Easy Scaling with Jordan Schanda King

Firing Clients | Setting clear boundaries with Luisa Alberto

April 18, 2023 Jordan Schanda King / Luisa Alberto Episode 47
Easy Scaling with Jordan Schanda King
Firing Clients | Setting clear boundaries with Luisa Alberto
Show Notes Transcript

For the full show notes and access to resources mentioned in this episode visit https://www.easyscaling.com/blog/episode47 

This episode is part of our mini-series all about firing clients. Tune in as we get real and raw about parting ways with clients, why it happens, how to avoid it, and what you can do to make it easier when it does happen (because it will). 

In this episode, we’re talking with Luisa Alberto is the CEO of People First Finance, a complete financial service solution for women agency owners and service providers. She has almost 20 years of Finance and Operations experience working alongside visionary leaders of successful startups, and has founded multiple businesses from brick and mortar to consulting and coaching over the past decade. Her mission is to ease the financial overwhelm that holds too many enterprising women back from succeeding beyond their wildest dreams.

Topics discussed:

  • The difficulty of saying no to the money
  • Parting ways because of a business pivot
  • Everything comes back to effective communication
  • The signs of unfit clients
  • How to part ways gracefully
  • Examples of boundaries to hold with clients
  • What to do when boundaries are overstepped
  • Trusting your instincts

Connect with Jordan Schanda King:

Connect with this week’s guest:

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Parting ways with clients with Luisa Alberto

Jordan: Hey, hey. Welcome to our mini-series, all about parting ways with clients, a k a firing clients, whatever you wanna call it. You know, it's all the same things happen, things happen with clients, and so we wanna talk about that in this series. We wanna talk about what happens when you need to fire a client.

What are some situations that you might be in? It's a good idea to part ways with a client. What are some red flags to look out for before you even bring a client on that could potentially say that this is not a good idea and other things that just make this process easier. What to do after it's happened, and then again, how to avoid it.

So I really hope you enjoy this series and thank you to all of my guests for joining me and being so open and honest. And,

All righty. In this episode, we are chatting with Luisa Alberto. She is the c e O of People First Finance a complete financial service solution for women agency owners and service providers. She has almost 20 years of finance and operations experience working alongside visionary leaders of successful startups, and she's founded multiple businesses from brick and mortar to consulting and coaching over the past decade.

Luisa is amazing. Get into parting ways with clients with it, which is a juicy topic. And we specifically spend a lot of our time talking about communication, setting expectations, having boundaries, setting clear boundaries, and then also upholding them. And so this ended up being a really fun conversation, and I hope you enjoy it

hello. Hello. Welcome everyone, and welcome Luisa to the podcast. Thanks for having me, Jordan. Yeah, and this is gonna be a fun one, which I say every time. Everyone knows that cuz we're gonna talk about parting ways with clients or. firing clients, however you wanna say it.

And this is a topic that not a lot of people like to talk about out loud, publicly in front of other people . So, thank you . 

Luisa: I signed up for this one. I was like, this is the topic I can talk about. . 

Jordan: I, I don't force anyone to talk about anything in particular. They don't have to. You volunteered. Yes. It's gonna be, it's gonna be good.

So maybe we'll start. , you telling us about a time that you had to part ways with a client and then we'll go from there. 

Luisa: Yeah, so there are a couple different instances I can think of, but I think what resonate what'll probably resonate most is just, in light of a pivot. so I started off as a finance coach, as a consultant, moved some folks under my agency model.

and then realized that the way that I wanted to show up and serve clients the way that we were best suited to serve clients was not in alignment with some of the clients who were on our roster. . And so I had to make the really difficult decision, of pivoting and of letting those clients know that we weren't the, you know, our services weren't best suited for their type of business.

And, you know, when you help people and, They feel good about how you're helping them. It's really difficult to have that conversation. But I was very, very sure that the way that we needed to move forward was, you know, on a different trajectory. And so, I always handle these conversations with a lot of love and compassion because I come from a place of, really wanting to be in alignment with our clients.

And so if I feel like they're not gonna get the best service from us, or they're not, you know, or the trajectory of either of our businesses have shifted, then having that conversation is, you know, it's difficult, but it needs to happen. . and so, I do it with a lot of ample notice. So this isn't like a okay, in two weeks we're gonna switch, it's like a 30 to 60 day notice period where I sort of explain, you know, why the ship is happening and then I always offer resources, so that they're not left out on Lurch, because at the end of the day, I really want them to get the service and support that they're looking for.

So that's sort of how I approach. , that piece of the puzzle. 

Jordan: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I love that. And I love that you mentioned the notice because that makes me, I wanna dig into like the specific offer that these people were in, because that plays a big role too, if people are in like certain timeframe contracts or it's like a program with an end and you have to fire them in the middle, like that's a very different situation than if it's an ongoing service.

So tell us a little bit about, a little bit about. Yeah, so 

Luisa: I give this lead time and honor, always honor the contract unless there is a real problem, that's impacting either of our businesses in like an IR irrevocable way. so I have an example for that too, but, I really do see, you know, through to the end of these contracts.

And so the way that I had, planned this out in this specific instance was it was a 90 day notice period. And so we really just sort of like mechanically went through and delivered the service that we needed. Nobody went above and beyond. We just sort of made sure all of the boxes were checked, and that they were gonna be in good hands and had a plan for what happened after we were done.

so I like to. Again, stay within contract so that nobody's thrown for a loop, even if it's like a little uncomfortable as you inch towards the end of that contract. and so how, that's how I handled that 

Jordan: particular situation. Mm, yeah. Yeah. And there, gosh, there's, there's so much nuance in this because this type of parting ways with clients is very different than if there is an issue and.

Talk to, I'm, I'm sure if you're listening to this, you're not a stranger to me. And you have heard me tell stories about firing clients. And when I say firing clients, I mean really firing clients. Like, this is not working. Like, here's your money back, like, we're done today. Situation, which is not ideal. No one wants to experience that, but it does happen.

and actually I, part of the reason why I talk about that so often is because I feel. . Most people don't do that when they should do that, and they end up staying in really bad situations that are actually like detrimental to their health and their own business. But anyway, what you're talking about though is more just like, look, we're just not inviting you to continue on with us at the end of this, which is a totally different situation.

probably less stressful of a situation, but it does also happen. And what I think is hard in that is. , you're saying no to money when there's really not like that big of a problem, right? It's not like, oh, this is terrible. I've got to like get rid of this person. It's like, this just really isn't optimal for where I'm trying to go or for them.

And so you're just like having to let that money go. Is that, was that difficult to do? 

Luisa: I think so, but be, but in making that decision intentionally and knowing that on the other side. of that, there's this opportunity and potential to make more aligned money is always a huge motivator. And you know, in our industry, I work in finance, so we fulfill this very core service for folks.

So I, if, if I think about firing someone, it's like I still wanna give them 30 days notice because there's so much. you know, for them to sort out, and finance is no joke. I mean, you wanna make sure that all of that is handled really well. And so I think that's why for us, it's like I always have this little bit of a longer period, even if I know it's not working.

I just sort of like distance myself. but yeah, on the other side, if there's this opportunity and potential for you to serve people at a higher level, which this is the case, this was the case for us, it's a little bit easier. to let go of folks where you just feel like there's enough tension, traction, a drawing of resources, a drawing on your energy, because that's a real op.

That's a real cost. Too. Yeah. Right. So it's not just the money, it's also what mental energy is this taking? What? What are the conversations that are happening in my team? How is it affecting my team culture that this person isn't in alignment? Those are real for, you know, any ceo. Those are real costs of doing business as well, you know?

Yeah. 

Jordan: Oh yeah. For sure. For sure, for sure. Yeah, so this is something we just very recently went through because our offer suite has changed really drastically over. Three to six months. And it wasn't until maybe like 30 days ago that we had our last client in our old model, our old offer structure roll off, and you do not realize how much of a drain, like trying to manage different people's packages at different structures and different, like, okay, well this person does it this way and well, we're having to keep track of these different things for them because they're on the old, like it.

necessarily. Saying it like that, yeah, sounds complicated, but when you're in it, it doesn't feel like, oh, this is like super distracting. But then once you're not doing it that way anymore, it's like, holy shit, this is way more streamlined like this. It shouldn't, it shouldn't be this drastic of a change, but it is.

It's so much easier to just manage everyone being in kind of the. Structure the same offer for us. We have, we have three core offers, and that's all that we do. And everyone within each of those offers is getting like, essentially the same thing. And it's easier for me, but also our team. Like we have team members who are overseeing all of these clients.

And it, it, it like clicked into place for me when one of them was like, oh, now that we don't have this client, like, I'm so much less distracted. . I'm like, oh my gosh, . I would never even have thought it about it that way. 

Luisa: Yep. It's so true. And you know, at, to your point, you don't realize until that is taken out of the equation, until that client or that service or that product or whatever you're doing.

That is causing that tension is taken out and that leaves room for further expansion for you to find clients that are actually aligned. And honestly, in my experience, finding clients that are aligned, finding, you know, the right hires that are aligned with those offers, like your business can move at the speed of light.

So what's typically holding you back when you're in these, you know, dynamics is this, Hidden tension or this hidden contention with, with where you're going with clients who are with you, who you've just sort of brought along for the ride. and I think it's a lesson that a lot of business owners have to learn the hard way, quite honestly, because we're always evolving as service providers.

We is advi, you know, evolving as people. . And so there's gonna be these shifts, but when you can sort of cut, you know, cut things off when you first start to get like an inkling of that, and do it in a way that is professional and do it in a way that is respectful, I think that that also creates people who are, ambassadors and proponents of you and your brand and your business over the long run.

And that's really building credibility and trustworthiness. And that's also something that's really important to me. If somebody leaves. I still want them to leave with a good feeling about the service that they had, about our engagement. if that's possible. Sometimes it's not, it just doesn't work out.

But if that's possible, that's 

Jordan: important to us. Yeah, yeah. Totally. All right. Well, let's, let's get into it on the other side of things that are, it's not so like, Rosie, let's talk about, let's talk about parting ways with a client where it was maybe a little bit messier. 

Luisa: Yeah, so we parted ways with a client, who had a lot of demands.

just the demands of the business were more than our team could handle, and it was really crippling our team. and we sort of have that conversation, and this was earlier in my business where it was like every, every client counted. Like I would sign people up and be like, great, now I have a business.

You know, because working with like one or two clients, you're like, okay, this could all Peter out tomorrow, but you start to get a little bit more. . So this was one of those like key, clients for us. And so, we eventu we realized that like things just weren't really working. And actually they called it out first and we were like, so is this like, is there something off here?

My expectations different. And I, we were having that conversation. I was like, oh my God. My first instinct was like, how do I salvage this? But then immediately went into, if I try to salvage. Everybody's going to be miserable, so it's just a lot easier for us to cut the corn. And so it was a lot of communicating again from that like softer place where I could on, I could really sort of like, you have to be a salesperson.

I feel like in these situations where you're really selling them on the idea that. Them not working with you is better for them. . Yeah. That's, that's my whole strategy is like, you not working with us is gonna be better for you. That's the whole spin, when it's kind of a messy, tricky situation. And that one actually went on for a little bit longer than I would have preferred.

but we were really helping them get, a replacement for, again, this like very critical service that we provide. . so a lot of like very short, concise boundary setting. so this is a biggie that comes up, you know, that we hadn't touched on yet, but like really, really implementing solid, solid boundaries, about like responsiveness and what we were going to do, what we weren't going to do, and making sure the entire team was on the same page with how we were delivering for this.

through the end of their contract because they just asked for more and asked for more and asked for more. and of course my team, you know, as a service provider, you wanna do more, you wanna do right by your clients. but because we already knew that it was the beginning of the end, we had to impose like severe boundaries on every front.

Jordan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. , it kind of needs to be the case with every, I I mean like all clients really, like if you have boundaries, they should be known. And I think that I would, I would love to know specifically what some of yours are and what you tell clients and how you communicate that. and I'm happy to give some examples too that our team uses that I think works really well.

But what I, what I find interesting cuz I just had a, a personal experience with this, is how over-delivering. and like, like, blowing past your own boundaries. is actually like a really sets you up, sets the client up, I guess, to have a really bad experience. And I don't think people think about it that way because they're actually usually trying to do the opposite, but almost always it like backfires because you can't.

maintain that, and you maybe haven't even communicated to them that this is out of scope or whatever it is. And this is what happened to us recently. We were working with a service provider and they said they were taking care of something and then they didn't actually end up taking care of it or, and it wasn't done correctly.

And then I had lots of questions about it and they were like, well, actually, that's not even within our scope of our contract. And I was like, well, But you told me you were doing it. So then all I'm going off of is what you told me, right? Like if you would've told me you weren't gonna do it, I would've made other plans.

Don't tell me you're gonna do it and then not do it. And I'm left in a bad pla. It's just like it's it to me all comes down to communication. I don't know if you agree with that, but I feel like all of these weird, wonky situations with clients and service providers and whatever, like always come down to some kind of like mishap in communication.

Luisa: Totally. And so imposing, you know, having boundaries around. response time, for example, you know, you can expect a response from our team. For us, it's within 24 business hours, so if you haven't heard from us and it's still within that 24 hour business window, you asking again is not gonna help you get it.

Like, , that's that 24 hour window, right? 24 hour business hour window. there's also, you know, clear, a clear scope of service. So we, again, we've had to learn this the hard way where when somebody comes in to work with us, we are working on your financials for this current year. So if there is cleanup, if there are other problems, if there are amendments, if there are other things that need to happen for historical years that is outside the scope of our work as of the date that you came into our world.

So we make that really. upfront so that the onus is on the client to ask, like say, oh, okay, this falls out of, you know, this current fiscal, what would this happened with us with a client yesterday. They were like, what's the cost for you? What would it cost me for you to handle this for us? It's like, yes, we're training them.

Well, I'm doing something right because they're recognizing that what they're asking is outside the scope of our current contract. And then it was easy for me. Assess what the scope of their ask was and say, Hey, you know what? This isn't actually gonna take a lot of resources. We're happy to do that for you, but at least we had that checkpoint in that conversation.

And I think you're right in that, you know, having those boundaries, it's like with kids, I hate to like, let's just make the comparison, right? If kids don't have boundaries, I mean, it's just like a free for all right? Nobody's happy. They are like, oh, I can do this and I can do that, and I can do that. And it's like you just see kids go hay.

And so I think for it's, it's the same in business. It's like if you can just impose enough structure for your team, for your clients, in your services, in the scope of work and make that really, really clear, everybody knows sort of where the walls are. Mm-hmm. , everybody knows what the right questions to ask.

and everybody knows sort of, you know. When you're crossing that line and there isn't the need to have that back and forth and that conversation around like, well, you said you were gonna do this because maybe your intentions were to help me out. But actually in not following the rules in both of us, not following the rules where then it's it's gray area and that is not good for anybody getting anything done.

Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely like, , the lack of clarity that I think gets people into trouble and, and to continue on with the kid analogy, like it's not that kids are being bad to be bad, they actually just don't know, like clients aren't asking for things outta scope because they are like trying to be bad and get more from you.

Like maybe sometimes, but most of the time, like they just don't know, like they don't know your service, like you know your service, right? Like, Daughter all the time is like, Hmm, cinnamon roll, it's good for me. I'm like, it's not good for you. It tastes good. There's a difference. Like, let's talk about it.

Right? Like they just don't know things , and that's okay. And that's your job to educate them on how your service actually works. okay, cool. I love this. I had a question I was gonna ask you and now I can't remember what it was. tell me some more of your, of your boundaries or how you communicate with your clients that you think is helpful.

Luisa: Yeah, so I think really it comes down to, . Mostly it's my team. So my team is mostly responsible for client delivery. And so I think there's a whole other dimension when you've got multiple people who are touchpoints for a client. because we all really need to be very clear on what those boundaries are.

And so, you know, we have the, we have very specific. Deliverables, very specific things that we do for clients. It's taken me a while to figure out what those things are and are not. Right. But we're super, super clear on that. That's written in the contract. It's written in our, CRM system. It's written, you know, in the way that we're managing those deliverables across the company.

And so I feel like. , what's really important is, you know, for everybody to be on the same page, obviously, but then of course to know when to check in, to know when it's okay to go above and beyond. So the other thing that this enables you to do is really, you know, go above and beyond when, a request comes in that's outside of scope and for everybody to feel good about it.

But, some other, let's think, let me think about some other boundaries that we have in place. we have one way of communicating, so there's one email address that the entire team shares. So there isn't, like, for a while I was letting clients, use boxer. So if you're familiar with boxer, it's like walkie, walkie-talkie.

Yeah. and I was like, oh, this'll be great. They'll have access to me. They'll be able to just like, cuz sometimes you need to talk through a problem. And I just realized that it was causing me a lot of stress because it felt like a more direct line of contact and like they were expecting a really quick response.

So no more boxer, everything is an email. Again, to impose a little bit of space so that they're like, I want them to get a response quickly, but I want it to be a well thought out response. And I want us to have all of the information that we need. and again, this comes with like having a team that serves, you know, multiple people that are surveying a client.

so that was a biggie, was just like, this is the one place. The one way, the one email that you use to get in touch with us so that we can help you. That was also really, a big 

Jordan: shift for us. Yeah, that's a good one. Again, communication all comes down to communication. We originally, when we started this business, started this agency.

We used Boxer for all of our client and team communication. And it also, got to be a little bit of a shit show mess. I love Voxer, because. I 90, I would say 90% of the messages that I send to client or team is, is voice. It's just much easier for me. My poor realtor, we text and every once in a while I'll send her a voice message.

She's like, this is so funny. You're sending me a voice message. I'm like, yeah, I know. It's like not normal, but this is just so much easier for me. So thank you. But that's exactly why we switched to Slack. So we do all of our communication in Slack now. I agree that the expectation around Boxer, because it is a walkie-talkie app, is like immediate and you can see when they listen.

And so then once someone listens, you expect them to respond immediately. And Slack doesn't have that, that functionality. So there's a lot more space in, in the back and forth, but also we are like deeply, deeply into our clients' businesses for the most part on like a daily basis. Email would be a nightmare for us to try to coordinate communication.

And we have, you know, 20 employees or 20 team members. So there's a lot of like looping in that we need to do, and Slack is the easiest way to do that. But I, I, I think figuring out your communication platform is critical to making things not a nightmare. 

Luisa: Yeah. And for, you know, it to just be super, super clear.

Like, this is the action that you can take that will get you the best of us. Mm-hmm. the best from us. And then it's very clear if they are overstepping anywhere, you just ignore it. Like, I just ignore it. You, you act out a line, you send an email another way or you comment on something that we don't typically see that isn't a part of the way that we've explicitly said is how you get in touch with us.

I ignore it. I have every. To not see it because it is in alignment with what we agreed upon, you know? 

Jordan: Yeah. We do a lot of like, if people, we have to deal with dms a lot in Slack, and usually it's a learning curve at the beginning of working with a client because we have a client channel and that is where a hundred percent of the communication needs to happen between the client and anyone on our team.

And that is something that I hold a very hard line on. So. . For some reason, a client is DMing anyone on our team. The act is always to respond in the client channel. Like, Hey, saw your DM that you sent me. I'm gonna respond here. Like it's just, you're just retraining until they get used to it. Because again, like they're not no one, they're not doing it to be bad, like Right.

They're just doing it because it's easier or they don't know, or whatever it is, and so you just. . Give people that leeway until they figure it out. But yeah, or ignoring would work too, I guess.

That's funny. That's so funny. That's so funny. . All right. What else? What else do you think is important when it comes to parting ways with clients? I just 

Luisa: think that imposing these boundaries, these expectations, having clear communication, that sort of thing, it makes it really obvious. Mm-hmm. earlier you're on when something isn't working, when you.

Start to realize that you need to let somebody go because they're not able to plug into the parts of your business that scale that will enable you to serve them for the long term. Like it's just doing them a service to cut it off if, and a lot of times for us what that looks like and the actual solution is for them to have somebody in-house for them to have somebody who's in finance, like a bookkeeper, somebody on their team who's managing, like if they have a lot of a r and ap.

and there's a lot going on there. It's. Maybe the better solution for you is not to actually work with an outsourced agency. Maybe the better solution for you is to hire somebody who can be at your beck and call who can do things the way you need them to. who can communicate with other people on your team and help you get that shift.

And that was a hard lesson that we learned, but it was very obvious because we had these boundaries in place and it was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. This person isn't playing according to these rules. And actually it might not be in their best interest too, because they do need a more timely response, or they do need more information from other parts of the business in order to get this thing done.

Yeah, so I think, again, with the boundaries, the clarity of communication, it just makes. easier. And so you don't have to come to this place where you're like pulling your hair out because this person just isn't doing the things that you have in your head that they should be doing. , you know, it's like with your kid when you don't like lay out, you know the rules and then they do something that drives you totally insane.

And they're like, well, I didn't know that that was gonna make you nuts. I didn't know that was the wrong thing. I didn't know, just like you were saying. And so I just think making it clear helps everybody make the best decision for their. Business 

Jordan: For sure. For sure. Yeah. It needs to be clear what exactly you do and what you don't do for people to know if it's a good fit.

And we run into this, not, I wouldn't say a lot, but we've run into it several times because again, because what we offer is like very, very close to like full scope operations for some of our clients on the CO and team side. And sometimes what we find is people, people love the idea of. , but actually what they need is their own set of employees.

Like, they like it. Sounds great. Yeah. Because then I'm essentially like being your director of operations and managing everything, but, but we can't give you the level of service and responsiveness that an empl like an in an in-house team or set of employees could give you. It's just not. At the end of the day, we're still contractors to you.

You know, and there are different expectations and different capacities and availability is with those two options. And some people just don't know that they what they actually need. And that's where we have to come in and say, okay, here's what you actually need and it's not us, you know? Yeah, it is.

it is interesting cuz if you don't do. Because sometimes people will just bend over backwards and do the work to keep the money. but then you actually can't take on as many clients because you're doing stuff that really you shouldn't be doing. 

Luisa: Yeah, don't do that. Don't, don't do that. Don't save yourself the time.

Just don't do that. , do 

Jordan: that. Yeah. No, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Yeah. You know, this is actually this discussion about deliverables and scope is actually one of the reasons why we structure , our offers the way that we do.

So we do everything on an hourly basis, which is, I feel like not, it's not in vogue, like in the online space, like most people are like it's package based, or it's , deliverable based, and you set a price and then you, you know, that's how you scale. For me, that has not worked and it's been actually a lot easier and we don't have to hold as many boundaries because it is hourly.

It's like you have 30 hours to use this month. How do you wanna use 'em? You can use 'em however you want. I don't care how you use 'em. I'll help you figure out how to do it, but then if you want more, that's fine. You just have to pay more like it. There is no gray area. You either used your hours or you didn't use your hours.

There is nothing that is really out of scope. It's just do you want to, do you want to pay more for it? I like, I don't care. I'm happy to do it for you. You know? So that has been helpful for us. Maybe for my personality, I don't know what it is, that we haven't had to have rigid. Rigid sets of deliverables are scope and can give people the flexibility and the boundary is like built into the package.

I don't know, 

Luisa: I personally really love it. That is fascinating, . I and, and as you say that, it's so funny cuz I think you're right, like it does sort of depend on your personality, how you work, how you're set up. Yeah. for me that would like cause so much anxiety cuz I wouldn't have enough control over like what's coming down the pipeline.

Yeah, right. Like what requests are coming in, what ask, what questions are gonna be asked, that sort of thing. But like you've got a robust team, right? You know the space really well. I'm sure you like get to know your clients really well in the beginning. And then just having that knowledge about them makes it easy to sort of like complete.

Tasks that come up and that sort of thing. So like, but it's fascinating because then in that case, It. What are, I'm curious. I'm like, well, what are the boundaries that you have in place with that Totally different system than I use? I'm curious. . 

Jordan: our boundaries that we have to set for clients are usually more around communication and response time and project timelines.

And, and it, I'd say it's less boundaries because I think. . We went through a phase where we were like, okay, we're gonna like set the expectations of if you want, you know, like a sales page copy. You want sales page copy written, or you want a sales page design. We have to have X amount of days. Like, yeah, that's great.

That doesn't really work for us and our clients. We're much more flexible than that. Maybe because of my personality, I don't know what it is. We just know what's possible. And so we do everything on just like an open communication system. You want this done? Great. Let me ask my copywriter to see if they can do that.

If not, I'll tell you what they can do and then you can decide if you want us to do it or not. Like it's just very much open back and forth dialogue. Let's see if we can meet your needs, and if we can't, then we'll talk about the options there, you know? So that works best for us. And then when it comes to like actual response, , we're very, we're like very quick to respond, I think.

I think our contract says within 24 hours, but we're usually, you know, within a few hours, definitely same day as like our kind of standard of practice. But that works because the people that my clients are dealing with are my employees. So they're working every day, you know, so it's, it's not that they're dealing with a contractor for communication purposes.

It's an employee. So those people are around all the time. And that was done intentionally because communication and response time is really important to us. but the other thing is that, that we have gotten better about that. My team, I will give them credit on this. We used to kind of be available all the time.

We would say Monday through Friday, but then like if you needed something on the weekend, sometimes we would respond, right? which it gets tricky that that can go south for sure. And so what our, our client managers do now is that they send a message on Friday, every single Friday saying, Hey, just wanna pop in.

Here's your update. feel free to message me over the weekend and I'll see it as soon as I get back on Monday. There's your boundary and it's set every single week. . 

Luisa: I love that. I love that. And also, I feel like just in my experience in, in working with, you know, service, service providers in the operations space, like that's actually what businesses need.

Like you found a way to really meet the demands of. Scaling businesses that where it's like you can set the best strategy, you can decide what projects are gonna happen at the beginning of any quarter, but then on a day-to-day basis, just like the nature of business, it's like it changes, right? Yeah.

Opportunities shift. That's not real 

Jordan: life . No, it's not real 

life. 

Luisa: I lo I love that you've found this way to sort of match that demand. It's really, really cool. 

Jordan: It's fun. It's definitely different, but, but I. . I think, like you said, setting scope, setting deliverables that works better for some people and having timeframes that are strict in place that works better for some people.

So it is definitely a personality thing and a like how your team functions, how your team is structured. Again, cuz like if I didn't have employees and everyone was a contractor, we would operate very differently. Probably wouldn't be legal, but we would operate very differently. Right. . 

Luisa: Right, right. Well, and it's interesting cuz in the finance space, it's like we're driven by deadlines, right?

There's like this big compliance piece where it's like things need to be delivered on time and accurately. And so it's just, it's just a different, you know, industry, different model. but I think. You know, you and I are aligned in that being proactive and being intentional is really the game changer, right?

So it's like if you, if you're listening to this and you've got, like, you're pulling your hair out about a client already, just learn the lesson. Learn, learn from that, and really think about, huh, where did this go? , where did things go awry and what can I do the next time? And just, you've just gotta continue to iterate, right?

Until you get to the place where your boundaries are so clear. Your services are so clear. How you work and how your tea works best is so clear that anybody who comes into that, that doesn't fit you, just recognize it so much sooner and save yourself a lot of pain. Yeah. 

Jordan: Yeah. And if it's not working, Feel free to part ways with the client.

It's okay. And you will have lots of other clients come your way once you've got the bandwidth to actually take them on. So permission to do that every day. , 

Luisa: I'll take And that's, but that's the leap, right? And I think that's why a lot of people stay stuck, like you were talking about before. It's like cash now.

a lot of times feels a lot better and more secure and, confidence building than dropping that in pursuit of something that may be more aligned down the road. So, I get it. 

Jordan: totally. It's, yeah, cuz the money's like the money's gonna come back, but it may not be the next day. Though that has happened to me many, many times, I've let go of a client and then literally the next day got a new one.

that does happen. Yeah. That's like not, that is when that happens to me. I am never surprised. I'm like, yeah, well of course that happened. Like I just did the thing I knew I needed to do and now here's the evidence that I made the right decision. But sometimes there's a lag, sometimes there's a money lag.

So, you know, just know that can happen. But it's okay. It's still gonna be a good decision. Totally, totally. Well, this was so fun. This was so fun. I had no idea where this was gonna go. This was great. Boundaries, communication, all very critical stuff. I love it. anything else you wanna leave us with about parting ways with clients?

Luisa: I think it's just trust your instincts, right? And don't just, life's too short to stay miserable. So if there is something that's just plaguing you or, or a dynamic that's plaguing you, just cut it out. Move on. . 

Jordan: Yes. Preach. Preach. Thank you. This was great. Thanks Jordan.