Treasa Edmond: 0:00

Welcome back to Boss Responses. Do you ever feel like you're walking a tightrope in your freelance business, trying to balance keeping clients happy while also maintaining your sanity? I think we've all been there at one point or another. Today we're tackling the two pillars of a thriving client relationship boundaries and partnerships. Our special guest co-host this week is Sarah Greesonbach. If you haven't listened to the first four episodes, I highly recommend making time. They are full of valuable information. Sarah is a seasoned B2B content expert who's worked with Fortune 100 brands and countless CEOs, helping them transform their expertise into high-impact marketing content. She's the founder of B2B Content Studio, a six-figure writing business, and the B2B Writing Institute, where she trains the next generation of in-demand B2B writers. Her journey has taken her from teaching high school English to ghostwriting for high-traffic publications to becoming a trusted partner for top marketing agencies. I'm thrilled to have her here this week as she shares her thoughts on building healthy client relationships. Today's episode is a true masterclass and I hope you get as much out of it as I have.

Treasa Edmond: 1:10

If you're a freelancer, business owner or anyone who deals with clients, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Treasa Edmond. I've been dealing with clients and running my business for nearly two decades and in that time I've dealt with my share of doubt, imposter syndrome and not knowing what to say when a client asked a question I wasn't ready for. I created this podcast to empower you with the boss responses you need to grow your business. Each week, my guest co-host and I will bring you five episodes packed with practical insights. Monday through Thursday, we answer your questions, and Fridays we dive deep to explore how our co-hosts embrace their role as the boss of their business. Welcome to Boss Responses. All right, Sarah, it's time we want to learn more about you before we talk about boundaries and creating relationships. So tell me a little bit about you and what you do.

Sarah Greesonbach: 2:09

Thank you. I'm excited to be here for day five, to get real, and I'm hoping I can turn some of these questions back to you and get some answers as well. We can do that, excellent. So my name is Sarah and I'm a business coach for freelance writers, mainly people who overthink every move and decision they've ever made in their lives, and I help them get it together and build a business that is inclusive of work but then also a real life and having fun. So a lot of what I do is talk about art and stationery and fountain pens, and then also boundaries and clients and B2B marketing and writing.

Treasa Edmond: 2:48

So essentially, Sarah does every day on an individual basis with her clients what we try to do on this podcast. Now, did you start out as a freelancer before you switched over to coaching?

Sarah Greesonbach: 2:58

Yeah, I was born a. No, I'm messing with you. No, I thought I was going to save the world by being a ninth grade English teacher in the country and it was horrific yeah and I made it two and a half years before I left after Christmas break and I just didn't go back so. I got a job in writing and editing and just kind of returned to my roots in writing.

Treasa Edmond: 3:20

In English it's's nice, isn't it?

Sarah Greesonbach: 3:23

It was amazing that first moment I realized I could go to the bathroom whenever I wanted, like to sit in a cubicle in an air conditioned room and just get up and leave. It was truly extraordinary. So I think maybe that was even the start of my real development of boundaries and understanding what that means in a workplace. I think. So it's amazing, looking back, how relevant that is to what we're talking about today.

Treasa Edmond: 3:49

So you worked for another business then, when you first started doing the writing and editing, that's correct.

Sarah Greesonbach: 3:54

I left teaching and got a job in government contracting as a writer and editor, and then I tried to follow my husband down to where he was in a city and I got into a marketing startup, and so that was my first real exposure to marketing and content marketing and how this all works. But they laid me off after six months.

Treasa Edmond: 4:13

A startup and I was crushed.

Sarah Greesonbach: 4:14

Yes, a startup marketing agency.

Treasa Edmond: 4:17

Yeah, so that's not fun.

Sarah Greesonbach: 4:20

It was not.

Treasa Edmond: 4:21

Did you enjoy it while you were there, though?

Sarah Greesonbach: 4:23

Yeah, I think that really laid the groundwork of what writing is and what marketing and copywriting is and what it could be. So when I got laid off, I thought to myself well, if this dude, this rando, is selling what I do to these people, is that something I could do? Could I just sell it directly? So I think I really got my start understanding the role of the agency, but also wondering if I could just do that without somebody else getting the overhead. And it worked just wonderfully. Right away. I hit that content marketing wave in like 2014, where everybody and their mother needed to have a blog, and I also hit Jonathan Stark and Brennan Dunn and Ash Ambrose and different people who were talking about really owning your value and value based rates and project based rates.

Treasa Edmond: 5:11

Yeah.

Sarah Greesonbach: 5:11

So I pretty quickly switched to that as well, and I think that's what really cemented me. Being able to do this for a full time role is getting away from hourly pretty much immediately.

Treasa Edmond: 5:21

So how long did you do that before you became a coach?

Sarah Greesonbach: 5:27

much immediately. So how long did you do that? Before you became a coach, I was a freelancer full time from like 2014 to 2016, 2017. And around the time go figure that I had two kids. I also was getting just increasingly sick. And now I'm in the healing cycle in a couple of years through feeling a lot better. But at the time, looking back, I realized like I kind of thought I was dying. So I was bringing together all of the stuff I'd been doing and all of the great things that were happening in my career, and I started putting together curriculums for how to learn B2B writing, how to transition into it, how to learn how to freelance when you're just a normal person and you don't know how to sell stuff, cause that was a really hard thing for me to learn. And so around 2018, 2019, I realized man maybe.

Sarah Greesonbach: 6:11

I am a teacher and I just got really burned, so I came back around to it and then, through my work with my coach, ed, I realized coaching is a beautiful outlet for all of these things that I love to do. So that's how we ended up here.

Treasa Edmond: 6:24

Yeah, that's very similar to my journey, so that's pretty interesting.

Sarah Greesonbach: 6:28

Go on.

Treasa Edmond: 6:30

No, I actually I had the toxic client I worked for for years. I actually went to college to be a teacher and realized in college that was not the world for me. And then I hopscotched around on different jobs and I finally started working in a magazine as an editorial assistant and then I started writing some and then I walked away from that and I went back to dissertation editing and that's actually what put me back in the editing and writing world and I started freelancing and it was wonderful. And then the whole pandemic thing made me take a really deep look at what I was doing with my life and was I happy where I was? And I leaned more into the freelancer community there and I realized I really liked helping people and answering questions and helping them deal with their tricky client situations.

Treasa Edmond: 7:16

And from there it kind of segued into. Now I'm doing more coaching and teaching than actually writing for clients, but I still do it. I just pick them very carefully. And then content strategy as well. I still do it, but I pick the clients that I really want to work with and the rest of it is teaching people and I love it. But it's different kind of teaching and coaching.

Sarah Greesonbach: 7:38

Yeah, and I feel like with the two of us what people often see from the outside is just a sense of confidence and assurance and you know, don't let clients take advantage of you, that kind of stuff and it's almost like people want some of that for themselves. So who I work with most often is like Enneagram fives and twos, who find that just so stuck in their head and so used to doing what other people want them to do, that when they have the chance to do what they want to do, they're not really sure what that is, and then they don't know how to say it. They don't know how to enforce those boundaries or make a different decision than what someone else wants them to do. And I just get so high off of that when I could help someone who's such a gentle soul like actually calmly and gently put a boundary in place. It's just the most beautiful thing.

Treasa Edmond: 8:28

The moment it clicks. I'm so happy for people when they do that, and that's one of the things with my strategy bosses, community is watching the growth process of learning strategy and becoming more confident in it, and, even if they're not completely confident, they borrow my confidence, and I think that's okay and I think it's great and I love doing it. But confidence is not the topic we're here to talk about today. We're going to talk about a topic that I'm really passionate about, and that's actually two topics that work in tandem. The first is boundaries, which I know some people think is a dirty, dirty, dirty word, and I'm hoping we can prove them wrong today and the second is how to be a partner to your clients instead of being a substitute employee, because that sucks. So let's start our discussion about boundaries, because I know this is something you're pretty passionate about, too. How do you define healthy boundaries in a freelancer client relationship?

Sarah Greesonbach: 9:27

I think a healthy boundary is being able to say what you do and don't want to do very clearly and respectfully, and then sticking with it.

Treasa Edmond: 9:37

Yeah.

Sarah Greesonbach: 9:38

And I think it's a boundary violation when we say we're happy to do something and we really aren't. Yeah, I'm stealing that from either Brene Brown or Tara Moore, who's like people pleasing is actually lying to people because it's making them think that you want to do something you don't want to do, and that can be an interesting thing for a people pleaser to realize. Is I'm saying yes when everything in me is screaming no? Why am I doing this?

Treasa Edmond: 10:02

And I think one of the best things you can ever do for yourself as a person, much less for your business, is embrace the power of the word no. It's a good word and it's a word that you should learn and it doesn't hurt anyone. And we were talking before we even started talking and recording these episodes about boundaries. Episodes about boundaries and a revelation that I had not long back, because of a TikToker who was talking about boundaries and personal relationships. And it's the point that boundaries are not for the other person. And this is the feedback I get a lot when I talk about boundaries is I don't want to control my clients. I can't tell my clients what to do.

Treasa Edmond: 10:44

One, you're not the whole point of a guidelines for both of you to have a successful relationship. And when you set a boundary, you're setting a guideline or, as I told Sarah earlier, a line in the sand that shouldn't be crossed. And the whole point of the boundary is, if they do cross that line, both of you knows what's happening. Which means, if I have a boundary that a client shouldn't call me after hours, if I have a boundary that a client shouldn't call me after hours and they do it anyway, they know that I'm not going to respond to them and I know, if they continue to do this, this is not a client I'm going to work with, so it's just setting boundaries that are a helpful guideline for you on how you respond to certain situations. So that's all a boundary is. Can you, sarah, share a time or an example of a time when you had to establish or really reinforce boundaries with a client? How did you approach that?

Sarah Greesonbach: 11:54

term deadlines over the holidays Because personally I have a pretty strong sense of identity. I'm pretty direct in most situations and I'm pretty good with boundaries because I've been working on it so long. But for some reason, if someone needs something from me two days before Thanksgiving, everything in me screams yes. Everything in me wants to solve that problem for them and just be the one who fixed it.

Sarah Greesonbach: 12:14

And I ruined years of holidays by saying yes to things over Thanksgiving, over Christmas, over New Year's, and what I had to learn was pretty much every single time I did that they didn't even look at it until a week after the holiday and I just ruined it for me and my family for no reason, because I had this impulse to just help and save and I had to really get clear on A there was no positive outcome to that. It didn't actually save anybody's life. And then B I'm allowed to have a holiday. A lot of the boundary stuff mixes over with mindset because it's really about an identity of I'm a person who's allowed to say no and that's okay, and many people just don't have that. I feel lucky I do have that at the baseline and boundaries are still hard, so imagine how hard it must be. If you don't think, you're allowed to say no.

Treasa Edmond: 13:08

Yeah, short deadline boundaries is one that it's probably one of the first boundaries I put in place. For the same reason I'd miss out on weekends or I'd have to cancel a date night or whatever, because they needed something really quickly. And I was talking to a veteran freelancer who had just started coaching and they said what's one problem? These clients that want everything in two days and it makes me put my entire life on hold and I'm really starting to resent them. And they said, well, the resentment's a you issue, not a them issue. And I'm like, no, it's them.

Sarah Greesonbach: 13:45

They're doing it.

Treasa Edmond: 13:47

They are the ones who are asking for the stuff with unreasonable expectations. And she said no, you are the one who is saying yes. That means it's a you issue. If you said no and they pushed it and forced you to do it at gunpoint, then it's a them issue. And I was like ow, so I'm like how do I deal with that? And she said you learn to say no. And I was like but I like these clients. And she said you learn to say no to protect yourself. And I'm like no, you don't understand. I really like working with them. What if they go work with someone else? She said then they weren't the right client. And it was a lesson in me arguing and her smacking me up beside the head with stuff. But she eventually said find a workaround. She said charge more. And I hadn't heard of rush fees before that, and I'm like what are you talking about?

Treasa Edmond: 14:28

She said if they really wanted it and they're willing to pay a rush fee, tell them you'll charge twice as much, but you'll have it done in that timeframe. She said make sure your rush fee is painful enough for them and happy enough for you that you don't mind missing out on whatever you're going to miss out on. I did that and most of my clients all of a sudden weren't in a hurry anymore and it changed my life. I started looking at other ways that I could do the same thing. But I will always charge a rush fee because I've worked on both ends of the spectrum.

Treasa Edmond: 14:58

I've been the client and I've had the clients and I know that when they want something next week, they don't usually want it next week. They don't need it next week. That's just a deadline on a spreadsheet. They're not going to touch it for a month. If they're willing to wait an extra week, I won't charge them the rush fee. If they want to pay the rush fee and they actually need it quickly, then sure, let's talk about that. But yeah, that was my first situation and it was a rough learning experience for me, but I've never looked back.

Sarah Greesonbach: 15:25

Yeah, and for a listener we'd want to highlight you've already vetted your clients to be reasonable individuals who aren't going to make demands on a stranger and tell them to change their schedule. So, if you're listening to this and you're thinking well, my clients would never go for that. Your clients could be bad people and you might want to find different ones.

Treasa Edmond: 15:47

Oh, I tried really hard not to laugh out loud at that, but she's saying the truth. People, it's a little bit of that tough love coming back. It's carrying over from yesterday Talking about this issue. Then, what are some of the common boundary issues, sarah, that you see freelancers facing, and how can they really work to start addressing those professionally instead of just being reactive whenever things don't go their way?

Sarah Greesonbach: 16:10

One that comes to mind is literally right when you first start talking to a client. I've been working with people lately who feel like if we had a kickoff call and if I said I'm interested in working with them, I'm now married to them and I need to move in, and if I don't, I've broken promises and I'm a terrible person. And I think that's a really important lesson to learn. When you break out from being a full-time employee and you're suddenly your own person and you're out in the world, literally nothing is set in stone until it's in a contract and you have money, and even then you can reverse many of your decisions if a problem comes up. So the idea that you have some kind of loyalty or obligation to someone because you chatted and because they really like you and they're totally going to pick you over all the other writers there's still no real relationship there. You can have them in the wings, you can make some tentative plans, but you don't want to commit in your heart until you've actually been paid.

Treasa Edmond: 17:06

Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about that for just a second. So discovery calls are part of my process and I know there are other freelancers who only do a discovery situation through email. But I like looking in people's eyes and knowing what they're thinking. That discovery call or that first communication, even if it's by email, sets the tone for the rest of your relationship with that potential client. I have a system that I've worked years to perfect that works for me. This wouldn't work for everyone.

Treasa Edmond: 17:37

I get on that discovery call and it's not about the client discovering what I do, it's me discovering what the client needs, 100%. So I immediately thank them for taking the time to come and tell me more about their project. That's how I do it. And then I say let's go ahead and do introductions, and then I'll jump right into go ahead and do introductions and then I'll jump right into a couple of questions I have. After the introductions I immediately say all right, whenever you booked this call, you gave me some information about the project. And then I confirm their scope and their budget and their deadline, which are all on my qualifying form. And I don't even get on that call, by the way, if any of those are really off.

Treasa Edmond: 18:12

I from there talk more about what they want out of the project and see whether or not I can help them do what they want. And then the last five minutes of that 20-minute call is do you have any questions for me? Because I've already told them about my working process and how it will be and most of the time they're like nope, that's great. I seldom don't convert a discovery call because my clients are looking for an expert and they feel like they found one because all they've done is talk about themselves the entire time. But in the process I've learned if they have a problem, if I try to start the call and they talk over me and say, okay, this is what we need to talk about today, that's a boundary issue, that's not a red flag, that's a I'm not working with this person if they can't even let me open my own call. So I find out a lot about clients in that first call. Did you do discovery calls, sarah?

Sarah Greesonbach: 19:03

Yeah, definitely, and I agree. I'm thinking of this lesson I learned from Ashley Ambrose, who would start meetings even when she was really not the senior person in the meeting, instead of saying thank you for taking the call or thank you for this opportunity to learn about the business Right away. It was a positioning thing to say I'm so glad I could meet with you today, I'm so glad we could make time for this, because if you don't go into that call believing that you are a peer to your clients, that's where the partnership starts. So if you go on there feeling like you're about to get interviewed, they're going to grill you. They're going to see if you're good enough to work for them. All of that would just give me a panic attack, the first couple of years for sure. So it wasn't until I decided wait, I'm going to see if I want to work with them. If I don't want to work with them, I'll see if I can connect them with the best person to do the job. Suddenly, there's no pressure for me.

Treasa Edmond: 19:57

How do you see setting clear boundaries actually contributing to building stronger partnerships with clients, and maybe we should talk about what a partnership with a client looks like too be so different depending on what service you're offering, but in my mind it comes down to two people who respect the other person's function.

Sarah Greesonbach: 20:21

Maybe that's it. So, instead of a client coming to the call and thinking this is a little writer monkey that I will put in my cage and it will deliver 1000 words at a rate of five cents per word for the next three months, and if they don't, I'll just take away its bananas, that's not a partnership. That's someone trying to get away with hiring an employee but also not paying or treating them well, whereas if it's two equals meeting or two peers meeting, it's I'm a marketer. I have a need. Equals meeting or two peers meeting, it's I'm a marketer. I have a need. We know all of our content and our positioning and blah, blah, blah, but no one is good with words. To put it together, you are a person who is good with words. Are you willing to help us put all of this into words? I think that's at the most basic level. That's what I'm looking for.

Treasa Edmond: 21:11

Yeah me too.

Treasa Edmond: 21:13

I like to say it's both people are experts, or both organizations, because you have your business and they have their business. Both sides are experts, and it's letting each person be the expert when they need to be. I'm the expert at managing this client relationship, because it's what I do. I'm the expert at writing this content or doing the content strategy, because that's what I do. You're the expert at your business and I really need you to tell me about that so I can do what I do and I'm going to respect that. So it's a respect thing, isn't it?

Sarah Greesonbach: 21:43

And the right person wants that. I'm going to use strong language, but I feel like only an abuser steps into a relationship thinking how they can get one over on the other person and profit off of their work, like that kind of attitude of like you're going to come in. I reviewed language for this. Today. Someone got a response from a client where they were like I locked the client into the contract and then you just fulfill the work. Like they use the language of I locked the client.

Sarah Greesonbach: 22:12

And it's just this idea that I'm going to see people as things and I'm going to use them as well as I can to make a profit, and I just don't think a solopreneur business can operate like that. I think it because of the solopreneur part, the people part. It has to be a human experience and human exchange of value.

Treasa Edmond: 22:28

And that's a really good thing to point out is I get pushback on this. People say, if I want to be in a partnership with my clients, I'm not going to sign. The people that I currently have or the people I currently work with wouldn't do that. This is another tough love moment. Not every person is meant to be your client and not every person is a good client or not every company is a good client. You have to decide where your boundaries lie and whether or not you're willing to work with that, and I think that's a big part of building a partnership is you have to know what you're willing to allow before you ever even sign a contract with someone.

Sarah Greesonbach: 23:08

Yeah, if is a really important conjunction here. Yeah, if you want better pay for fewer hours with better people, then you really need to find people who are willing to give you that you can't. It's the Dr Phil thing, like knocking on a door that they can't open. If somebody doesn't see writers like that and is not willing to see them like that, you would need to decide if you're willing to be their client or if you're willing to have them as a client.

Treasa Edmond: 23:38

Yeah, this conversation. I had office hours for my community today and this conversation came up in it. I had just responded to a LinkedIn post. That was my response was professionally salty. Let's say that they were talking about their hiring process for freelancers. Well, you don't, you just don't.

Treasa Edmond: 23:59

I think how we use words to describe what we do is vitally important, especially if you're a writer. You are not being hired by a client, you are partnering with a client. That's a very subtle mindset shift, but it means the world in how you respond to that relationship and how your client responds to the relationship. If you react as an employee, your client is going to treat you as an employee. I get in trouble with myself sometimes for saying this, but 90% of the time, if you're having a problem with a client, the issue isn't with the client, it's with you and your failure to maintain your boundaries or set expectations. Issue isn't with the client, it's with you and your failure to maintain your boundaries or set expectations or communicate clearly with the client, because if you do all of those things, you're protecting yourself from yeah, that's a lot of responsibility.

Treasa Edmond: 24:49

It is a lot of responsibility to take. It is responsibility, people, really don't want that.

Treasa Edmond: 24:53

But if you do it right, everything goes smoothly and you end up working only with the people you should be working with, and then it's not even an issue. It's not work. Then it's something that you have set up. I have systems at this point, I have standard operating procedures and I have an onboarding package and an offboarding package. It's documents I send to clients and I have emails for smaller clients and if I'm working on a content strategy, it's a full-on PDF document. It tells them all the things and then I reiterate it in my kickoff call and it's part of my process. It does not take me any extra time and I don't have those types of problems anymore those types of problems anymore.

Sarah Greesonbach: 25:38

I'm nodding emphatically. I think it's. It's just worth pointing out to people. If this sounds really cumbersome, it should, because you are picking up a lot of responsibility, but that is what makes you strong enough, like lifting weights at the gym. Picking up that responsibility is what makes you strong enough to bear these higher fees and more time to yourself and more respect from your clients. That's the process that's happening.

Treasa Edmond: 26:00

It's the difference between running your business and letting your client run your business for you.

Treasa Edmond: 26:11

nothing positive can come out of letting your client run your business for you Nothing. So you just have to do that, and I think that's one of the biggest boundaries we can set, and that one's totally for ourselves. If we fall down, if we fumble the ball, if we fumble the ball, if we do whatever metaphor you want to use here if we drop the ball and don't do something, and then our client reacts the way a normal human being does and we get upset about it, that's an us problem, that's not a them problem. I think that's one of the hardest things about boundaries, and I think that's why a lot of people think it's a dirty word, because boundaries are for us, they're not for the other people.

Sarah Greesonbach: 26:58

Truly.

Treasa Edmond: 27:00

It's like being in a personal relationship, right, sarah? Have you ever gotten mad at your husband because he didn't do something? You didn't tell him he needed to do Me, so he just didn't know, he didn't know Me. And then you're like dude, why didn't you do that?

Sarah Greesonbach: 27:13

Not me.

Treasa Edmond: 27:14

It all comes back to communication. It's human and we learn from it and we do better the next time.

Sarah Greesonbach: 27:20

I just have. This is freaky. I have the perfect example for you today, because I had this miscommunication with my husband earlier today where I was deciding which day to go to the sauna which is like a medical thing I do for some of the health stuff and I asked would it be okay if I went to the sauna tomorrow evening, which we have two kids, so the evening is very full of things to do and he got really almost offended like yes, yes, it's fine, jeez. And so later I was able to say so I was trying to give you a chance to tell me if you wanted me home or not, and it seemed like you took that as an insult. What's going on? And he was able to explain why he reacted that way.

Sarah Greesonbach: 28:03

And it was just this little microcosm of the way we can miscommunicate when we don't even intend to, with someone I've known for 16 years. And it could have been a fight if we didn't stop and have this conversation and communicate. And now I know how to ask it differently in the future. So it's not, it's. He doesn't hear me saying you're incompetent, I probably need to be here tomorrow, right? And instead he can hear I care about you and I want you to be comfortable. Are you comfortable? If I do blank, it makes all the difference.

Treasa Edmond: 28:36

Yeah, it does, and it matters with our clients because they're dealing. This is something we need to realize. When we're dealing with a client, they're one person or one company to us, but we are one of many to them, we're one of the many things that need their time and need their attention, and they resent it in some form, even if they don't mean to. If a client asks for something, it's our responsibility to say okay, this is what you're asking for. What do you want the outcome to be? Because understanding the outcomes will often change the entire perspective of the project, because what they're saying is one thing and that's what it means to them in-house in their business language, but it means a completely different thing to us. Communication is fraught with peril I think everyone will agree with that and sometimes you have to redefine very simple words to make sure you're talking about the same thing truly, yeah, they're too busy for us to play coy.

Sarah Greesonbach: 29:32

Yeah, and vice versa.

Treasa Edmond: 29:34

Yeah, they just want you to be straightforward and do the thing. So, speaking of that, what strategies, sarah, do you think that we can use more to transition from that order, taker slash, employee role to more of a collaborative partner, because I know that there are definitely things you should be doing to make that transition.

Sarah Greesonbach: 29:53

Well, very similar to what we've said, how boundaries are a you problem, not a them problem. I think this can be an us initiative too, when it comes to doing the mindset work and identity work that would let you step into a conversation and start to feel like a peer. I work with a lot of people who are, even if they've achieved some kind of senior role or even education, like they've hit the terminal degree. They still don't feel like they belong there or deserve to be speaking. Maybe they've had some toxic work experiences of their own. So doing that work to almost screen yourself for any behaviors that could come off as more junior and see like why do I do that? Why do I think that Reading books like Playing Big by Tara Moore and the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, stuff like that, to really build up your internal density of being able to show up to that conversation and actually be a whole person on it I feel like that is the part that we overlook a lot.

Treasa Edmond: 30:54

Yeah, you've made the mindset shift which mindset's huge. I talk about mindset a lot. You've made the mindset shift. You have positioned yourself to be more of a partner. You believe in yourself or at least you're training yourself to believe in yourself that you can do this thing. You do belong here. You are an expert in this. How, then, do you communicate that expertise to your clients and set that foundation for the partnership without coming across as confrontational? Because I know a lot of people I've seen this happen. They will start a new thing and then they'll tell a client I do this thing too. I think you should hire me for it. Or they just forget that there's wooing involved. There is wooing. This is a relationship and relationships require wooing. So how can they do that?

Sarah Greesonbach: 31:43

Well, I have a really annoying trick answer for that because in my mind, like when you're once you do that work like a lot of it is about trusting yourself and knowing what to say, like almost reconnecting with your intuition and corny stuff like that that once I do that work, I'm way more comfortable showing up to a call without preparing and without knowing what I'm going to say or knowing what they're going to say, or feeling like I'll be pressured to say yes to something, because I can just show up and be and from my perspective, that's what's given me the most peace in my business, both with clients and in my coaching work is knowing that how I am right now in this moment, is enough. So I can have a couple notes jotted down or stuff I want to remember, but there's not a lot of lines or tips or hacks I have to remember because I just show up and be me.

Treasa Edmond: 32:35

Now, this isn't on the docket to talk about today, but I think we should have Sarah back in the future to talk about this. Mindset matters. And how we think and how we process thoughts matter, and it's not necessarily woo-woo.

Sarah Greesonbach: 32:50

I've been biting my lip to try to not say the word woo the whole time and you just blew it, teresa, come on, no one can talk about this without saying woo at some point.

Treasa Edmond: 33:02

Because people think it's this like metaphysical thing. It's out there, it's that person standing in front of the mirror going I'm okay, you're okay, it's come so far. From that, there is actual science behind rewiring your thought processes and I think someday we need to have an entire conversation about that, because I think it is so important in boundaries and in your client relationships.

Sarah Greesonbach: 33:26

We can tell people to set a boundary. We can put that on automated sound like in loss, where it was repeating that number for like 40 years. We can say that forever and if you do not believe that you deserve to say no to something, it will never click. It just won't work Like you have to do that work. And my first counter to someone who doesn't like looking in the mirror and saying you're okay is just think of all the messages we've probably gotten from like age five to 15, from everybody outside of us and inside of us saying we aren't okay. Doesn't it make sense? We'd need to tell ourselves we're okay a little bit to like catch up on all the damage that's happened. Yeah, the more I work with people, I just see oh, I'm trying not to use such strong words like abuse, but it is like the human condition is really tough on us and we are doing our best to get through it and it is really difficult.

Sarah Greesonbach: 34:24

Even when we've gone to school and we've done the perfect grades and we have the perfect family, like all that garbage, it's still really hard. Our minds need support to make it through all the things we're trying to do.

Treasa Edmond: 34:35

Yeah, and if you're not at the point where you can tell yourself something and believe that it's true over what someone else says, you need to do some mindset work.

Sarah Greesonbach: 34:44

That was my Frankenstein agreement.

Treasa Edmond: 34:49

All right. So let's talk about the balance between being flexible for clients and maintaining those boundaries that we've successfully set at this point that we need for a successful partnership. And you agree, right that you need boundaries for a successful partnership. So how do you recommend to your clients? So let's say I'm a client for a second and I have this issue. I've set my boundaries. I'm pretty good at it. About 80% of the time I set the scope, I set my rates. I've really gotten pretty good at running my business. But this one client always wants stuff last minute, even if they knew about it six months in advance. How are you going to tell me that I need to stop bending over backwards to take care of what they need and then explain to me when it is OK to be flexible?

Sarah Greesonbach: 35:38

Oh sorry, Frankenstein mode again I would start.

Sarah Greesonbach: 35:43

I really like to just ask questions and get to the bottom of things, because usually there's almost always a connection to some kind of past event with the behavior that we're doing today. So there's going to be something in there that is making you feel like you have to say yes to this person, Even though logically they're disorganized and this is their problem, but you want to be the one who saves the day. I imagine in the course of conversation we get to some ideas where one we could start getting a little proactive about this one we could start getting a little proactive about this and setting up a reminder for yourself quarterly to send an email to them to tell them to start thinking about ideas so that it's not so late and then set those boundaries in advance. Please start thinking about content ideas, because all need to know the topics by blank date if you want the drafts by blank date and just truly putting some guardrails around the client and almost treating them like a beloved child who needs some guidance with getting things done.

Treasa Edmond: 36:39

And I'm going to go out on a limb and say they're actually going to like that, because instead of them having to figure out all of the deadlines, you've just given them one. All they have to do is plug it in the spreadsheet and do the thing by then. So it really does help when you make it easy on your clients, and I set deadlines in every project. I want to backtrack a little bit, because we brought this up a couple of times and we've not really addressed it. Let's talk about the dangers of having a hero complex and being a freelancer, because there are a few.

Sarah Greesonbach: 37:11

Oh yeah, and that has come up a lot for me, like in my own professional development work, especially like I bring up the Enneagram a lot, but I'm an Enneagram eight, which I suspect you might be as well and what I realized is it was a. It was another way for me to try to control the situation. If I can save the day or fix the problem, then I know that people will depend on me and I'll be more secure in the relationship kind of thing. So I had to really unpack what am I doing and why, what's actually appropriate for me to do, what do I want to do, and then mix all that into a better relationship.

Treasa Edmond: 37:44

Finally found a phrase that works for me, because you're right, I do want to save the day, I want to help them, I want to get the kudos at the end, I want all of those things, but ultimately I want to solve the problem for people, which isn't helpful for the people or for me. I learned really quickly Not really quickly, actually. I learned this because of my toxic clients Slowly and painfully, yeah, and I learned it and I started saying it to myself. And then the designer that I work with also worked with a toxic client, so I taught it to them and I actually would say this to my client. I recommend you don't say this to a client. I said it to them because I really hope they just stop working with me and I wouldn't have to fire them. And it never worked. But my whole viewpoint became your lack of preparation does not constitute an emergency on my behalf.

Sarah Greesonbach: 38:38

That's a common Marine phrase.

Treasa Edmond: 38:40

I learned growing up.

Sarah Greesonbach: 38:41

We're all pretty familiar with the idea that the task will expand to the time you allow it, and I think clients will expand to the boundaries you allow them. They're like a beautiful, beautiful goopy mess and if you don't put that little wall up, they'll just goop right into you and it doesn't really. It doesn't track with them that it's causing a problem, but then you're over there drowning in goop.

Treasa Edmond: 39:03

Yeah.

Sarah Greesonbach: 39:04

Like you've got to push that wall up.

Treasa Edmond: 39:06

Yeah, absolutely, and politely.

Sarah Greesonbach: 39:08

But yeah, the other one is proper prior planning prevents poor performance was a big one for my dad.

Treasa Edmond: 39:16

If you're working with a client, if you build this partnership we're talking about, you can gradually guide them to proper processes and procedures that make it easier for our relationship to work even better, work even better. And sometimes that's a matter of saying it would work a lot better for me if we could do this and this. What would make it easier for you? So it always has to be some give and take there. It's a communication issue. If they knew about something six months ago and didn't tell you about it until yesterday and they need it tomorrow, you charge them extra for that. And they need it tomorrow, you charge them extra for that. That's their mistake. There are consequences to their actions and that's the only consequence we can give them, other than walking away from the relationship.

Sarah Greesonbach: 40:00

Ooh, I was going to say that's the language they understand, but I also agree that's the consequence they understand. I need to curb my behaviors or this person will leave.

Treasa Edmond: 40:13

One of the problem areas I see that causes a lot of boundary and client relationship issues is a lack of effective communication. And when I say a lack of effective communication, once again I'm putting all of this on the freelancer, because it's up to you to make sure that your client is effectively communicating with you. You have to ask the questions, you have to get the information so that you can do your job. So do you work with people on how to effectively communicate, sarah?

Sarah Greesonbach: 40:43

Yeah, it comes up sometimes. It does seem to be an instinct people have. I think what I'm going to see more of is clients being too busy or even intentionally not reading what you're saying. So I think having an awareness of whether a client reads the emails or doesn't, and whether you can discuss it by a call instead, is going to be an important part of that, because there are I'm thinking of a client situation that a coaching client had where it was almost like the client would write back and just almost as if the person hadn't written them at all. So they were having a hard time feeling understood.

Treasa Edmond: 41:22

And that's something you need to look at. If your preferred communication style is email and you have a client that needs to have a phone call to hear anything you're saying, that's not a client you can work with. If your communication styles don't mesh, you either need to be able to bend or walk away.

Sarah Greesonbach: 41:39

Or maybe you're a person who prefers to have calls as well.

Treasa Edmond: 41:42

Yeah, if you are, then it's a match made in heaven, right, and a lot of that is a mindset thing, but we need to look at the words we're using. So if you say, when I work for my clients, your clients are coming into that relationship thinking you work for them. If you say, when I partner with my clients, they come into it feeling like an equal partner and you don't have to fight that uphill battle. What advice would you give to new freelancers, sarah, who are just starting to navigate client relationships and they're really uncertain of how to stick those boundaries in there and how to set it up for themselves so that they can be in a partnership with their clients instead of an unequal relationship?

Sarah Greesonbach: 42:22

I'm going to make it real simple and break into those people's minds and assure them that it's not them, it's the space between them and the client that needs to be worked on and developed. I see people taking a lot of responsibility or taking things very personally. If you don't hear back from a prospecting thing or if somebody says no to your pricing that kind of stuff, and I've yet to encounter a situation where it really is that freelancer's problem or fault or whatever we want to attribute it to. So I'd start there.

Treasa Edmond: 42:58

I actually saw a LinkedIn post about this from a CEO of a large business who occasionally works with freelancers and other consultants, agencies, whatever and he was talking about this very issue. He said if he could change one thing, he would change the other person's perception of what happened in that decision-making process, and his viewpoint is he has to make 50 decisions a day and those decisions, every single one, has to be what's in the best long-term interest for the business. He has not in his memory ever made a decision that hinged on the person that he was making the decision about it was always a business decision and what was right long-term for the business.

Treasa Edmond: 43:47

And sometimes that's just not you. So I think that's something we need to take to heart. We cannot and it's so much easier to say this than do it right we cannot take it personally because it's not about us. And I try to put it back on my business. My business was not the right decision for them at this point, because if you can create that separation, I think it just makes it easier to not take it personally.

Sarah Greesonbach: 44:09

Because there is a separation, even if you don't feel it yet. Yeah, I think that's the cool lesson for newbies.

Treasa Edmond: 44:15

Yeah, so, sarah, if people want to find you and follow you and learn more about you and all of that how would they do that?

Sarah Greesonbach: 44:28

Well, you would come and have a great time with me on LinkedIn and from there.

Treasa Edmond: 44:36

I have a podcast and an email list and all that good stuff, but it's mainly about making our day a little lighter, a little funnier, all right. So last question, sarah, to wrap all of this up what advice would you give to service providers who are looking to create lasting, successful partnerships with their clients?

Sarah Greesonbach: 44:48

My advice would be that the first lasting, successful partnership you have to have is with yourself.

Sarah Greesonbach: 44:54

So it's all super corny but if you aren't developing who you are as a business owner, as someone off the clock, like all those things, it's just a shell of a person that you're presenting to clients, and I think that's where a lot of third year slump kind of stuff comes from is if we're just focusing on business metrics and the data around prospecting but we're not doing the reading, doing the journaling, reflecting, networking, like doing all that kind of stuff.

Treasa Edmond: 45:23

Do you have resources available to help people do that, Sarah? Is that something they can get in your newsletter?

Sarah Greesonbach: 45:27

So I host Slack sprints for Unlurk LinkedIn to help you find your voice with that, and then Unlurk your journal, and a lot of that focuses on personal development and reflection and that kind of stuff.

Treasa Edmond: 45:39

Thank you for being here with us this week and come back next week for another great guest host.

Sarah Greesonbach: 45:44

Thank you.

Treasa Edmond: 45:45

Take care everyone.