Biting your tongue because you're the boss and must lead by example

[SunshineChatter]

A newly-arrived contact at one of our clients (most of our clients are ongoing) just told me it's difficult to secure time with me because we are speaking on Friday and it's taken her nearly a week to set that call up.

The issue is that there is an eight-hour difference between us and she expects me to speak at 8:00pm my time. Or in the middle of my 'conf call rush hour' when I have long-standing weekly calls. She doesn't have much availability herself and gives me snippets of time when she's available that either clash with other calls I have, or that fall when it's my evening. I don't mind taking calls in the evening every now and again but our calls are always late and they always over run. I feel she has no respect for my or my team's time.

How can I say this in a polite and diplomatic way? I am fuming but I run the shop so I need to be level-headed (which is hard for me, I admit) and professional of course. Help please.

Can you explain this to her?

Did she say this on the phone or in an email?

Perhaps you could say something like "I have limited availability on Friday evenings but I am free at ... on ..." She needs to realise she needs to be flexible too.

If there is an eight hour difference then why can't she speak to you earlier?

We did say that it's late for the team but she blanks that out. Today I have a call with her at 7:30 pm my time. Which is likely to go beyond the allocated 30 minutes.

I am eight hours in front of her so by the time she logs in, it's afternoon for me. And she has early morning (her time) calls so by the time she can talk to me it's my evening.

It's driving me nuts - I can't believe she doesn't care. She also never sticks to the duration of the call (half an hour) and always take one hour. Some of her colleagues drop off but my team and I have to quickly reschedule other stuff to be able to stay on.

How valuable a client is she?

Dont reschedule other stuff. She wouldn't expect to be reschedule if someone else ran over. Tell her you have to log off at 8 pm for another call. She doesn't know whether that's a work call or Zoom call.

It is annoying but I don't think you need to be pandering to her this much. Tell her I can do this time or this time and you could say your availability at 7:30 or 8 is only 20 mins. She might rethink then.

There is no reason why she can't talk to you earlier on. She sounds very cheeky?