Jen Adams Juan

Jen Adams Juan

You gave me a lot of good food for thought both here and in your follow up piece. I admire the heck out of you and think you made great points here.

When I put up our booked sign late last year, it was a reflection of being slammed. Our work/life balance was off kilter, and the time spent just managing inquiries was taking time away from our current clients. I knew I needed a break, and kind of like what Charlie alluded to–that break helped put up a boundary so I could get myself re-aligned.

I think boundaries are important, and each of us can only define for ourselves and our businesses what that means. Your goals and boundaries are bound (ha!) to differ from mine or anyone else's here :)

What helped me here was seeing that the semantics I used may have inadvertently made us look like we were forcing scarcity or don't want to help people. And those are two things I absolutely don't want to come across. Your entry here helped me finesse my wording a bit to be more welcoming.

I can't help everyone. None of us can. But I think we're all interested in doing the best job we can for the people we do work with. For me, letting people know, realistically, our available openings for new work leaves enough time and energy on the table for me to do the very best job for the folks whose projects are currently in progress.

Thanks very much for this. I appreciate very much thought-provoking pieces like this.

You gave me a lot of good food for thought both here and in your follow up piece. I admire the heck out of you and think you made great points here.

When I put up our booked sign late last year, it was a reflection of being slammed. Our work/life balance was off kilter, and the time spent just managing inquiries was taking time away from our current clients. I knew I needed a break, and kind of like what Charlie alluded to–that break helped put up a boundary so I could get myself re-aligned.

I think boundaries are important, and each of us can only define for ourselves and our businesses what that means. Your goals and boundaries are bound (ha!) to differ from mine or anyone else's here :)

What helped me here was seeing that the semantics I used may have inadvertently made us look like we were forcing scarcity or don't want to help people. And those are two things I absolutely don't want to come across. Your entry here helped me finesse my wording a bit to be more welcoming.

I can't help everyone. None of us can. But I think we're all interested in doing the best job we can for the people we do work with. For me, letting people know, realistically, our available openings for new work leaves enough time and energy on the table for me to do the very best job for the folks whose projects are currently in progress.

Thanks very much for this. I appreciate very much thought-provoking pieces like this.

Now, there are times when I am booked for one of my businesses but I don't hang a sign out front and I don't think you need to. And I think you are getting to this Mr. Pants… and that is… while I am booked I may not be booked solid right? So I take the call and feel the customer out, some times they really can wait a bit and sometime not. For emergency situations I do my best to move things around and non-emergency situations I work out what will work best for the customer. Rarely does it not work out. But then I'm willing to work til 3:am if necessary to make it work out.

So using the idea of 'booked' to create scarcity isn't a bad idea, people want to work with people who are busy…it adds to the idea that they must be good. No one generally goes to the restaurant without cars in the parking lot…

Best advice is to help everyone you can in every way you can and when you can't let 'em know. And I agree that advertising 'booked' might not be the best strategy!

Now, there are times when I am booked for one of my businesses but I don't hang a sign out front and I don't think you need to. And I think you are getting to this Mr. Pants… and that is… while I am booked I may not be booked solid right? So I take the call and feel the customer out, some times they really can wait a bit and sometime not. For emergency situations I do my best to move things around and non-emergency situations I work out what will work best for the customer. Rarely does it not work out. But then I'm willing to work til 3:am if necessary to make it work out.

So using the idea of 'booked' to create scarcity isn't a bad idea, people want to work with people who are busy…it adds to the idea that they must be good. No one generally goes to the restaurant without cars in the parking lot…

Best advice is to help everyone you can in every way you can and when you can't let 'em know. And I agree that advertising 'booked' might not be the best strategy!

“So you're booked in the sense that you can't do a session, but you're free in that you acknowledge a person's needs and presence. Important thing, acknowledgement. It's amazing how much the smallest bit makes people feel awesome.”

It's amazing, indeed. This is the thought that really sums up so much of our funk around “booked.”