"My clients cancel 30 seconds before the session starts! What do I do?"

I received this email from a coach who has been training clients for a couple of years now and has been having a repetitive problem with some of them.

The problem is - just before the actual training session starts sometimes his clients will text him saying that they can't make it to the session today without any prior notice and what this coach has been doing is he has been offering to do makeup sessions with those clients who miss the session.

Now, there are a couple of things wrong with this approach and if you're a coach in a similar situation and you continue to offer make up sessions to clients ultimately you will end up working far more than what was agreed with your clients at the beginning which will keep you away from your family and from doing what you enjoy doing. 

There are TWO things that I want you to keep in mind when you come across a client who keeps cancelling on you at the last minute: 

#1 - It's YOUR business not theirs

If you want to continue to give makeup sessions away to clients who cancel on you up to 30 minutes before the start then go ahead. But I want you to remember that in the long-term this lead to burnout and your not going to enjoy running your business. 

At the end of the day it's your business and you are entitled to run it how YOU want and not how the client decides. When I first started my business I used to offer makeup sessions all the time because I was scared of losing clients or upsetting them, but over time I learned to communicate to my clients that ONLY under very minimal exceptional circumstances will makeup sessions ever be offered. This made my clients respect me more and become a little bit organized with how they communicated with me.

#2 - Create a cancellation policy 

The second thing I want you to do is to have a cancellation policy in place with your clients. This policy must be part of the contract agreement they sign when they join your program. 

This cancellation policy is in place so you're much better protected and if someone does cancel they will get penalized with no makeup session offered.

When you include this into your business your clients will think twice about cancelling on you in the last minute and will respect your time far more. 

If you decide to continue offering makeup sessions all the time what will start happening is this will start costing your business a lot of money as you won't be able to have any time to coach NEW clients because you will be doing makeup sessions all the time. 

Stop letting clients bully you around!

I hope this helps, 

- Ben