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Today, I had my third no-show to a free consult for website work with my business, Say More Multimedia Marketing (SM3). Two clients are responsible for the gross violations of my work hours. To twist the knife more, one is a paying client who never even apologized.
Admittedly, I’m sure if I ran the numbers I’d see the three fails make-up a very small fraction of the total consults I’ve hosted in the last 25 days. But still, it really rubs me the wrong way…Blame 20 years of military experience.
SM3 No Show and Late Policy
Following the first no show in early July, I drafted and published a no-show and late show policy to include in SM3 proposals, contracts, and invoices. What you read below is the trimmed down version of a draft I wrote while very heated.
Someone missing an appointment or showing late to an appointment I host stresses me out. Also, either violation feels like a major disrespect to my business and how I operate it.
Policy as of 3 Aug 2020
Here’s the policy as it’s written today, 3 Aug 2020:
*blockquote*
Safe to say I’ve put a little bit of thought into penalizing (and potentially avoiding working with potentially bad clients) time criminals while preserving my sanity, protecting my schedule, and upping the perceived value of my time.
New actions to enforce the penalty
Using the consult request form, I‘m adding a trigger that will prevent someone from submitting the form if they have previously had a no-show or a late showing to a free consult (keep in mind no shows in late shows are only for no notice instances – meaning the person gave me no notice by any medium.
What will happen when a person tries to input an email address they’ve already used before to complete the form is that they get an error message and a link to a page where they can purchase one or more hours of a consult. I haven’t figured out if I will or I am able to automate removing the person from the restricted list once I receive their payment.
But ideally, once the person buys a new consult hour, the restriction on their email address is removed automatically, they get an email saying “you’re free to schedule again”, then they can go schedule like normal.
Desired Outcome
I’ll be completely upfront with you: I don’t expect anyone to actually pay me $50 just to schedule a consult. So, the ultimate outcome of enforcing a policy like this is for me to avoid getting into projects with clients that could make working them then a bad time.
Big picture perspective: I’m a freelancer. I chose to be a business owner so I could choose the work I want to do and the people with whom I want to work. That’s kind of the whole point.
Parting Metaphor
A policy like this is no different than having a dress code for a venue. [If]You want access, you have to play by the rules.