Here’s the cold, hard truth about being a freelancer:
Sometimes you gotta fight tooth and nail to get a client to pay at all, let alone on time.
In the 3+ years of running my bidness, I’ve got “got” by a few clients.
One of my first clients, for example, still owes me a sizable chunk of change from a few years back. I actually made them too much money, and since we were on a percentage of sales deal, they decided to ghost me instead of paying. I’ve given up on this because it’s been years without a peep from them.
Then, there are other clients who took months to pay my invoice. (I also cut them off because if you can’t pay me on time, then, well, I don’t need your money).
And, of course, there are the more innocent clients who always pay a day or two (or three) late.
One of my first clients was always like this. I’d send the invoice over to him towards the end of the month, and he never paid on time. But we’ve stuck together, I’ve generated many millions of dollars for him since then, and now he pays his invoice within 5 minutes of me sending it.
And then there’s one of my newest clients that I’ve written a bunch about recently. First, she didn’t wanna pay me before I delivered any work. (A no-no, I told her, and got paid before I started working.)
Then, we had our second month together—where she got a lot more work out of me than she did the month prior, and as such, had a much bigger invoice to pay. Well, after trying to revert to a tier of my services that required a smaller investment (and me clapping back, saying how I highly recommend she stick to our agreed upon work), she asked if she could push her invoice back to the end of the month because it makes more sense with how her business is set up.
I grudgingly agreed because I trust her.
Well, check this out:
The big project this month for her account was creating a brand-new welcome series. I sent it over to her yesterday, so she can give it a quick look over before I add it into Klaviyo and implement it.
She was so impressed by it that she instantly started a wire transfer process—a full week before her invoice was due.
Moral of the story?
Delivering superior work to your clients is how you get paid on time and even before your invoice is due.
Of course, this is an oversimplification. But often the simplest lessons are the most important ones.
Anywho:
If you wanna pay me before my invoice is due because I deliver such impressive results that you want to makedamnsure that we continue working together, book a call, and let’s see if we’re a good fit for each other.
John
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