To be paid, just like you would understand is fundamentally crucial at your business because if you are not being paid, what are you doing in business?

You might be laughing at the heaps of business people who only get their clients to simply pay when and if they remember it. I know of one tradesman who persistently holds bad debts like awards. How? Simply because he cannot bring himself to request the cash and people intimidate him.

If you give a client credit, do it only because they have proven consistency to you by paying cash on delivery (COD) for some period of time. Furthermore, you can see whether they have the funds to pay you – otherwise don’t do business with them. Don’t kid yourself into the pattern of “I need the work” or “I need the sales”. It’s pointless when you do the service or providing the goods for nothing if you don’t get paid.

If you are the type of person who can’t request the payment even when the service has been finished, try these ideas:

Tell your customer that when the service is finished, you require cash or cheque. They should more than likely have it on them at the point of sale and you do not need to ask for your payment.

When you send out the quote, make sure your payment terms are plain.

Do up an invoice with your terms of payment simply stated and give the client the invoice when the work is done. They can look at the invoice and reactively realise they have to pay you the fee now without you going to say a thing. Invent a “nasty boss” who might torture you alive if you can’t return with the money for the work.

Organise your banking to have you running with Merchant facilities so you can have credit cards for example Mastercard and Visa. Many people possess credit cards and it will stop the difficulty of the customer not operating a cheque account or not having the cash at the time.

Otherwise, don’t be frightened to hold the goods till you have been paid. Know, until the goods are paid for, the goods still are yours.

If you plan to let somebody credit, be sure you have got the following contact details about them at a time BEFORE you give them credit.

  • Name
  • Address
  • Phone number
  • Bank name and address
  • Account no.
  • 3 trade references with their names, addresses and phone numbers

Once you record all this detail, contact the bank and make sure that they do use an account at there. Then, call each of the trade reference and find out if they pay their debts on time or if they have any difficulties with them.

Most people will be willing to tell you if the person is troublesome. If everything is OK, allow them a moderate level of debt, say no more than $500 (depending on your business). Monitor the operation of the account for a few months before allowing this amount to be exceeded.

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