Accidentally Forgot to Hide My Business, Not Feeling Well

Mage

I set my business to be hidden for some random number of days, and today was the day in which I received a bunch of leads to which I responded, but it’s outside of my business hours. I didn’t respond in my usual frantic 2-minutes-or-less-or-else-fail pace–I noticed the notifications and used my regular template but added a little bit of personalization. So for some of them I took maybe 2 hours to get back! I am just a one-person business, and my business is struggling. I have not been feeling well, and it’s been so hard to get serious students who want to pay my rate and practice and work hard (I am a “Nationally Certified Teacher of Music,” even though in my heart I am more than just that–I am an artist who writes their own music and longs to be performing). A lot of what I do outside of the lessons I teach is unpaid, and it costs a lot of money to maintain my certificates and to enter competitions and win them. Anyway I am good at performing, and pretending I am doing well even when I am feeling unwell, but I don’t know how to address these feelings yet try to win new clients when my heart isn’t into it–I am burned out, discouraged, and I have actually had to keep clients that are unfit for my business due to needing the money, which has contributed to my current state.

TL;DR: Will my ranking be affected by responding in 2 hours instead of 2 minutes?

Has anyone had success in overcoming burnout? Should I just let these new leads know that I can’t take the job even though I need it? Or just push the job out for the future? I can’t believe I didn’t notice that my business was set to turn on today.

Thank you, and I am so sorry if it’s hard to understand me. I feel like all I do is work, and I also have to keep this adjunct college teaching job that takes so much time (grading papers ugh!), which interferes with my business. I am already actively utilizing whatever resources are available to me, so I was just curious if any Pros had to go through something similar. I just want to share my passion with the world, but I feel that the flame has been snuffed out, and I feel exhausted and not ready to fight and win these leads…at least not yet.

DustiO

@Mage your response time is calculated over a rolling 3 month period - so if these were just a few isolated incidents, you will probably be fine! You can see what your average response time is if you look at your insights page. Hope this helps! And, I hope you get feeling better soon!

Mage

Thanks Dusti! I am glad that there is reassurance. I have a 1m response time which is apparently very good. These leads did not get back to me, which has me worried, but I will follow up with them. I think it is more important that I get better before I reach out to them again. And thank you! 🙏🏽