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Friday
November 6, 2009 Tip of the Day: Get A Deadbeat Client To PayFiled under: Tip of the Day Six tips on receiving payment from a client that hasn’t paid up for weeks or months, from Scott Gingold, CEO of consulting firm Powerfeedback (www.powerfeedback.com), and Denise O’Berry, small-business consultant and author of Success Strategies Guide: 1. Pay them a visit. “Stop the e-mail and phone calls and show up at the door. That will get people’s attention real fast,” Gingold says. 2. Go to the top. “Talk to the supervisor or whoever’s in charge of that company,” Gingold says. “Say, ‘I’m not getting paid. What can we do to fix this?’ ” 3. Take what you can get. “If the customer indicates they can’t pay the bill in full, get a commitment for what they can pay now and when they will pay the balance,” O’Berry says. “Getting at least a partial payment is better than having to write off the entire debt. If you accept credit cards, it would be a good idea to offer to put the payment on the customer’s card during the discussion.” To avoid future delayed payments: 4. Get it all up front. “The best scenario is to require full payment at time of purchase,” O’Berry says. 5. Obtain credit applications. “If you extend credit, make sure you have a signed credit application on file for every single customer, and make sure you check their credit before extending it,” O’Berry says. 6. Inquire about client payment policies. “Sneakily get their payment terms. In other words, what do they expect from their customers?” Gingold says. “If they want to pay in 45 days but expect payment on their orders in five days, I say, ‘Excuse me, but isn’t what’s good for the goose good for the gander?’” – Shane Dale From the 2009 Counselor State of the Industry |
