Quick Story

Hey Reader,

I just wanted to share a quick story in this week's tip, and hopefully you can glean something from it.

I have a client I've been working with for probably about 5 or so years at this point, doing various commercials - TV, Radio, CTV, Web, etc...

The sessions always go super smooth, the jobs pay very well, the producers are great to deal with, everything is great - except....they almost always pay late.

We have a net 30 agreement meaning they pay within 30 days of project completion - and they almost never do. I have to follow up several times.

So one of the recent times this happened, (It was probably the 4th or 5th) I told them I'd have to enforce my 10% late payment fee, which I mention on all of my invoices, but almost never enforce. They pushed back and asked if I could let it slide and apologized, etc... but I told them that I already had let it slide the first 3 or 4 times it happened, and even on this specific payment I had already followed up several times and gave them extra time and we were almost 2 months out from the invoice and still it was unpaid.

They ended up paying me the full amount, and my 10% late fee.

I worried this might hurt the relationship, and so I was hesitant to do it, but it was too much of a recurrent thing and I had to let them know it was unacceptable.

Well, that was a few years ago, they still come back several times a year with new projects, and I just did 2 more for them over the past few weeks totalling a couple thousand dollars.

So the lesson is, be professional, be flexible, communicate well, and stand firm on your principles. By all means give people a pass in situations like this if they are a good client and it's the first time it happened, or even the second, but the 4th or the 5th means you need to speak up. If you are a quality talent and have value to them, they will keep coming back.

-Michael

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Thanks so much!

-Michael

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