Candice (00:16.906)

if you've ever opened your inbox to a novel length inquiry filled with pages of questions before a single call has even been scheduled. My friend, this episode is for you. Today we're talking about how to set boundaries with potential clients who come in hot and why it's not only okay to protect your time, but it's absolutely

necessary for running a successful and sustainable business.

Ahem.

Candice (00:55.918)

Hey there friend, welcome back to the Power and Purpose podcast. It's me, your host Candice. And today we're talking about something that was inspired by a thread I saw, a 67 question questionnaire.

that a inquiry sent to several photographers. And as soon as I saw this post on threads, I was like, I have to discuss this threads isn't the place to discuss it. My podcast is. And I knew I had to make an episode on the lunacy of such an email. Also, but sometimes the shifting changes in clients needs and in the ever evolving

sales process in the wedding industry. So today's episode is going to be a mixture of WTF. Do people really do that? And then also, how can you as a professional safeguard your business, protect your boundaries and your peace? No, when an inquiry is probably not the right fit for you.

but also offer support and guidance when somebody has questions and you know, they're not terrible people, they're not terrible questions. Might be a little overwhelming or a little off putting. How do you navigate that as a professional? That's what today's episode is all about. And I couldn't be just more excited to sit down with you and have a little coffee talk and chat about this today. I am so busy right now. I just wanna share.

I'm so busy. I've got so much going on, all good stuff. We have our Wedding Pro Insiders retreat coming up in my home, at my home in Barbados, where 11 women from my mastermind are making the journey to Barbados to spend three incredible days together and with me, two of which we will spend in my home working on their businesses.

Candice (03:02.538)

I am so excited about this. I feel like I should be nervous, but I'm not that nervous. I'm have a little butterfly and I'm sure as we get closer, because it's happening in just under two weeks now that I'm recording this, I'm sure as we get closer, I'll feel a little nervous. Like, are they gonna like my house? And you know, this is an intimate space. Inviting someone into your home is like very intimate. So are they gonna think my house is clean? Like, are they gonna like my style? Are they gonna be comfortable? Are they gonna have a good time?

I'm sure I'll start spiraling, but for right now I'm really excited. And I feel like I am going to record an episode for you guys sharing more about the retreat experience for those of you who might be interested in attending a retreat with me in the future. And then also just some tips on no matter if you attend a retreat with me or you attend another.

another educational event throughout the year, like things that you can do to maximize your time and maybe some things you're not thinking about that are really beneficial. So I'm thinking about recording that. If you'd like to hear this from me, you know where to find me. can find me on threads. You can find me on Instagram. You can find me in my own inbox. You can email me and yes, it's me responding to your emails, by the way. I do have a team, but I manage my own inbox, at least for the time being. So it's me responding. If you would like to hear this, let me know if you have any questions, let me know. But

Things are so busy. So I'm preparing for that mastermind right now. And I'm also preparing to travel for my own mastermind. I joined a new mastermind, which I'm thrilled about. And there are a few wedding pro educators in this mastermind who I admire, who I think are amazing human beings. And I can't wait to spend some time together with them and then all the other awesome people in this mastermind. So I will be.

mastermind out or maybe mastermind up. don't know. But I'm getting a lot of masterminding in between my mastermind for women in the wedding industry and then this educational mastermind that I've joined, which I'm just really jazzed about. So I'll be traveling back home to Connecticut for an event, which is so kismet. I'm from Connecticut. This mastermind meets in Connecticut. So it just felt all aligned. All good stuff. And I don't know why I wanted to share that with you, but I just thought I would tell you how my day's going.

Candice (05:18.83)

I hope your day is similarly going well and that you are feeling as positive and excited about all the things on your plate as wedding season begins to ramp up. So let's talk about inquiries and the sales process and some of the changes that I've been seeing in the women I coach and in the circumstances they find themselves in. And of course, this threads post. This crazy, crazy.

threads post. I think we can all agree on a couple of things. You're not a customer service robot. You're a professional. You're a person who provides a service, even if you do have a product. And sometimes, especially now more than ever, couples are approaching you like you're the Amazon Prime for wedding services. They're expecting immediate responses, immediate revisions to things, immediate access, and answers to questions.

Let's be honest, they could have Googled the answer. Like they could have Googled it, you know? Like they could have read it on your website. Like, hello? Everybody is special and everybody wants a little bit of special attention. So I do get it. They're nervous. They're doing their due diligence. If we know anything about Gen Z is like they will solve any crime. Like they are researchers. They are extremely intelligent consumers.

And they've got questions. They're also nervous planning their wedding, right? There's a lot of noise out there telling them not to, you know, F up their wedding planning. There's this wedding tax myth that we just recently talked about tariffs, which we just talked about last week, plus all the bullshit you see on tick tock. I know some of you guys are out there fighting the good fight on tick tock sharing like the real side of wedding planning, but that doesn't necessarily get a lot of shares. You don't get shares.

is a sepia bride. That's what gets yours. And this new level of client, you know, they're stressed, but that doesn't mean that you have to take on all their anxiety. This is a lesson that I have learned over the years as a business coach too. I have to learn how to separate myself from the anxiety that sometimes is being from my way by customers. And you have to learn how to do this too.

Candice (07:34.766)

So let's talk about how to respond to demanding clients in a way, or demanding leads, demanding potential clients. We're not talking about after they book you today. We're talking about sales and leads. How do we respond to demanding leads or can I also say annoying leads? Like, hello, 67 questions? I'm gonna talk about that in a second.

annoying. That's just annoying. But how do we respond to these folks in a way that's firm, but also kind, you know, we want to we want to make people feel okay, we don't want to make them feel ashamed. And also how to protect your energy without burning any bridges. So like I mentioned, this topic was inspired by something that I saw on threads where a photographer posted a 67 question email that a couple sent.

like within the first couple of email exchanges, it might have actually been the email out the gate, like that might have been the email they received. Just picture for a moment and I will link I will link to this thread in the show notes so you can go and see if you missed it. The picture for a moment you see an engrainer inbox and you're like, yeah, baby. Yeah, baby. I'm on a sales. I'm on a sales kick right now. Or I need this sale right now. I am this is it.

and you open it up and you see 67 questions. It was more than could fit in one screenshot, okay? It was a two-parter thread. Imagine the feeling I would probably be like repulsed. Like I think physically my body would react in repulsion. I might have like puke a little bit in my mouth and just be like, no.

My immediate reaction to that email would be like, I'm sorry, we're booked. I'm just going to be totally honest. I would be like, girl, if this is how you're coming into the inquiry phase, I'm not interested. But we don't always have all that. don't always have that luxury. not everybody is going to be 67 questions. What if it's 10? What if it's 15?

Candice (09:47.82)

those questions are really reasonable to ask, but it's just how do you overcome that and how do you make sense of somebody who is a bit demanding? So that's what we're talking about today. But first we have to recognize red flags. I have a whole episode on this. It's episode 157. Scroll down. It wasn't that long ago that I recorded it and I think it's an important episode because I talk about red flags that need to raise up your spidey sense.

in consultations in the inquiry phase so that you can not get booked by people who are just not the right fit. And some of those red flags might actually surprise you. They may not be things that you're watching out for. But a list of questions, 67 questions is a massive red flag. It's an enormous red flag. It doesn't always mean the client will be a nightmare, but I'm going to speak from my nearly two decades of experience and tell you, yeah, it probably what you see

Right off the top is what you will experience throughout the process of working with this client. And to give you some context, this person asked questions that can easily be discovered on someone's website. And some of these questions were so like, really? What's your why? Like, excuse me. First of all, you could probably read my About page and get an understanding of my why.

But like, why are we throwing that in there amongst all these other questions? And I mean, the questions literally were everything you could find on someone's website. It was so bizarre. It was truly bizarre. But take the 67 questions out of it. More often than not, it's typically coming from a place of stress or overwhelm or misinformation. You know, they opened up chat GPT, they put in a really shitty prompt and it spit out 67 questions and they thought, okay, let me just send it.

not really good reasoning skills, I will say red flag. However, you know, they might download one of those website checklists for those websites that will remain anonymous on this podcast that give out really bad advice, who I called adversaries, not advocates. And I stand behind that they may have downloaded one of those dumb checklists or dumb question lists, and then just sent them all, you know, and they just don't realize. And so

Candice (12:05.222)

When you get an inquiry in your inbox and you can see that there are a ton of questions, there's a lot of anxiety, and you feel this pressure to have to answer it right away or to try to get the information to the person as quickly as possible, that often raises your own blood pressure too, you know? And you start to get anxious. You start to take on that anxiety.

And I want you to know your job isn't to absorb their anxiety or even spend hours answering each question in detail before they book. Like you don't have to do that. You get to decide what clients are gonna be the right fit for you. So if you see something come in and the questions seem off putting or it's too challenging to answer, you're just not interested in answering it, you can respond in kind and say thank you so much for reaching out to us. It's clear that you're really invested in your wedding day and I love that.

I am not available for your wedding and I wish you all the best. Or if you do want to answer some of their questions, but you prefer to do it in a conversation, then recommend getting into a consultation and say, listen, I appreciate your questions. These would be really easily answered if we could have a call and a conversation where I can answer all your questions and any other questions that might come up. Let's schedule something and see if they take that next step. I would also make sure they understand your pricing if they haven't done that already. I don't want you getting on

consults anymore where pricing is the obstacle and they don't know the price. I just I don't want you to do that anymore. So we need to you know, not always write off couples too early in the process. But I also think that you know, one of the best ways to set boundaries early on is to create a system that helps you pre-qualify increase. And if you're a member of my program, the Planner's Playbook, which is my community for wedding planners,

I did an entire training this month on pre-qualification and the importance of it. Pre-qualifying is one of those stages in the sales process that is really underrated, but it might be one of the top three stages that you need to master. So if you're getting a lot of inquiries like this, you might need to create a better system to help pre-qualify your inquiries. What do I mean by that?

Candice (14:21.57)

Prequalifying is making sure that your website, your marketing, the information you're putting out there before someone contacts you gives them the majority of the information they need to make a very educated decision if you're the right fit for them. This is often pricing, service levels, personality as well.

And once they have seen those three things, your pricing, your process, your services, your personality, and they inquire with you, the pre-qualification doesn't stop. You're continuing to pre-qualify them by asking questions, having them fill out a pre-consult questionnaire, doing things that help you to extract more information so that you can make sure that the person you're ultimately going to meet on a consult and

who has the potential to hire you and be in a long-term relationship with you is really the right match. And I truly believe that you have to start thinking of the sales process as a two-way street. No matter how difficult times might be and how low your sales might be at any given stage of your career, you are still in control if you say yes or no to a lead.

You're still in control every step of the way, even after you send an agreement, before it's been signed, even after it's been signed. Hell, even after the retainer has been paid, you're always in control if you want to continue with the project. And you should be vetting and verifying as much as you can so that when things are signed and paid, you know that you've hired by the right type of client.

Please never forget that the sales process is a two-way street. And while a customer is coming in, they're interviewing you, and they're asking you, they're playing a game of 67 questions, you as the professional should have 67 questions of your own to make sure that you are vetting and verifying that this is a good fit for your company. A bad fit client will wreck havoc in your business. They will fuck everything up.

Candice (16:42.082)

big time, your mindset, your mentality, your processes, the team dynamic, like your confidence, your sleep patterns, a bad client can wreck absolute havoc in your business. So pre-qualification is so important. If you're not already using a lead form or a scheduling tool to kind of...

Clarify and ask qualifying questions now is the time Just remember your inquiry form. It needs to be short and sweet. Okay, this is not the place to play 27 questions Nobody's gonna fill it out and you'll never have business So you need to create systems after they've inquired to ask questions in a way that get you the answers You need to keep making sure this is the right client

also think that you should be setting expectations from the start. As leads are coming in for you this year, please make sure that you are setting expectations for what it's like to work with you from the beginning. If you are very responsive in the sale and then you take a step back once you're booked and you take your time, to me, that's very unfair. have put a lot of effort and energy in being communicative and responsive in the sale.

And then if you take four steps back once they hire you, they're going to feel like you don't care. You're not prioritizing their project. You have to mirror the energy and the experience that you'll give them once they hire you in the sales process, which might actually mean not that you dial your sales process back, but that you dial your client experience up.

That's where we would want to fix things. You want to set expectations from the start. Now while demanding clients, they're going to make themselves known mostly before they book. Sometimes it happens after they book. And this is why it's important to address your specific boundaries in the beginning. We're all playing with a different deck of cards in our business. We all want different things. We have different goals. And we also have different needs. Some of us are parents. Some of us are not.

Candice (19:02.818)

Some of us are living with a chronic illness, some of us are not. Some of us have different schedules or different needs than others. And so we're all playing with a different deck in business. You have to establish what boundaries are gonna work for you. And then you have to make sure that you address that so that there is no misunderstandings once you're hired. You have to do this before the deposit check is cash, so to speak.

And if you don't lay out how you work, your clients are either gonna do one of two things. They're going to have misaligned expectations. Your lead's gonna have misaligned expectations or...

they are going to take over your process and create their own rules, which is not okay. So it's way harder to enforce this after it becomes a problem. Set the tone, set the pace in the sale. And sometimes this repels people who don't respect your process or it shows what deck of cards they're playing with. And you can see that they're going to push back on things that are very important to you or they're too, they're a little too needy for your liking or a little too demanding.

or a little too boundary breaking. Now your process should make it crystal clear what's included in your service, when and how they can contact you, how quickly you respond, and what's outside the scope of whatever service or product that they're hiring you for. So let me repeat that. You need to make sure in the sale, they clearly understand what's included and what they're buying from you.

when and how they can contact you, how quickly you respond, and what is actually outside the scope of the package so that they understand this is not included. If you want a second shooter, we'll have to add that, just making you aware. OK, great. And if we don't have this, then you might experience this, just making you aware. OK, great. And then you need to put it everywhere.

Candice (21:11.458)

You have to make sure that you're reiterating this information on your website, of course. You want to make sure that you have some information in your welcome email. Maybe it's just your office hours and your signature. You want to make sure you go over things in your discovery call. You want to make sure things are outlined in your pricing guide or if you send a proposal over that you detail the most important pieces that we've talked about.

And also in your client onboarding process, reaffirming the tone that you've set. I know it feels like too much, but actually I could find probably three more places for you to double down on this information. And the reason why we put it in multiple places is because people don't always read. And even if they read something, they don't always retain it. We often have to see things multiple times before it really sets in.

What you're doing is you're not just covering your bases and covering your butt by putting it all over the place. You're also helping someone who may not retain information right away, who actually needs to have things repeated or needs that reminder for them to understand how things work. I always like to err on the side of how can I almost over explain this or over support them in understanding this.

And the people who get it early on, it's not like it will upset them if they read it again. It's not a big deal. And for those who do need to read it more than once, you will appreciate the fact that they have all that information at their disposal. Now, as we're setting boundaries, I want you to know that boundaries don't mean bad service. And I'm going to have a whole conversation with you on this soon.

I struck a chord in my wedding tax episode where I said, I believe that a lot of wedding pros are bounding themselves out of business. They're putting almost too many boundaries up and it's making it really difficult for them to provide hospitality and to provide an incredible level of service. And so I do want to just bring that over here.

Candice (23:34.966)

as we talk about setting boundaries and share with you that there's a big difference between providing a high end experience and making yourself constantly available, okay? We sometimes do outboundary ourselves out of a job. And so you need to spend some time deciding what your boundaries will be. They don't need to look like everyone else's.

But you want to make sure that you're still providing the hospitality required in our industry. And you want to make sure you're reiterating policies, procedures, boundaries in a way that has hospitality attached. Like things like, here's how we typically handle questions like this once we're in the planning phase.

Or that's something we'll go over together after you book and we discuss your engagement shoot ideas. Or I'd love to give this question the time and attention it deserves. Let's schedule a call to talk over everything.

With that said, you have to know when to fold. You have to know when to play them and when to fold them. And so you have to know when to say no or not right now. This isn't the right fit. If somebody is pushing your boundaries before they've even paid a deposit, that typically is a big sign. You're not being dramatic. You're not being difficult by saying no. In fact, you're protecting the existing clients within your business who respect your boundaries and who require a high level of service.

You're protecting them from somebody coming in and spoiling the whole bunch and making you very miserable, making things difficult for you, which always, whether we like it or not, trickles in to how you support your fun, amazing clients who trust you and love you.

Candice (25:41.222)

This is it's important to protect those people who've already hired you. And of course you're protecting the person who's inquiring, who clearly needs a different level of service or a service provider who can support them in their stress level, their needs, their need to ask 67 questions, whatever. When it's time for you to walk away from an inquiry,

You can use ChatGPT to help you create a thoughtful, hospitable, but firm email. But you can also just say, your experience planning your wedding is important to me, and I want to make sure we're the right fit for what you need. And based on our communication so far, I'm not sure this is the best match for how I work with my clients. I want you to feel fully supported, even if that support comes from someone else.

And I think that's a really loving way of taking care of somebody. Personally, I would very much appreciate if a service provider said, I'm not gonna be the right fit for you and you deserve to have the right fit for the project you're working on. I would be so happy with that.

I've said this many times to clients, wedding planning clients, especially, you know, you get on the phone with somebody, you start talking and you're like, okay, this is not going to be it. But you know what? I stay on the call. I answer their questions. I do let them know on the call that based on their budget or their style or their planning window, I'm probably not going to be the right fit, but I want to be of service. How can I answer your questions? And let's make the best use of this call. Like I just want to be a resource.

And people appreciated that. And it made me feel good doing it, which I think is the most important. I was just having a conversation on Voxer with a client. And they have a difficult client. And I said to this person, said, you know, when you're working with a difficult client, sometimes you have to recognize that they're never going to be happy with anything you do. You know?

Candice (27:54.454)

You're out here, you are jumping through hoops, are trying everything for this client. And instead of trying to make them happy, which is impossible because they'll find a flaw with anything you say or do because they're just tough, Make yourself happy. Do things that make you feel good. Support them in ways that you feel really good about and focus on your own energy.

And it's a mindset shift that is just slight, but it actually is incredible what happens because you're no longer treading water trying to make this person happy, know, pulling out all the tricks. I got you a discount. They don't care. You know, there's just nothing you can do to make this person happy. So instead make yourself happy. Live by your own values. Live by your own goodness, your own purpose. Do things because it fills up your cup and it's

what you believe you should be doing and don't worry about making them happy because you're never going to do it. Right? So a little extra piece of advice on today's episode. Okay. So the reality is you are the expert. You are not Google. You are not Reddit. You are you. So it's your job to lead in the sale with equal parts hospitality and boundaries. Okay.

I truly believe that sales are made by earning people's trust and being hospitable. And you have to know as a lead comes in, whether it's the right fit for you and how to navigate those circumstances. Hopefully today's podcast episode has given you some things to think about. that 67 question email might feel like a hell no, but it's also an opportunity to show up as a pro.

and to take control of the conversation and to establish what it's like when you work with someone who knows their worth. All right, it is pouring rain here right now. I mean, absolutely pouring. I don't know if you can hear it, but all I know is my plants are getting watered and that makes me happy. All right, friend, thanks for tuning into today's episode. May your inbox never see.

Candice (30:15.328)

a 67 question inquiry email. I want to remind you there's so much power in your purpose. I'll see you next week, friend.