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Do you outsource? Are you looking to outsource? Just a quick thing about either. SET YOUR HOURS!

I have set hours now for my email response time. Monday-Friday 8am-3pm PST and I reserve the right to not be able to respond to new clients in that time as well. I’m sure you will understand that those times are also first booked with my clients needs and projects.

I started out VA’ing and thinking I needed to contact all my clients and perspective clients immediately. I have always worked hard at contacting everyone asap. This has and is biting me in the butt. Now, I have people that expect a response in just a few minutes and honestly, they aren’t even paying for it. Yep, story of my life, I set myself up to be taken for granted. My time is valuable and emails take up that time.

Do you value your time? Do you have a set value for your time? If you are a coach then yes you do. Do you expect that same value of others time? It is a different way to think and I realize it. Goodness, I had to change my way of thinking around it as well. I still am. I’ve been online for many years and emails were just a part of life. But now emails from clients, prospective clients and people that should be paying for my time are overwhelming. Previously, I could easily get through emails in less than an hour for the entire day. There are days now where it can be two hours or more to get through emails and research responses. See the predicament?

Setting boundaries is difficult when you are talking about people that are customers. I guess it comes down to defining your business terms, your business outline and everything in-between. For me it means I need to set some contact rules in writing and update my VA client agreement. You should expect the same value from your VA for their time that you deserve and ask for. If you can’t ask for that same value then you may not be contracting with the right VA for you.