect twin banter (per usual) and plenty of plug-and-play moves you can use this week.

Highlights

00:00 Today's forecast: twin banter + boundary breakthroughs.

02:10 Why boundaries aren't mean, they're priorities on paper.

05:30 Saying "no" without guilt (and keeping clients).

08:15 How we protect having weekends off with policies clients respect.

11:20 How we talk about our order minimums.

14:45 What to do about rush orders.

18:00 Why we are by appointment only (and how it can apply to you.)

21:10 Industry norms vs. building the business you actually want. 

24:00 Scripts for handling expired promos and clients asking for discounts.

27:35 How to protect family (and how that leads to better work.)

30:10 Why pushback to price increases is rarer than you think.

33:00 The easy transition to phase out Saturdays.

36:20 The "better yes" principle to know what to decline NOW to win bigger later.

40:05 Boundaries you need to set to honor this season of your life and business.

44:30 Three boundary upgrades to implement this week.

47:45 Why you must build a business that serves your life.

Resources + Links

Apply for Luxury Clothier Collective Mastermind HERE

More resources for custom clothiers HERE

Watch on Youtube

Follow

Appointment Only in IG: @appointmentonlypod

Resources + Links
Apply for Luxury Clothier Collective Mastermind  HERE
More resources for custom clothiers HERE
Watch on Youtube

 Follow
Appointment Only in IG: @appointmentonlypod

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

The best clients out there, those are not going to be the people who are asking you to bastardize your boundaries. They're not going to be the ones who ask you to do something out of the ordinary for them. They want you to have boundaries because everything they do in their life is has boundaries too. So there's nothing bad about boundaries. I think just oftentimes as business owners who love what we do, we feel guilty for enforcing them because we feel bad that we're needing to say no. Yeah, we don't like saying no. What boundaries do is they protect your priorities. And when your priorities are really what's driving your business, and you're not just trying to, you know, plug priorities in wherever this reactionary business has allowed you to plug them in, when your priorities are your focus, you actually end up saying no more often than you say yes. This is Appointment Only, the podcast for entrepreneurs building profitable high-end businesses. If you want control, profit, and freedom from the endless hustle, this is for you. We're Kenny and Danny, twin brothers from day one and business partners for 15 years. We're sharing insights from our own experiences running a high-end small business, the highs, the lows, and what we've learned along the way that will help you build businesses you enjoy running that aren't running you. We're here to help you continue creating businesses that support the life you actually want to live. Your appointment starts now. It's your favorite time of day again. What? Are you drunk? I'm sorry to report that my uh business partner and twin brother has broken his sobriety. It honestly sounded like were you what did you need to say? Well, I meant to say it's your favorite time of day again. But then as I was saying that, I was actually like, maybe I should say it's your favorite time of the week again, which is that time where you get to cue up appointment only and leave everything behind and just listen. Now, I'm gonna encourage you. I've been hearing some chatter out there from you regulars. If you're talking, those regulars, they don't shut up. If you're taking if this is taking time away from your family, I would encourage you to just maybe keep it. They can wait, pause it, they'll be there. Spend that quality. They'll be there when you get home from the bar. You can't get you can't get that this time back with your family. So just go back, be with your loved ones. Appointment only can wait. But it is that time where it's time for another episode, it's time for another uh rip roaring episode, and we're glad that you're here. If you're thinking to yourself, if you're watching this on YouTube and you're saying something's something's different about them, you're right. Do you care to guess what that thing might be? I can't hear you. It is the fact that we look like official podcasters because we have the official logo and on our mics. It is also that Kenny looks like a giant thumb because the jacket, I don't think, works with his skin tone. Well, okay. And a giant giant thumb's down. I was gonna say, well, I mean, I think pumpkin would be more accurate because it's quite orange. It's very seasonally appropriate. I had to completely change up my look because I was watching uh, I was looking at our Instagram and I noticed this is I I was wearing the same jacket in multiple episodes in a row. Well, that's that can't happen. I try to I try to make sure that I'm varying what I'm wearing, and I generally am. But here's the thing a little sneak peek for you behind the curtain here of appointment only. Not everything that gets recorded airs. So I think what happened was we probably recorded an episode because we bring a we generally try to record multiple at a time uh while we're going, because we're like, this sucks. Let's do another one that sucks. Let's see how much worse it can get. So we try to record multiple at a time. So we bring extra jackets, and I must adjust the order that the episodes aired, it was I was wearing the exact same thing. So I thought to myself, I should find a jacket that I look ridiculous in because I probably haven't worn that yet. Mission accomplished. Thank you. It's actually that was really just for for a little comic relief there that I said that. But actually, I do like the jacket. Just trying to be funny. Just trying to be funny. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I I actually don't like the jacket, but I'm glad you do. It's okay. It's fine. It's just for if you're what if you're listening to this, it's really bright orange. And so it's just a little weird. Uh, it's it's something that I tried out, and not everything is gonna stick. That's right. Not everything's gonna stick, but I I do like that color. I think it's a little bit more of an approachable orange. It's not, it's not quite pumpkin orange, it's soft orange. Well, it's the time of year for it, too. I this is not something that you can really wear. It's kind of like white after Labor Day or whatever the rule is. This is something you gotta just take advantage of it when you're in the season, and then you gotta move on from it. When it's spooky season, there's no jacket that makes more sense than that jacket. And boy, will this thing give you a spook. We were talking today with our mastermind group of like-minded custom clothiers who want to take their businesses to the next level. We speak with them every week on a Zoom call. And one of the things we were spending a lot of time on on the call today was the topic of boundaries. And so we figured, let's talk about that on the podcast. It's a good topic because it's something that we could all benefit from. And I think some small business owners do a really good job of having them, setting them, sticking to them. But some, dare I say most small business owners have a real hard time with this. And we had a really difficult time with this for a long time. I think one boundary that Lagunitas Hopy Refresher has set is that they're not gonna sponsor our podcast. They're not interested. They've said to themselves, I don't care what they do. I don't care how many times they're gonna tag me on Instagram. They said I was listening to uh a podcast, great podcast, knowledgeable fellas as the hosts. They said to say no. I think they're practicing saying no as it relates to sponsoring our message received. Message received for sure. But as far as boundaries go, this is this is important because this is a lesson that we learned the hard way and for so many years. Boundaries, what's that? Huh? So before we dive into talking about boundaries, let's just think about boundaries in terms of life. Okay, what why do boundaries exist? Where do they exist? The first thing that comes to mind for me is the road. Yeah, you're driving down the road. Presumably many of you are right now, listening to appointment only. And you've got boundaries. You got to stay in those lines. Otherwise, you're in trouble. And not just you are in trouble, other people are in trouble too. Well, these days, the cars, I don't feel like you could ever veer over the line anymore. The way that the cars just scream at you. It's honestly annoying. That's that's my least. Hello, I'm texting here. Stop. Hello, I'm watching appointment only on YouTube. Stop interrupting me. But it's so annoying because the the my car, I had it's I turned it off, but apparently it was like an extra feature that came with the car. Oh, where it buzzes if you move. It doesn't buzz, it moves you back. Oh, I have I have that on my car. And I I turn it, I turn my cruise control on and my steering wheel guide off because it is it honestly. There are some times when I'm driving and it like forces me. It's scary. Yeah. I don't like it one bit. What's gonna happen when Juliet gets her uh driver's license? Like, will she even need to learn how to drive or will the cars just drive her around? It's gonna be like AI these days, where they don't have kids these days don't have to learn how to write. No, they just have to have an idea and put it into Chat GPT. They can even give probably a word count. There's something they're never gonna have to do is manually figure out, okay, this paper is too long for this thing or or whatever. You know how you had a word count where when you wrote a paper for school, it has to be this many words, but it can't be more than this. I no, I feel like the rules were it couldn't be under a certain word count. They wanted you to write more. So you just add that. We are on the stage at our house where neither Anna nor I are super efficient at helping with the math homework. And we've been spending we, as an Anna and Juliet, have been spending some time together. It's quality time. Yeah. You know, daughter, daughter, mother. I think we've mentioned before focusing on your strengths, and that's a good lesson. Don't ask Danny or Uncle Kenny for math homework. We're not going to be helpful there. But what what other things have boundaries? Um, sporting events. All sporting events, and not only do they have an out-of-bounds line, I would assume boundary bounds. Bounds comes from the word boundaries, but there are also all sorts of scoring boundaries and all sorts of different things. You know what else has boundaries? Toilets. Wow. There's a perspective. Ever thought of it that way? I was just going to the bathroom recently. Oh boy. It's today. In your pants? Yeah, in my pants. Good one. Yeah. Did you make it to the toilet? Yeah, I was peeing my pants earlier. Well, I was I was more thinking sharding because that's been a theme on the pot. It has been a theme. That wasn't happening, though. I was going to the bathroom in the table. I think he's wearing dark brown pants. That's true. They are, at least they're not the color of your jacket. I was going to the bathroom and I was thinking this ties in perfectly to boundaries because where the bathroom is larger than it needs to be, there's only a small part of the bathroom that you should be going to the bathroom. You would never know based on some of the porta potties I've been in around when I'm on my walks. I don't think boundaries exist in porta-potties. I think it's just there's seems to be inside the door, you're safe. Or outside. If it's on the porta-potty somewhere. So in or out, you're good. I guess porta-potty boundaries are a little bit different than maybe a respectable bathroom boundaries, but you you've got a pretty clear boundary in the bathroom. You do. That's the idea, anyway. That's the point that's the point. People don't always stay within the boundaries, which is what we'll get to. But boundaries are crucial because they are helpful for your own sanity. And sanitary. That's right, you know, as if we're talking about toilets. We've been we've done an awful lot of toilet talk on appointment only. We might change the name. Toilet talk. Toilet talk, maybe uh toilet only. Toilet only. I like that. I like that a lot. So when you're talking, you know who doesn't have boundaries when we're talking about boundaries? People who are just starting their businesses. Lord knows we didn't have very many boundaries. We didn't have boundaries. And what you gonna do? I mean, when you're starting your business, you're hustling, you're grinding, you're just thankful to get any clients. A dollar is a dollar, and you are gonna just do whatever it takes to get the money. Got it. I totally get that. We did the exact same thing. We were in the habit of, for years, of having very, very few boundaries. I remember a number of times actually where we worked on like we had appointments on Christmas Eve. Right. Driving all around town.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Well, Christmas Eve work for you, it works for us. Ridiculous. Like, yeah, of course it works for you. Yeah. I mean, they're literally a holiday.

SPEAKER_03 11:40

They're on uh break at their home. They're actually with their whole entire family celebrating Christmas. They're with their whole family listening to appointment only. Gathered, gathered around the uh the fireplace, just binging content. Toilet talks. Toilet talk. And we're we're running all around at Christmas Eve. I remember I remember having so many evening appointments. So many evening. Like in the pitch black. Where you're trying to maneuver what you're doing, but it's pitch black. So you have like your your flashlights on and your phones and you're looking at things. Weekends didn't exist. Oh, yeah. Oh, Saturday's more convenient for you. Sure. Sounds good. Sounds good. You know you don't have a lot of boundaries. This is like the Jeff Fox where they're, you know, you're a redneck if you know that your boundaries maybe aren't as clear if. What are some things that come to mind for you when I say that? I would say you work all the weekends where you're working all the time. Yeah, you're working all the time. You don't spend a lot of time with your family. You know your boundaries need work if you find yourself working at all hours, where not only are things happening during business hours, but they're happening before work. They're happening after work. And listen, if you run your own business, uh totally understand and can appreciate the fact that you're not necessarily going to work that traditional clock in, clock out, nine to five, and that's it. But that doesn't mean that you can't have some boundaries that you set for yourself and some things that you stick to and some rules that you can enforce when it comes to the way that you do work. I do think boundary has it has a tendency to be a little bit of like a therapy word too. It does, where it has like that connotation of like, well, what are your what are your boundaries? And I do think that boundaries are by and large very helpful and very therapeutic to have them and stick to them. And boundaries. If you're playing a drinking game, every time we say the word boundaries, uh-oh, you're gonna sound like I started at the beginning of this episode. You're dead. May as well call the ambulance right now because you're going down. Uh, but here's the here's the thing about before before you've created boundaries, you really what it is is you're not saying no. You're just saying yes. Yes, yes, yes. Saturday, yes. Evenings, yes. How about an appointment at midnight? Yes, discounts, sure. You know, it's just kind of a lack of feeling confident enough to be able to say no. And no, we've said it before, is one of the most important things you could ever learn to say. It's actually one of the first words I think that most kids learn. I'm sure. I don't know what my first word was. It's probably no. It's probably no. It was probably no or it was yes. Could have been mom or dad. Could have been. There's a number of things it could have been, but no is in the list of things that it could have been. But as far as saying no goes, we don't start our businesses and look forward to being able to say no to people. I think I think that's just a general truth is none of us started our business so that we can start to enforce boundaries. Boundaries are a result of things not going how we wished they would have gone and then evaluating and coming up with them. Boundaries are a result of having some uncomfortable situations where you're like, well, I don't want to do that again. So you try to put the guard up so that you don't have to experience it. It generally comes from a place of discomfort, but nothing good was ever born from comfort. Air conditioning, seat belts, these things weren't created because things were going so well. They were created because things weren't going that well. And that's where we get boundaries, and that's where boundaries in business become really, really important. Regardless of where you're at in business, whether you've been in business a hundred years or this is your first day, I'm gonna I'm gonna take a stab and say, I don't think anybody listening to appointment only has been in business for a hundred years. Well, you know, you never know. I just want to be inclusive of all walks of life. I appreciate the inclusion. For all of you blacksmiths out there listening and uh taking your tips on saying no. Uh, regardless of which stage of business you're at, you will get to a point, and I hope it just comes from proactivity rather than reactivity. Hopefully, a burnout isn't what causes you to recognize that you need boundaries. Hopefully, it's just you want to be smarter, you want to sleep better, you want to be able to take more time off, you want to be able to spend more time at home with your family. Maybe your life has your stage of life has transitioned. You will get to the point where you realize, okay, I should probably tighten up those boundaries. And recognizing that boundaries in and of themselves are not bad at all. They're expected. You are expected to have them. I mean, some something that's really helpful, I think, as we're running our own business and as we're thinking about the types of things that we should or shouldn't be doing is just to sort of as harmful as comparing yourself to other people can be, comparing your your business to other types of businesses can be really helpful. So for us, for example, uh, we'll talk specifically in in a in a few minutes here about these boundaries. But one of the boundaries we've set for ourselves is we uh mostly uh take our appointments uh in the afternoons uh during the work week, or at least during the work day. But usually we we are able to schedule it just for afternoons because we have to use our mornings to do other things because we run a business and it's you know, if if we're in appointments, we can't be emailing with clients or we can't be working through details with our build out or with advertising. As detrimental as it can be to compare yourself directly to people. Yes, exactly. It can be helpful to compare yourself to other people. So one thing as we were deciding, okay, well, you know what we don't want to do anymore is work uh on Christmas Eve or on Saturdays or whatever it is, we want to be a little bit more strategic about when we are or aren't available because we realize you know what? These people that we're working with on Christmas Eve, they they want to work with us on a Saturday because they're off work. And we're working, so maybe we could all work when other people work. Or when people recommend to us that that we connect on a weekend because that's easier for them because they're off work. Right. Why why would the expectation be that we see them when they're off work? And then that means that we're working after hours. But as we were starting to think about is this even reasonable? Because the industry standard, by the way, in our line of work is that you do work weekends. And we just that's not what we wanted, but it's not the life we wanted to have. And not that we never did or never would, and and we we still will occasionally work a Saturday. We have a very high order minimum requirement for people who want to do that, but that's a boundary we set. But when we were deciding that we are gonna do workday work, we were just thinking about maybe other industries, other services that are out there that you have to make it work during the week. Ever been to the bank, the doctor, the post office, the DMV, the yeah, the license bureau. Uh when you go see a therapist or a chiropractor or most service-based businesses are workday, weekday businesses. So we just thought to ourselves, okay, actually that feels like a pretty reasonable boundary, and it's not gonna work for some people. Some people will not use us because they can't come see us on a Saturday and buy beneath a certain order amount. Yeah. But boundaries in and of them in and of themselves are are not bad. And I think as business owners, we sometimes feel guilty for enforcing them, but we shouldn't feel guilty at all because boundaries are a way of life. Almost everything in this world is bound by certain boundaries. And yeah, I know, right? That was so good. I hope they clip that out and put that on the on the Instagram reel. That might go viral. That's right. I'm I'm I'm thinking about it. Thinking about that going viral. I'm loving what I'm thinking about right now. My thought life is just sky high right now. We're it's good to be successful podcasters, but everything is bound with with boundaries. And I will I will say this. You could just say it. I could, but then but then where's the anticipation? I would love. And I'm planning to say something right now. Like Bird Halfway from Parks and Rack. The thing that I'm about to say is going to come out of my mouth right now. The best clients out there, those are not going to be the people who are asking you to bastardize your boundaries. They are not going to be the ones who ask you to do something out of the ordinary for them. They want you to have boundaries because everything they do in their life is has boundaries too. So there's nothing bad about boundaries. I think just oftentimes, as business owners who love what we do, we feel guilty for enforcing them because we feel bad that we're needing to say no to say we don't like saying no. And no is a natural thing. No is not a bad word. The more you do it, the easier it's going to be, the more natural it's going to be. When you get to the point where you're building your business into like the luxury space where you're what boundaries do is they protect your priorities. And when your priorities are really what's driving your business, and you're not just trying to, you know, plug priorities in wherever this reactionary business has allowed you to plug them in. When your priorities are your focus, you actually end up saying no more often than you say yes. And priorities, oftentimes they change over time too. Like your priorities are allowed to change. They just will. When you start your business, whatever you want to get out of that business is going to look a lot different than you having run your business for five years or 10 years or 15 years. The things that you want out of your business, they are going to look different. Here's one thing that we used to never prioritize that we now Prioritize a lot would be time off. We didn't care about time off when we first started. When we first started, we would go on our trade show trips to New York and Chicago. And we were not off work because we're working, we're at trade shows. It's not a vacation, it's a work trip, but it's a different kind of work. So it's a different pace. It's it's you're not working with clients. You're you're doing fun stuff. Yeah, you're like working on the business. So that was the extent of the time off we ever had because at that point, well, we weren't working every weekend just simply because we weren't busy. We weren't we weren't working with as many people, but we were always down to work Saturday. We also I remember we would work Sundays too, sometimes who cares, depending on if people needed it or wanted it, or oh, but they're only in town this weekend. So yeah, okay, we'll make it happen. We'll come to your hotel before the twins game. Remember doing that? Oh my gosh, yes, I remember doing that. I mean, the this the stuff we used to do is just crazy when we think back on it, but we used to never prioritize time off. And it was not that long ago that we got serious about it. You know, you know what changed is we got a little time off. Yeah, we tried it once. That's why you just don't ever fly first class, right? That's right. I can't speak from experience, but I would imagine the same thing could be said if you're in if you're someone who flies private. Oh boy. Once you fly private, you're not gonna ever want to even book first class. You're like, what a dump. Yeah. This is the food you you serve me. Wait, I have a I have a specific time that we have to leave the airport. What are you what are you talking about? What is all the what what do you mean I have to stand in this this thing that's gonna you know what? I have a pair of pants, it always lights up right here. Is this the pair of pants? No, I don't, no, not this pair of pants, but like a pair of pants that I travel in. It's like a it's one of the things that I reach for. Oh, insecurity. Insecurity, yeah. Yeah. I I like it lights up right there. For those listening, where I'm pointing to my uh nether regions. Gotcha. I'm pointing to the the no-no place. Uh, but it that it lights up right there. No zone. That's what I call it. The no zone. That's right, the no zone layer. Uh no zone layer. It right it lights up right there and only there. And I'm not exactly sure why. Is it because it's so sweaty when you go through? Maybe. Or yeah, it's it's just soaked. I don't know what it was about this pair of pants, but it's just like it's lights up like a Christmas tree right in that no zone layer. But, anyways, you get to the point where you experience something, then you never want to go back. And that's what happened with us with having a little time off. And so now we're at the point where it's it's most holidays, but not just holidays, because your clients don't just get Christmas off. Your clients are taking oftentimes a few days before, a few days. I mean, the mate, the clients are actually taking the entire week between Christmas and New Year's off, also, and majorly back to work until like January 3rd. The major holidays, most people are taking the better part of a full week off. Thanksgiving's on a Thursday, right? Every year it's on a Thursday. Your clients are not just taking Thursday off. Your clients are probably leaving on Tuesday afternoon from work, and they're not coming back till the Monday after Thanksgiving because they're not hustling back black, they're not hustling back on Black Friday. Hustling back on Black Friday, hustling back on Black Friday, hustling picked a peck of pickled peppers on Black Friday. I was at, I was at, well, that was really good. I'm never gonna be able to do that. Hustling back on Black Friday, hustling back on Black Friday, hustling back on Black Friday, hustling back on Black Friday. No, you just said black, and I thought you were gonna miss it. I thought I was gonna get to five, knowing I messed up on four, but I was gonna be able to roll with it. All that to say, your boundaries are a result of your priorities. Right now, in the business that we run today, two of our priorities are our own time and our own income. That informs certain boundaries that we have. One example of boundaries that we have today, that historically we never had, is also this is not an industry standard thing, by the way, either. Correct. This is something that we kind of had to almost create as a result of our priorities and as a result of needing to set boundaries in order to enforce those priorities in our lives, order minimums. So, for example, for us, we've already mentioned we don't work on weekends. That is very industry standard to work weekends in our industry. Yeah, it is to be available and ready on the majority of Saturday. Maybe Sunday would be an off day, but Saturday for sure people are working. For us, it's like I I don't want to do that anymore. So, in order for somebody to see us on a Saturday, it requires a certain amount be purchased. I just had a total light bulb, and editor, please go ahead and give me that light bulb ding. So you know what's the definition of a boundary? Can I guess? Sure. You might you should probably just let us know so we can get into it because you're really excited about this. Appointment only. Appointment only is the definition of boundaries. Right? The easiest thing ever would be to just be open. And if someone wants to come in and use you, they can just come in and you don't ever have because what happens when you're appointment only is you end up be, you know, you lose out because you only you have to specify your time each day. A lot of times people's decision making is I want this thing right now, so where am I gonna go to get this thing? And if they have to schedule something and go jump through even a single hoop to get it, they've moved on. So appointment only ends up being a boundary in and of itself. Anyone who runs a business that's appointment required, you've set boundaries. That is that is good stuff. That is really good stuff. And now I've just had my own viral moment. And now we're influencers and we're famous. Oh, here we go. And now we're flying private, and now we don't have any boundaries and now I can't I'm I'm retired. I hope you enjoyed your last episode. People let us get away with everything. We don't have any boundaries for ourselves. We're so famous and we're so viral. But boundaries come as a result of figuring out what you actually prioritize. I kind of jumped all over you when you were talking about the order minimum thing. I think we should chat about that just a little bit more because I think that could be helpful for our regulars. Because I do think we mentioned that order minimums are not necessarily something that is industry standard in our line of work. However, I do know that order minimums are very standard with many lines of work. Blue collar, white collar, it doesn't matter. Restaurants, restaurants you can't go to unless you're planning to eat food. I mean, hello, there's a boundary. Duh, duh, or drink alcohol. When you rent uh an event space or a back room of a restaurant for a conference or for a dinner or for a groom's dinner or whatever, one of the boundaries they set is they have an order minimum and it includes alcohol drinks because it's not worth their time to staff a private room unless you're gonna hit a certain dollar amount, and it's a dollar amount that you can't hit just by ordering a bunch of food. Right. So the priorities that we identified as in we value our time and we value how much money we make, that then informs the boundaries that we have to set. If I'm gonna give up my time on a weekend, then another one of my priorities has to be fed, meaning money. If I'm going to make or fun, or fun. What do you mean or fun? Like I went with it for a second and then I need I definitely need some clarity. Aren't you gonna you do something fun on a weekend? If you wanted to. Oh, right. But yes. I thought you were talking about if I'm gonna give up my time, then that appointment better be really fun. No, just it's like I don't really know where I was going with it, if we're being honest. I just was trying something. And then uh note it, noted that it's you know, thanks for interrupting my train of thought to say fun. Fun. I have a different FU word I want to tell you right now. Um our priorities of I value my time. Fun. Very fun. Very fun to value your time. Means I'm not gonna just show up to my job on a Saturday and work like I would on Monday through Friday in the same way. If I'm gonna come in on a Saturday, or if I'm gonna stay late, stay after hours, it's going to be worth my time. And there's another priority of mine that is gonna get fed, as in the income piece. You've got to hit that threshold. Now, one little pro tip, I would say it kind of depends on the business you're in. Like the example you gave of a private room, oftentimes their order minimum is a dollar amount. Yes. We communicate our order minimum in pieces purchased. So for what we say is if it's gonna be a Saturday, it has to be a three or a four suit minimum purchase. If you're new here, custom suits. Not correct, not custom soups. Not custom soup. You need you need a chowder, you need a stew, you need a lobster bisque, and you need a bisque. You need the bit, we call that the big three. The big three. You need the soup business, we call that the big three. You need the soup trio if we're gonna do this. But it that is often more digestible for clients to be communicated in terms of like the service you're providing or the package that they have to buy or the number of items they are expected to purchase, as opposed to the reality of what we're talking about on a Saturday is like if we if we ain't making $15,000, I'm not coming in. Right. And that's kind of where we come up with our number where generally speaking, if they're open to doing that, that's a number that we're gonna hit. And it's not really a rocket science thing. It just is because it sounds nicer to someone. If you're if you're enforcing a boundary that you have, figure out a way to phrase it in the in the most palatable, digestible way you can. And when we're enforcing an order minimum with potential clients or customers, it just sounds nicer to say three suits than it does to say, you better be ready to spend $15,000 at least. And and selfishly, I want them to want that to work. Yes. I I I want to come in on a Saturday to make that dollar amount. That that feels worth it to me. But I also want it to work within my boundaries. So I have to come up with a with a strategic way to say that. Another thing that we do is anything that we sell that somebody needs in a faster time period than what is originally to be expected, we have an order minimum for that. It's the same order minimum as it's it's a multiple purchase. Usually it's a multiple suit purchase because if it's gonna require more of my what? Time and energy, you need to pay for that. Somebody's got to pay for some of my priorities being compromised. And it shouldn't be me paying every step of the way. There should be a compromise made. And that's a mistake that so many small business owners fall into is the just always willingness to make every single compromise. And what happens when you're the only one compromising is you're not compromising, you're getting railroaded. And that's just not the way to run a successful business. And just because it might work today and you're willing to compromise today, it's not a sustainable thing. It's not a way to grow, and it's not a way to live. And that and that ultimately is what boundaries will do is you will find yourself being in positions where just because you you never used to take those things seriously, that doesn't mean that that's the way that your business has to look moving forward. Like what got you there or what got you here won't get you there. That's kind of the idea, is what got you to this point isn't necessarily gonna get you to that next point. What got you to run a business that pays your bills isn't necessarily what's gonna get you to a point where your business is truly profitable. What got you to the point where your business has clients isn't necessarily what's gonna get you to the point where your business not only has clients, but you're also able to take some time off too. In fact, it probably won't. It's not, it's not that it may not, it most likely won't, because when you're in your early stages of business, you are hustling, you are working a lot, you're making mistakes, you're taking lots of things on that you won't be taking on. They won't be worth your time forever, but they're worth your time now. And that's just the way it goes. And you get to a point eventually, like we were saying earlier on, you know, hopefully it's before you actually reach burnout, but you'll get to that point where you recognize, you know what? My circumstances have changed. What used to feel worth it isn't worth it anymore. I've got a wife at home, I've got kids, I've got stuff I want to do. I want to take a vacation. I deserve to be making more. So I'm gonna make these boundaries and moving forward, that's where I'm going to funnel all of my decisions through. And your circumstances changing, that's a reason to set different boundaries. Your priorities changing, that's a reason to set different boundaries. We were specifically talking in our mastermind group today about a certain type of client behavior and expectations that this person knew he was going to have to push back a little bit on because that's not the business that he's currently running anymore. It was a discount. It was a discount thing. It was a discount. The guy that was coming in is always trying to cash in like old promotions. And he got in the habit of honoring them. And he knew he shouldn't be doing that, which is why he brought that to the mastermind today and was like, help me figure out a way to get out of this. Give me a script to tell this guy when he inevitably asks for the bargain that I can tell him so that it makes sense to him that I'm not doing that anymore, but in a respectful way. That's a perfect transition to the big question of, well, but when can I not? When can I make an exception? Do I always have to enforce my boundaries and and to enforce my own rules? And the short answer is is no, you don't. But the more complex answer is right now, yes, you do. Right now, we're not going to talk about when you can make exceptions. Maybe we'll do an episode in two years about exception making. Because that's going to be about the time where at the end of the day, you need to string enough uh examples together of you uh enforcing your boundaries and sticking to them in order for an exception to truly be an exception. Well, it's it's the same concept for those of you in the if you understand the concept of the fitness world, health and fitness, weight loss, diet, exercise, whatever. You need to like a cheat day, the concept of a cheat day, and I know depending on who you ask in the fitness world, they hate that word, cheat day. But the concept is that you don't always you don't always 100% of the time need to be locked and loaded. It's actually really healthy from time to time to make an exception. The issue is that it has to be an exception. So if you're in the habit of you have these boundaries, but you're gen like you anytime anybody asks you to stand down, you do. You're always making compromises. You're always gonna dish a deal if they ask, and you're not, you don't really take your own boundaries that seriously, then it you're no longer making exceptions. You're just you're not very strict with your own boundaries. So it does have to be an exception. And we're not talking to talk about that today. That's gonna be a different episode for a different time. But that is the next question that we get when we're talking about this in our mastermind or anytime we're having this conversation with small business owners and we're talking about being really, really strict with your boundaries. Yeah, every once in a while, we'll stand down, we'll let something slide. I mean, there's we'll make an exception. We stood down earlier this week with a client who asked us if there's a something that we could do, and we said, sounds good. And we haven't done that thing with anybody in multiple years. Free to ask. Yeah, and sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes it's no. It is free to ask. Well, speaking of yes and no, and I I do want to just sort of um kill an assumption where it's not just about saying no, no, no, no, no. Boundaries will force you to say no. And if you're a people pleaser or if you love your business and you want to say yes, that's the bad habit that you're in, is you're saying yes too much. But what saying no does is it allows for a yes later, a better yes. There are so many times where I'm I'm just gonna use the most uh top of mind example would be toilets. Would be toilets. Number one example for me is toilets. Whenever I walk into a bathroom, I'm always looking at the plunger situation. Is it critical that I get it in that tiny little area, or can I just let it go? The most timely example that I can think of is when people ask us to do something for them and they need it in a really short period of time. And I'm sure your line of work, you have an equivalent of it's a rush order. It's it's faster than you feel comfortable. It's just not what you do. And with us having our our boundaries of you can buy X number of things and I'll hit that deadline, we end up saying no a lot. Sorry, that's not gonna work. Sorry, that's not an order that I feel comfortable taking on. But what did a lot? Are you laughing? Or I I burped and it turned into a cough because I was trying to make sure that was a very quiet one. Thank you for your honesty on that. Yeah. That's the downside of Lagunitas Happy Refresher, is she's bubbly. She sure is. I wonder if I'll be able to finish my thought this time around. I don't know what I'm gonna come up with, but I'm gonna think of something. But what it allows us to do then is it allows us to say yes to the select rush orders that we feel comfortable with. And we're getting paid much more to take those on because we're not so bogged down with these below average thresholds to hit these people's deadlines. So it's not just about saying no, no, no, no, no all the time. It's that it opens you up to a better yes down the road. And it doesn't always work exactly that way, but there are things in your business that when you say no to because of your boundaries, it is going to present a yes for you down the road. So that's kind of an encouraging way to look at it. Because I know boundaries can feel like kind of a bummer thing to talk about and a bummer thing to think about as people who want to be able to help people and want to be able to run a business that we're excited about. We want to be able to say yes to everybody. Well, I know I'm really hoping that for you regulars listening, you're actually finding a lot of encouragement here. The most successful business owners are the ones who figured this out. And a lot of you have. And hopefully, today was a little bit of a pat on the back. You're probably doing most, if not all, of these things well already. And just some reassurance for you that you're doing a good job. And it can really be discouraging when you end up saying no a lot. You can start to question yourself am I doing the right thing? Or an entire week goes by and it was a whole bunch of no's. Are my are my rules, are my boundaries too strict? Should I, should I give in more? Just an encouragement that do what works for you. This is your business. You're running a business. The business isn't running you. And this is what you've decided is important to you because your priorities are the driving force here. And that's really what boundaries are. It's protecting your priorities so that you can enjoy the life you live. And boundaries you had last year or last month don't necessarily need to be the boundaries that you have today or next month or next year. Because, like you were saying, your priorities are what drive those. So as your priorities change, your stage of life changes, maybe you just want to take more time off, you want to spend more time with your family, your kids are getting older, you want to go to their sporting events. You're allowed to create boundaries to facilitate that. Every time we've been in a situation in our business where we have identified new boundaries, things that are different than how we've always done things, we've always prepped for all this pushback. Yeah, you brace yourself. People are gonna hate this. We have all sorts of drafts and email, oh, responses to the emails that have not even been sent. We're very well prepared. And it never ceases to surprise us at how little pushback we get and how just generally understanding people are. And when we say, when we need to say things like, you know, we don't work on Saturdays because we work Monday through Friday, just like everybody else, it never ceases to surprise us when people are like, oh, that makes sense. I'll take Wednesday at 1230. Or in order to guarantee we're able to hit this deadline, it's gonna have to be a multiple, you know, multiple piece sale in order for it to get priority. Oh, that makes sense. Sounds good. Yeah. Or if I'm gonna come in on this day, you gotta buy this, okay. Or no thanks. That doesn't work for me. But it's never as scary and it never throws people off as much as we're worried that it might. We're just Just so in our own heads and we're so in our own businesses. I mean, this business is our lives. This, your business is your life. You're thinking about this much more than anybody else's. And I know we've talked about this as it relates to price points and raising your prices. And if you haven't raised your prices recently, it might be worth taking a look at. The fear is always that people are going to go crazy. They're just going to go nuts about your price increase. And they're just not. Maybe somebody will say something, but probably nobody will. And you can just move forward as if it's business as usual because you're in control and it is business as usual for you. One little just practical tip will end here. Little practical tip for you. If your boundary that you're wanting to enforce is that you want to work fewer weekends or no weekends at all, and you're currently working weekends, taking a lot of appointments on weekends, this is end actually how it happened with us is we actually got to the point where, surprise, surprise, the weekend days were the first days filling up because those are the days everyone wants to come in. And we got to a point where our soonest weekend availability was like a month and a half out. You know, we were, we were just so full and and and blocked on weekend days. So we ended up telling people when they would be asking about coming in on a Saturday, we would tell them, well, our soonest appointment availability for a Saturday isn't going to be until, you know, month and a half from now at the earliest. But we do have all these other times open during the week. And we were recognizing that, oh, everyone else, everyone's actually making it work during the week. And it was at that point that we decided, hey, you know what? I think a month and a half out is going to be our last Saturday. We're just, that's always going to be what we say. And then eventually we started enforcing the order minimum for weekends and it changed. But you know, and now it's just like we don't work on weekends unless you're going to hit the order minimum. So let's find a time during the week. But that was that would be a really easy way for you to make that transition is just to start sharing with people who want this that you're unavailable for the foreseeable future. So let's make one of these other times work because it's going to be in your best interest to make that happen sooner than later. I think they'll be pretty accommodating and you will work yourself out of working on the weekends. And when you do decide to work on the weekends, you can work for a dollar amount that when you're done, you can go take your family out for a really fun dinner. Wasn't that how you got a dog? Yeah. So we have a we have a little cheweenie, and my family had been wanting a dog for forever. And we were working with a really great client, but it was our first time working with him. Yeah. So we didn't know. I didn't know what it was gonna be. And my wife was texting me pictures. She was like at the Humane Society with this dog. And that's dangerous. Shopping at the physically there. Yeah. Just oh, I'm just visiting. I'm not gonna buy anything. I'm just gonna visit these little guys. I don't think it I think we probably would have got the dog regardless. But I I sent a text and said, if if we make X number of dollars in this sale, then we can get the dog. And we we hit that number way out of the park. And so it was like, we'll get to Looks like we're getting the dog. Yeah, we'll get to. Looks like we're getting the dog. Well, everyone won in that scenario. Everyone won in that scenario. And if you decide that your weekends you want to take a little bit more seriously, you want to take a little bit more time at home, make it a scenario where everybody wins. Make it a scenario where the client wins because they're getting what they want. You win because they're paying you more than they would normally pay you if they were just working with you any other time. And make it a scenario where you can treat yourself afterwards and your family wins too. You spent a little time away from them, but now you're more than making up for it because you're doing something fun. Yeah. Treat yourself. Speaking of, we got these little candies here. Peanut butter delight. That sounds good. That's my nickname. Molasses Chew. That's my nickname. Oh no, yeah. And Roman Newgut. So that's the only one that sounds good. Go for it. Uh, thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks for coming officially to the very official new studio, new fancy mics podcast. We're glad that you showed up for your appointment. If there's someone you can think of who would really benefit from the from the podcast that you think would really like it or that you think would really hate it because it's too challenging for them, go ahead and send it to them. We'd love, we'd love for you to share this with someone who comes to mind. Make sure you're following, make sure you've rated and reviewed. We'd appreciate that. But ultimately, just subscribe so you can make sure to catch the latest episodes in real time as they air. That's it for today. Start setting those boundaries. Let us know how it goes. Your appointment's over. We'll see you for your next one. And that's that. Today's appointment is over. This has been appointment only. Your time is valuable, and we're very appreciative of you spending some of it with us. Thanks for showing up. Thanks for being on time. Thanks for being receptive to what we have to say. 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