This is really important to talk about and think about ahead of time.

Regardless of business model, don't stress too much about what's behind closed doors content-wise.

Instead, personally, I would draw the boundary at giving them personalized feedback or doing that free labor.

So a good way for you to find that distinction in individual moments is to think about keeping your responses helpful for anyone listening, not just that specific person.

So for example, I would happily go into broad strokes of content advice for whatever problem people were asking me about, but I would never review an individual's piece of content to give specific feedback. If they wanted that and they were asking for that, I would invite them to book a consultation session and I would drop the link in the chat for that.

It does not have to be awkward at any point to point out the line of where the scope ends. Your people understand that you're running a business. These people are emotionally invested in you and your business, so they won't be offended. They'll probably be totally respectful about any boundaries you outline.

I understand feeling stressed about this, but you don't have to be. The first couple of times you do it, you might feel stressed, but do it anyway. Do it anyway, and it will become less stressful over time.


Here are a couple of scripts to get you started:
"There's only so much feedback I can give during free office hours, but here's my advice, blah, blah, blah. If you want more, you're welcome to book a one-on-one consultation session. Here, let me drop the link in the chat."

If they keep prompting to go deeper and get more specific, but you have a course that goes into the topic, you can just say:
"That's as much depth as I can go into for now. But if you want to learn more about this, this is actually something that I teach in my course. I get into all the nitty gritty about it there. Here's the link if you wanna check it out. I think it would be really helpful for you." 



Keep in mind that the line might be different for you depending on your business model.
For example, as a service provider, you might be totally fine educating your people until the cows come home. 

But if you're selling courses that are educating people, you might wanna get more specific with yourself about where your boundaries are on that, on what you're willing to share in free office hours and when to point them to your course.