Are you a new independent provider in the sex work industry? Congratulations on starting your own business! Like any new business owner, you’re probably looking forward to experiencing the excitement of working for yourself. This enthusiasm can carry over into creating content for whatever platform you’ve chosen to advertise on. Like any entrepreneur who has just started their own business, you are proud of yourself. You’re ready to start seeing clients. So you check your inbox and see a lot of questions. More than you expected! You select one and proceed to review the audit protocol, during the audit process your prospect asks a question that is explicitly answered in your ad.
At this point you may think that your potential customer may have missed something in your ad. Okay, so you’re advising that potential customer on information that’s clearly published in your ad. You move on to the view, but they ask quite a few questions this time and all the answers are in your ad. You wonder if they even read your ad. But wait, they had to read it, how else would they have found your contact information? Annoyed by this potential customer, you decide to move on to the next question in your inbox.
This next customer is asking for experiences that you don’t provide and don’t advertise. You’ve advised the client on what you do and don’t provide, however they start asking for details on what you do and before you know it, an hour has passed. You have chatted with them giving them details about the type of experience you provide. By the time you’re frustrated, you decide it’s past time for them to book a session and you reach out only to be greeted with more questions or worse… photos!!!
Wtf? You realize you’ve spent almost two hours dealing with these people who didn’t book after all! To make matters worse, you have more people wanting to chat about what you’re doing or asking questions that you’ve already answered in your ads! You realize with horror that your time has been wasted and you are emotionally drained. You’ve just been caught by the Time Wasters.
Time Wasters is a challenge for many new providers because when you’re new it’s often hard to tell a real lead from an inexperienced time waster. I’m here to offer some help in identifying, managing and even using Time Wasters to your advantage. Before we get to all that we first need to define what exactly is Waste Time? Also why would anyone engage in such behavior?
According to the Urban Dictionary, a Time Waster is a person who either consciously or unconsciously tries to involve you in a fruitless investment of your energy, time, money or attention. Every prodigal I have dealt with fits this definition perfectly.
As for what kind of person would have this behavior? Well, a time waster can be anyone of any age with the privilege of taking and using as much time as possible. Time carving techniques can vary depending on the provider they are trying to steal time from, but they have some common red flags that can help you identify them.
- If you have posted times of when to contact you on any social media of your choice, time wasters will contact you after hours.
- Time wasters often over-share details about themselves while avoiding booking to keep communication flowing with you to steal your time.
- Sometimes they will offer a generous donation or an extravagant gift if you call, text or facetime/skype them first. Never do this. Always collect the required compensation before doing anything!
- Sending pictures of themselves you didn’t ask for.
- “Hello Wyde?” or “Are you available?” and just “Hi”. They are common greetings from time wasters.
- Submitting questions that you have answered in your ads or on your website. Time wasters often do not follow your protocol that you have posted on your socials.
- Asking for services you don’t provide.
- Asking for a quick cash meeting but won’t follow your audit protocol.
- During the exam they will ask for your ID after you ask for theirs.
- Ask you about your relationship status and or try to get you together without compensation for your time.
After identifying a suspected time waster, the first thing you should do is not contact them personally. You are in control of how you communicate with them. You also have three options on how to deal with them.
- The first option is to just ignore them and move on.
- The second is to block them into oblivion.
- The third is to use them to practice spotting their patterns when communicating with you.
Time wasters can, believe it or not, be useful. When I first started I was inundated with time wasters and soon learned that it was a good sign that my ads were being served. I usually got a flood of time wasters followed by a large number of real customers. When I was young, I didn’t know how to tell potential clients from time wasters because I had no one to teach me. I had to learn by trial and error how to recognize a suspected time waster. Once I learned how to spot them I started using them. I wouldn’t spend more than five minutes contacting them to find out some of the top ten techniques they used for me that I’ve shared with you.
It is important to learn how to separate the real leads from the time wasters because you will save time and money. It will take some time and experience to develop a keen eye for spotting wasted time, but when you do you’ll be able to smile and say, “Not a waste of time today!”
