Reprinted from the now-defunct website The Doe, 2021
My podcast co-host struggled for weeks to write an email to a potential sponsorship partner who couldn’t afford us. This is an area in which I excel. I have to quickly determine whether or not a client is worth engaging with. The stakes are higher than in a regular job — I could get robbed, raped, arrested, or even murdered.
Never underestimate the power of your life being on the line to find out that, hey, I can do this.
A common refrain among women I know is that they “feel bad” saying no or otherwise setting a boundary. These beliefs are taught to us by a society that doesn’t want us to have our own back. The next time you are thinking of a potential client’s needs as more important than your own stop and realize that they aren’t doing that for you. They have their best interests at heart. You have to have yours. Nobody else in the business world will ever have them for you. The best you can hope for is that your needs intersect with theirs.
1. Be Fiercely Protective of Your Time
Most customers do not turn into sales. We call lookie-loos fantasy bookers. They exist everywhere. They want to think of themselves as the people who will buy and have whatever good or service, but they don’t intend on actually purchasing it. I give them five minutes. I’m here to help if you’re lonely, but not for free. At the end of five minutes, if they haven’t made any motion to actually book, I ask them if they’d like to, then let them know I’d be happy to continue the conversation if they Venmo me. They never do, but now my line is free for someone who might. My sessions start the minute the second person walks into the room and end when my timer goes off. Oh, you didn’t cum? Not my job, not my problem. You have bought time. It’s run out. If a project (making them cum, writing a grant, whatever) takes more time than what they paid for, just politely let them know that the funds have been used; if they’d like more work, here’s how much more money they need to give you. As for clients who can’t afford you? Keep it moving. They will find someone they can afford, and someone who can afford you will find you.
2. Do Not Take On Too Much
When we think about what we can handle as far as our workload, we typically look at how much time we have and how much we can squeeze into it. We live in a society that teaches us that we are what we do, so more doing is how we combat the inner not-enoughness that comes from believing that. We also need to consider energy. I cannot see more than two clients in a day and be okay the next day emotionally. It’s not a time thing. Last week, I had a massage client and then did an overnight session. Technically, that’s a 13-hour day. But it felt the same as two one-hour sessions. Each client has a different energy and requires a different part of me to come forward to meet him. When you look at a project and plan your deadlines, consider how much emotional energy that project may take. How demanding is the client, how important is it that everything be just right, is there anything you will have to learn or that’s a bit out of your depth or may be triggering to you or maybe something that is just pretty far down on your list of tasks you enjoy? These are all considerations when you look at how each client, each gig, and each project fits into your overall world. If you burn yourself out, you’ll have to stop completely. Just like it’s better to clean your house a little every day than once a month, it’s important to regulate the in and outflow of your limited energetic reserves.
3. Trust Your Gut & Do Not Make Decisions Out of Desperation
In the summer of 2020, I went to Arizona to do stand-up comedy. The gig was paying crap, but I’d just had Covid and wanted to use my immunity to do my favorite thing. I figured I could work there, get a nice hotel, etc. LA was pretty much locked down, and I’d barely had any work outside of the rare QAnon client. I decided that I would make a certain amount of money while I was there. I didn’t. All my calls either couldn’t afford me, refused to screen, were drunk, or some combination of the three. This wore me down, as did my resolve and my trust in my gut. The last day I got a call from someone who I normally would have not taken. Something didn’t feel right. He was coming on too strong for a guy about to show up to a sure thing. When he was late, I thought about it again — I needed to cancel. But I didn’t. He sent his Linked In Profile as a screenshot, I barely glanced at it. I had decided that I was going to make that money that day — I had Xotox in the morning and wanted to pay cash. That man robbed me. The companies on his profile didn’t exist, hadn’t existed for years. I knew when he made me download some investment app in which he claimed to deposit ten times my asking price (always a huge red flag when they offer more than you are asking; someone who genuinely wants to will just tip you the extra, not want credit and consideration for it) that I was never going to see that money. But now I had a large man in my hotel room with my dog, wallet, and laptop. I had to do what I had to do to keep myself safe at that moment: give him what he came for. That day, I decided that my desire to make money was more important than my gut instincts, and I paid the price.
Someone once told me that the things that are meant for you can’t miss you, and the things that aren’t, you can’t do anything to make work. They told me this about dating, but it’s true in business as well. It’s easy to get into a scarcity mindset when we work for ourselves. For marginalized people specifically, we are taught that our policies and voices don’t matter. But if you can’t have your own back in your business dealings, nobody else will. And I guarantee the person on the other end of the email is not going to be genuinely hurt that you said no or didn’t respond. They are just going to move along to the next person who may say yes.
