02/04/2026
Boundaries in business is important. As is your time. Don’t undervalue yourself. Chasing people, making follow ups, arranging meetings, all takes time. And when people don’t show up thats time wasted.
Now I do give people the benefit of the doubt and in this situation there were several emails I’ve not shown whereby I replied to their request, made space in my diary, had no reply from them and then had to follow up, again, and again.
For my clients, if they repeatedly didn’t show up, I’d expect payment upfront and that would be kept if they didn’t show up again, and then I’d stop treating them. Because my time still costs.
When collaborating with companies, it’s important that their values match yours. Here is a clear example that they do not value the time wasted on chasing them, the time given waiting for their call, and that tells me they don’t value me. If this is my impression of them before even doing any work with them, then the future doesn’t look great does it? I mean how difficult is going to be to get paid for my services, bearing in mind they’ll expect me to work for a much lower fee than I charge, in a reduced time slot, with additional reports and admin to complete. And that doesn’t sit well with me because it makes me feel those clients don’t get the same service that mine get. But they’ll associate my business with that model anyway and that could do more harm than good.
So the moral of the story is : your time is money. Spending time on things can be good for your business, but don’t underestimate the time it takes to get things done or undervalue the time spent. And don’t be afraid to tell people to 🖕🏻off for wasting your time ☺️ (in a professional way of course 😉)