Influencer Entrepreneurs: Marketing Tips to Make You More Visible
Surviving in the entrepreneur world is not an easy task. Jenny teaches you how to build a stronger business with blogging and social media tips that are up to date and proven. No more trading time for money! She teaches content and email marketing strategies that helped her build her audience and sell her lifestyle blog for over six figures in 2019. As a former inner city school district teacher she understands the importance of breaking strategies into bite size pieces of information all with the master plan of giving you homework so that you can implement the strategies in your business immediately. Get ready to be able to put her strategies into practice after just one listen!
Influencer Entrepreneurs: Marketing Tips to Make You More Visible
How Creating And Maintaining Business Boundaries Can Help You Achieve Greater Work/Life Balance with Amber De La Garza
Boundaries aren't just good practice—they're essential for sustainable entrepreneurship and your mental wellbeing. Productivity specialist Amber De La Garza joins us for an eye-opening conversation about why so many business owners struggle with boundaries and how this impacts everything from client relationships to family dynamics.
Ever find yourself frustrated when clients text at 9 PM? Or when team members ask questions they should know the answers to? These moments of tension often signal boundary issues that, left unaddressed, lead to burnout, resentment, and diminished joy in your entrepreneurial journey. Amber walks us through the three crucial steps of boundary setting: getting clear about what you need, communicating your expectations, and—most challenging—consistently maintaining those boundaries even when tested.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is Amber's insight into why women entrepreneurs often struggle more with boundaries than their male counterparts. From people-pleasing tendencies to confidence issues and societal conditioning, we explore the psychological underpinnings of boundary difficulties and provide practical frameworks for overcoming them. She shares powerful examples from her own experience, including how teaching boundaries to her teenage son mirrored the challenges business owners face with clients and team members.
The practical tools discussed, from using your calendar more effectively to leveraging systems as boundary enforcement mechanisms, offer immediate paths to reclaiming your time and energy. As Amber explains, "Boundaries are like mindset—they're not something you can check off as done in business." They require ongoing attention and refinement as your business evolves.
Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by 24/7 availability expectations or simply want to create more intentional work patterns, this episode provides the guidance you need to establish healthy boundaries that serve both you and your business. Ready to take back your time and rediscover the joy of entrepreneurship? This conversation is your starting point.
This is the Influencer Entrepreneur's Podcast with Jenny Melrose, where I strategize with business owners on how to grow and scale their businesses to hit their income goals. This is episode 461 of the Influencer Entrepreneur's Podcast with Jenny Melrose. Today, we're going to be diving into how creating and maintaining business boundaries can help you retrieve greater work-life balance with Amber De La Garza. Before we jump into that, I have a question to ask you. Are you feeling frustrated over people asking you questions, whether that's family, your clients, your customers? If you are, it is likely that your boundaries are out of place, and we're going to be diving into how systems can help you put boundaries in place with your team and your family.
Speaker 1:Now, if you've been listening, you know that insiders we have been are focusing this month on our consistency as queen, and in order to do that, you have to have systems and boundaries in place. So this just continues to add on and why you need to make sure that you are an insider member and as a podcast listener, as you all know, you get $20 off a month, which drops the price to $29 a month. So make sure you check the description and let's dive into this episode. Hello, amber.
Speaker 2:How are you? I'm doing? Great Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Of course I am so excited to have this conversation about creating and maintaining business boundaries, but before we actually jump into that, will you introduce yourself and your business to my audience?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, thank you so much for having me here. I am the productivity specialist and I work with small business owners on how to improve their time management, productivity to ultimately two things increase profits, but also bring back joy to being a business owner, and today's topic that we're going to be talking about is really going to be about how to bring back more joy and enjoying the entrepreneurial journey.
Speaker 1:Excellent. No, I am super excited to jump in, so let's just get into it. What does business boundaries mean to you and why are they so important for entrepreneurs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, excellent. So you know, I wish that I understood how important business boundaries were when I first started my business, because I think that's where a lot of business owners are is we don't actually realize the importance of them, and so the way I would define it is how are you setting those standards of how you're interacting with the people you interact in your business? So think of them as your team members, whether that's contractors or employees. It could be vendors, it could be contractors, like if you're in interior design industry, such like that. It's your clients. And that's the obvious one that we think of is like how do we have boundaries with our clients? But we also need to have boundaries with ourselves, and I want to talk about that today too, because sometimes we think it's only about how we set those standards for other people. But having boundaries for ourselves actually sets that example of how other people can and should treat us as we're navigating all of these relationships that happen in business.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm so glad that you brought that piece up, because I do feel like it's often the piece that a lot of people miss. We just did facts, that it's only within those that we're interacting with. But if you don't start with yourself, it's going to make it that much more difficult to push it onto your business. So what are some signs that a business owner has a weak or non-existent boundaries?
Speaker 2:I think that a large source of stress comes from lack of boundaries, Miscommunication. So if you're experiencing miscommunication with team members and or your clients, that might be that you're not clearly identifying what those boundaries are. If you're saying to yourself things like I don't understand why they don't know they shouldn't call me at 9 pm at night, or why are they texting me, or why are they canceling an appointment last minute, when we start with those whys, I like to say well, how am I playing a role in that? How can I take ownership and responsibility in clearly articulating what those boundaries are? Because the answer is why? Well, the obvious is might be that you haven't explained that, but what I'm really excited to get into is that just because we have boundaries does not mean that magically we wave the magic wand and everybody complies to these boundaries, because that's not the case either. So we'll get into how I share how to maintain those boundaries and communicate those boundaries.
Speaker 2:But boundaries are, first and foremost, start with what it is that you need and that you can clearly articulate that. And that may sound easy on the surface, but it's actually in the work that I've done it's actually really hard Like I can ask a client to say okay. So you're frustrated that you have clients reaching out to you on weekends and evenings and nights. Have you told them what is your boundary with regards to being contacted? Well, no, I'm like well, what do you want it to be?
Speaker 2:And it's usually a long pause because we don't first ask ourselves what is it that we need, or what is it that I want? And how can anybody be a mind reader, right, Like that's not possible that people are not a mind reader. So we first have to get really, really clear with what it is that we want and need. And I'll just say I work from home. I don't, I don't know if you do, but I've worked for home, from home for almost 15 years. And so another place that boundaries really come up is with family members and with our actual physical space of our working zone and how we make ourselves available or not available to others in the home during working hours. And that is another place that we have to first start with. Well, what is it that you need? Right, To show up in your business, show up consistently and show up your best. What do you need and how can you articulate that to others?
Speaker 1:Yes, I think you hit on it really well when you were giving the example of the client that you said and the feeling of frustration at someone else, and I think that that's where it always, if I can feel myself tensing up and getting frustrated over an email or frustrated over a child not that mine are children anymore, they're teens and should know better but, coming in, that's where it normally stems from right. It's those boundaries, that's where it normally will show itself and it's ugly head, as I like to think of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And one thing I didn't say as well is burnout. So when we do not have boundaries, that means that you know business, work relationships are bleeding into the other and you know it's very healthy to have boundaries for so many reasons, like not just in our personal life and in personal relationships, but in business. And not having boundaries rooted in people pleasing, meaning I'll just go with the flow of whatever anybody wants or needs and generally it comes from a good place, like I want my clients to be happy and well, they're not going to be happy if I say I'm not available after 4 pm. Who am I to say that I'm not available after 4 pm? And so now you get into the mindset and the thoughts and the behaviors and patterns that are impacting how you show up with others and I'm saying clients in this scenario but that continually over time will create burnout.
Speaker 2:Also, not having boundaries with yourself on when you do work, what are your days off? What is your policy on I'm working or I'm not working? Do you take your laptop to the bed? Are you working at the kitchen table after dinner? Having all those blurred lines without boundaries will lead to burnout. And again, when we start these behaviors it's because it's generally out of a good place, like I'm building a business. I'm newer in business. I got to figure this out. It takes a lot of time. Those are all true, but unchecked and unlike. Reevaluated over time, they became the thing that actually has a double-edged sword of like it's no longer serving you or your business. It's actually hindering your health, your mental health and how you show up in the business.
Speaker 1:Yes, and very likely your relationships, I think. For me, the biggest thing I noticed was the cell phone. I was so easy to be in the car doing things while I'm waiting, being that Uber driver in between dropping off kids and picking them up and getting on my phone and in the middle of an email, and here comes the kid that I'm supposed to pick up and I get annoyed at them that I'm trying to finish this up because I don't want to forget my thought process here, and that's like you're talking about. The cell phone makes it so easy nowadays to get frustrated and have that sense of no boundaries in place.
Speaker 1:So, why do you think women entrepreneurs in particular often struggle with setting boundaries? I feel like you kind of touched on this a little bit.
Speaker 2:I did a little bit touch on this and you know I can coach with a client for quite a while, a couple of years, and so boundaries are not one of those things. Boundaries are like mindset. They're not one of those things where you can be like check off done in the business. No, no, no, no. Boundaries keep like like it's whack-a-mole. They keep coming up in different ways and different areas and arenas of our life and business and what I have experienced and seen more often than not is that it is rooted in not feeling like I want to inconvenience somebody else, or maybe the thought pattern of well, why does me wanting to be unavailable after four? How is that important? Or why should that be important? They need me, so I'm going to be there at six. So people pleasing. It's a little bit of confidence. It comes up with confidence issues and I do see this, as you're alluding to, more often with women than men, but men also sometimes have a difficult time with boundaries as well. It could be rooted in and not to get like to.
Speaker 2:This is not my lane of expertise, but the way we were raised, the way that, like we were told, our boundaries a safe and like healthy thing or our boundaries rude, and you're being selfish if you have boundaries Like what were you told around and what are your current beliefs around boundaries?
Speaker 2:For me, boundaries were not welcomed in my home.
Speaker 2:Boundaries were blurred all over the place, and this was something that I had to work through and process and what I came to was that for me to show up my best in the business, the best as a leader, best to my clients, show up the best as a wife and a mom, is that I owed it to them to get really clear about what I needed so that I could show up my best, and that it was actually a gift to articulate that and not make those assumptions, because when we get things like we're frustrated we were talking about earlier oh, like, why don't they know that? Well, now you have resentment in that relationship and don't? We want to have, like this, great relationship with our team members? We want a great relationship with our clients, and that can feel more and more distanced if you're internally holding on to resentment. And so what I just said was well, actually to show up in a healthy relationship with all of these people and to not have resentment. I owed it to myself and to them to get really clear and to lovingly articulate those boundaries.
Speaker 1:Yes, so good. So let's talk about what are the most important business boundaries to have.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely so. One of them is going to be your actual contract with your clients, and I use client agreement. Contract seems really really formal. So whatever fits your business model, but having some sort of clear expectations and if your business model isn't specifically like my client's sign a contract, maybe it's part of your onboarding process and how you're educating them. And what is your availability? How do you handle reschedules, cancellations If something goes wrong, not if when something goes wrong in this relationship, because life happens like are you front running how those situations are handled?
Speaker 2:And so having that clearly articulated, communicating that and I will say as a bonus here, just because it's in your client agreement does not mean that anybody actually reads the client agreement. So what we like to do is back that up with you know, I'm saying things on a discovery call. When I do my onboarding call, I'm sharing best practices and how we handle certain situations and it's not because I'm trying to handhold a client, it's that I'm trying to set those expectations while the relationship is really, really good. And then when there's this opportunity where we have to reinforce a boundary, we're just referencing back to great conversations we had or referencing back to a client agreement that they signed. But knowing what that is and having that part of your entire onboarding process is really, really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, and if I could add to you, so for those that are listening that do not have clients that are thinking of well, onboarding that's not really how I do things, but a lot of you that are listening that have courses and memberships in these digital products. You have an email nurture sequence that comes after the purchase and that's where you can lay out these boundaries that you're talking, that Amber is talking about.
Speaker 1:So for those that, want to be able to like understand. How can I apply this to the onboarding within? Many of you are doing this, but, like this is where you routinely get the same question about how do I get access to the video content? Where are all the downloadables? You should have an FAQ section within your potentially within your course or your membership and be able, within that email sequence, to direct them towards that, so it becomes part of the onboarding that.
Speaker 2:I love that, and so, since we're going, yes, and when you said that, what came to my mind is, when you have those processes laid out, like you stated, is now you have another boundary with a team member who's doing the customer support. It's like if it can be found in FAQs, if it's part of our process and it's documented. That is not something that needs to be brought to me at all and that may seem little, but if you're a content creator and selling things online, like this is rinse and repeat you're going to have the same challenges over and over. So now we're talking about how a process, a system is actually a way in which you can enforce a boundary not just to your client, but also within your team member. And I just want to play that out a little bit with you, jenny, because I get you know well what if they ask you the question. As business owners, we really love to be the problem solver and the firefighter, and we're going to just answer the question because we know it Right. What that looks like in real life, if we're just modeling that out, is you know. Thanks for coming to me with the question.
Speaker 2:Lacey Lacey is my EA, so I'm going to play Lacey. Lacey, you can find those in the FAQs. Please reference that first, and if you can't solve the challenge, then bring that to me. Now. What did I do? I gracefully said that's a boundary. I know the answer, I can answer the answer, but I want to retrain her, to go back to the source of truth and go back to the process that I expect her to use. I may say something like Lacey just remember that before you bring those kinds of questions to me, that you check our SOPs on how to solve those or answer those types of questions. If you cannot find it there, let me know and we'll look at making sure this gets put back in there, because, as a leader, I'm not going to assume like, okay, every answer is in there, but I am repeating and holding that boundary, which I know you didn't ask. But I just wanted to go through like, the three steps of boundaries and how to hold them and why I just modeled that out. So first of all, I've already referenced step number one is getting really really clear with what it is you need or want, and that's really giving some thought to it, and it's going to come up in those times where you feel that frustration and you feel that annoyance or resentment. Instead of focusing on the frustration and resentment, it's like, okay, so actually if I was to articulate right now what it is I need, what is that? And you don't need to do it in that moment, but it's a great moment to reflect what do I need, then identify the solution. Okay, so in that moment where I just modeled with Lacey, the solution was I'm really frustrated. My team is peppering me with questions again like that why do they do that? Well, what is the solution? The solution is is that I'm going to articulate that my expectations are. They go back to the SOPs and the FAQs first, and if they cannot find it there, they let me know. They did that and come to me with that specific question. And then the third one is that, even though you've articulated that, everyone pushes boundaries, so you've articulated it, and now we get into this thinking of well, I said what I needed. I said that I'm not available after 4 pm, I said that I wasn't going to answer these questions, so shouldn't they just stop? And the truth is, these boundaries matter to you and it is now your job to lovingly hold those boundaries. And this is where I think that most people get tripped up with boundaries is because we think, okay, so I said what I needed, I articulated it, and now they're back, right now, doing the same thing again. So maybe I don't deserve to have that boundary, or maybe that's not a good boundary to have If you give mixed messages.
Speaker 2:You were talking about your children being teenagers. My son's 15,. He grew up in the business right Like, literally grew up at my feet while I built my business. And if you want a lesson in maintaining boundaries, teach a toddler the boundaries of your office space, the boundaries of like when mom's working, what does that look like? And so was it misguided to think that he was suddenly going to hold those boundaries as important as mom would for her business? No, but if I gave mixed messages, like, he just opened the door and came in and was like mom, mom, I have this thing to tell you. And I'm like tell me, son, go for it. And then the next time I go, why are you marching into my office when the door's closed? You should know I'm giving mixed messages, and so the best thing I can do is that. Third step is hey, son, I'm really excited about what you're telling me, but when the door's shut, that means mommy's working. When I come out, I can't wait to hear about it, no matter if I wanted to hear about it in that moment.
Speaker 2:The bigger point is don't give mixed messages. And so, jenny, how does this roll out in our businesses? You have a client reaching out to you after hours and you're like I'm just going to answer this one time, and then the next time happens and you're like well, I answered last time, surely they expect me to answer this time. And so now we've just not held boundaries with ourself and we didn't set that example, and we're giving mixed messages to other people. So it's the third one, it's the third step of like great. Now how do I lovingly and consistently hold that boundary?
Speaker 1:So good and I can see this in so many different ways the way that you talk to when you're working with your team, when you're working with family, no matter what industry I can, I'm watching my husband go through this right now because he has switched industries and does not have a clue about putting in place boundaries and gets so frustrated with emails and I'm like then don't answer the email at 5am when you first wake up, like you're telling them you're available at that time if you're answering.
Speaker 1:So, yes, oh, so many good pieces of information that you can put in place with this, good pieces of information that you can put in place with this. Just so many great thoughts when it comes to this. Amber, you actually have a take back your time training, which I really want to make sure that everybody has a chance to get signed up for that. We're going to link to it so that we can make sure that everybody gets into that. It is a free training, but will you tell them a little bit more about it, what they can expect to get from it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you asking.
Speaker 2:So I created a short mini training on how to reclaim five hours back a day, and some of it's about boundaries, some of it is about other other ways, tips and tricks, because what I know is, as business owners, we dream big and we have big goals, and one of the biggest reasons why there's a gap between what we want and what is our reality is that we have the belief or the real experience that we do not have enough time.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to create this mini training so that you can reclaim that time, so you can reinvest it, and now that is up to you how you reinvest it. You can reinvest it in your business. I have clients that are like I would do anything for five extra hours of sleep. So if you're currently waking up really early, working late after the kids go to bed, doing all the things like, do you just need five extra hours of sleep so that you can show up your best and so you can catch that at amberdelagarzacom forward slash, take back your time, it's free, it's very actionable so that you can see results immediately.
Speaker 1:Yes, we are. Like I said, it's going to be linked in the description so that everyone can make sure that they take advantage of that training. One last question for you If there was one tool that you would recommend for getting your time back, maybe helping to put in place boundaries, what would be that tool?
Speaker 2:Absolutely utilizing your calendar not just as appointments that other people are putting on your calendar, but how you're planning your day In short time is very abstract. Time slips through our fingers. We think something should take 30 minutes, it takes 45. We're very optimistic, and so one strategy that I really like to use is to make time more concrete and visual. Many of us are visual, and so if you can plan the specific activities, tasks or projects that you're working on and schedule them on your calendar as you would an appointment with somebody else, now you can properly plan your day and understand what your capacity is. Everybody has a calendar. Hardly anyone is using it to its full potential, and it doesn't cost you anything to be able to use it to properly plan your day.
Speaker 1:I love that recommendation. I'm totally a believer in my calendar as well. The other one that I would add, that we've been talking a lot about on the podcast, is chat GPT For those that are people pleasers that don't know how to kindly but forcefully say this is how we're going to abide by my boundaries. Use chat to help you kind of get that language. I think a lot of us try to be too nice sometimes and can't be direct, or some of us might be a little too direct. The listener knows who they are, I'm sure when I just said that. But using that to really make sure that your language is clear when you attempt to communicate, I think would be so helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to your point, if you know you're on the direct side, then you're going to instruct chat can you soften this but be clear? And if you're on the soft side, you're going to say can this be more direct and clear? But the through thread is clearly because people don't have time to like read between the lines with boundaries. We need to be super clear with what it is we're saying and I love that chat GPT advice that you just gave, because it's time saving. How many times is an email three sentences and it took us 30 minutes and we're mulling over the words and the sequence and how we're going to say it. And okay, that's a whole boundary that just got blown right through. You might as well have done the thing that was probably requested of you and so using ChatGPT to be able to just get in and out really confidently and quickly. I love that strategy.
Speaker 1:So good. Amber, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me and sharing your knowledge with my audience. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thanks for having me, of course.
