Full disclosure – this blog post serves no purpose other than me getting my thoughts down regarding what was a rather mixed bag of a week.
It was a busy week, which was great – I love hypnosis and the more opportunities I have to enjoy it the better. But it was also a mixed bag in terms of clients. I had a mix of what is typical for me – really lovely clients, both old and new – but also more than one client who presented challenges. What do I mean by that? They were either rude/abusive or messed me around/wasted my time.
Thankfully such instances are incredibly rare but it did make me realise that I need to take a firmer approach to reiterating that I am a business a I suspect some of the aggressiveness I encountered was from me initially being too nice and letting things slide when I shouldn’t.
I love what I do and I am always happy to answer genuine questions from prospective and actual clients, but for some clients this seems to encourage a blurring of professional boundaries. They will either reach out to me on my site “Just to chat” or get frustrated when I do not respond to questions they have quickly enough.
I reiterate that people like this are in the minority and I still believe many of those are not being deliberately manipulative but as a businesswoman it does get frustrating to have to repeatedly reinforce professional boundaries.
I love hypnosis, I love being able to enjoy sessions with clients. I am friendly and approachable and don’t intend to change that – but me being friendly does not mean you have permission to take advantage of me or my time.
I understand why many Dommes request tributes before interaction. It weeds out timewasters. I don’t ask for tributes simply to talk with me – all I ask is that you respect my time. Be reasonable. I’m happy to answer genuine questions, but please be mindful of my time. Time I am spending answering questions for free is time I could be spending earning money.
I happily give some of my time for answering questions because I enjoy being able to give back to the hypnosis community but it doesn’t mean I am free to chat just for the sake of it, or give you in-depth details you can later use to jerk off to (again, a minority but it does happen!)
Striking a balance between being available and not having people try to take advantage is not easy. If I didn’t love hypnosis as much as I do, I probably would have sought another job a long time ago. But I am here and I remain passionate and committed to what I do.
I’m also aware that I am very lucky that the unpleasant clients I have to deal with are definitely in the minority and most of my clients and those who interact with me do respect my time.
My intention here isn’t to stop people from reaching out to me. I’m here to help. All I ask is that you be respectful of my time.
And to my amazing clients, both from last week and in general – thank you for being so wonderful. Without your support I couldn’t continue doing what I love. You rock!
