I've previously posted asking for advice in dealing with a regular client that I invoice monthly and always pays late. In the end I gave up trying to get them to pay on time as they always paid eventually, after some hassling and a week or two overdue.
This time they are a bit later than they usually are, and after some hassling and ignored emails, they have admitted to me that they simply don't have any money at the moment, saying they will pay as soon as possible, hopefully in another week. They told me they aren't in danger of going under but are merely waiting on a few big payments themselves.
I want to ensure I get paid ASAP, because (a) I need the money now, and (b) in the event they do go out of business, I want to have been paid. With this in mind, it seems like a good idea to start threatening late payment fees and/or debt collectors.
On the other hand, I don't want to sour the relationship, as I want their continued business, and am therefore minded to meekly put up with the delay. But if I don't give them much grief about it, they may put me to the back of the queue.
How best to deal with them?
And is it a very bad sign that they have cash flow problems (does it frequently presage bankruptcy) or is it not such a big deal? They are big enough that they must have a turnover of several million so I am surprised they can't pay me the few hundred pounds they owe.
I don't think they are really comparable. If you want to make sales, emails are the best, if you want to build up a relationship, then social media.
Email marketing is essential IMO as it is a very effective and cheap way to contact established customers and let them know about offers, as long as you have a database to use. Since you are emailing your current customers, you are likely to get a better conversion rate than other mediums.
Facebook ads are potentially good for getting new customers, especially since you can target specific demographics to a slightly frightening level. Saying that, I am not entirely convinced that Facebook ads work.
Facebook Pages and Twitter are best used in my opinion to build up a relationship with customers and make them like you, rather than to make specific sales. They are far better at this than emails, but they require you to put effort in - an unmaintained Facebook page won't really do anything - and the benefit in terms of sales may be hard to track.
Thanks for the further replies. Yeah the discount for prompt payment seems like a good idea, maybe in future I will build it into the price from the beginning. Problem is upping the price now could be tricky. Pity I like having the money so much, otherwise I would have real fun telling them where to stick it!
Thanks for the reply. I've put in my terms that compensation may be levied for late payments. I believe the standard amount chargeable by law is, as you say, about 8% *plus* a £40 fixed fee. The only problem is that the 8% interest will be a negligible amount, and it will probably be hard to get them to pay the £40! Slightly comforting to think I am not alone anyway. cheers.
I have been doing a regular piece of work every week for a client for the past few months now, and they never pay on time.
They are a company with at least 30 employees, I would say, and the only ones apparently authorised to make payments are the MD and the Finance Director.
Payment is always made later than the 30 day payment terms and after much cajoling and sending of reminders. My reminder emails never get acknowledged. It is a regular piece of work I do for them so they should be used to paying efficiently.
I have offered them some moderately firm words, and would like to go further by charging them £40 each time they are late or perhaps by refusing to work if payment is overdue. Unfortunately I really like having the money when they do pay, and I am mindful that if I withhold the work, or attempt to charge them £40 - which they may well ignore - it could end up in a situation where I lose the work.
Specially thanks for the free expert advice from Gary Cousins. If you are looking, I have a follow up question: Can I work around the law in future by stating in my terms and conditions that payment by cheque is only acceptable at the client's risk?
A regular client (a large organisation I have been working with for several years) sent me a payment by cheque in the post, which did not turn up on the expected date. I informed them immediately, and they chose to hang on rather than cancelling it straight away.
Now it turns out the funds have cleared their account, indicating the cheque has been stolen and fraudulently cashed by a third party. The client is now saying there is no prospect of my receiving the payment until it is investigated, which could take 8 weeks, and they have given no indication that they will definitely re-issue the payment once they have confirmed it is fraud (for all I know, they may only be intending to reissue it if the bank which cashed the cheque accepts liability and refunds the money).
Two questions:
1) Does merely sending out the cheque legally constitute paying me?
2) Assuming (hopefully) that the answer to the above question is no, am I entitled to kick up a fuss about the fact they are breaking the 30 day payment terms by not issuing a new cheque pending the potentially lengthy investigation?
I'm not really the ultimate expert on this, but I wouldn't ask the question about quality vs speed. You want them to think that everything you do, whether or not to a tight timescale, will be high quality.
This is kind of a web design question, although it may the graphic designers who are best placed to answer.
Let's say you are cropping a photo because it can only be so long, or needs to be square shaped, etc, for a given context.
Do you strictly try to avoid chopping off the models' feet? Or the tops of their heads? (in the photo that is). Or do you think it is OK to do this sometimes? (say it is their clothes that are meant to be on display).
Sometimes it seems to make a difference which mail server (i.e. which POP account or whatever) you actually send the email from, so it may be worth experiementing with this to see if it makes any difference.
I like 'Creative Director' it has a nice ring to it... although being the only employee in my corporation it seems a bit of a pity to stop there and not just go with CEO 😛
I have always done without an email signature that includes any job title and without business cards featuring the same.
My work involves a slight mish mash of things:
- Marketing copy for leaflets, brochures and web
- HTML flyer and newsletter design and writing
- Odd jobs for main client like embedding jpegs they provide into emails
- Updating one website via the CMS
I want to remain open to miscellanous stuff as well... one gig recently has involved designing educational activities for kids.
So... under what kind of job title should I market myself? I am thinking something like 'Copywriting and Digital Marketing'. But is this too broad? Can you think of anything better? Or is it a better idea not to bother at all?
Hi everyone - new to the forum - perhaps someone would like to let me know what they think of the following story:
I currently make a living in part by writing marketing copy on a freelance basis. I am relatively young and my daily rate is on the lower end of the scale for this kind of work.
A friend of mine recently got a job with a large, publicly funded corporation. Soon after, he offered me a piece of freelance work, which I was partly qualified for (writing) and which involved a task that I was inexperienced at (although we both evidently thought I could probably manage it).
I worked very hard on the job, and my friend initially told me that both he and his immediate boss were happy with it. Subsequently, he told me that he'd gotten in trouble because the second part of the job was not up to scratch, and that this has damaged his prospects of promotion, something that he is working very hard for. He sent me a very rude email about this, which he later apologised for.
Now, he says he needs to hire someone else (more expensive than me) to redo the latter part of the work, and is on a tight budget. In order not to look bad to his boss, he wants to pay me for fewer days than I actually did.
On the one hand: I want to help my friend do well with his career, and I appreciate him giving me the work in the first place.
On the other hand: He should have known what was expected by his employer - it wasn't my fault that what he submitted to his boss was not up to scratch. I don't think friendship should necessarily extend to working for free. And I don't think it will really be the end of his career or anything if he pays me the full amount.
