#41: Red Flag Clients and Getting Paid with Liz Heflin

Today we take a look at what happens when you decide to work with a client in spite of those red flags that pop up sometimes . What do you do when they end up being difficult when it comes to paying for the work ? If you're a freelancer , business owner or anyone who deals with clients , you're in the right place . I'm your host , teresa Edmond .

I've been dealing with clients and running my business for nearly two decades . Teresa Edmond , I've been dealing with clients and running my business for nearly two decades and in that time I've dealt with my share of doubt , imposter syndrome and not knowing what to say when a client asked a question I wasn't ready for .

I created this podcast to empower you with the boss responses you need to grow your business . Each week , my guest co-host and I will bring you five episodes packed with practical insights . Monday through Thursday , we answer your questions , and Fridays we dive deep to explore how our co-hosts embrace their role as the boss of their business .

Welcome to Boss Responses . Liz , thank you for being here with us this week . I'm really looking forward to our conversations . I am as well . Thank you for being here with us this week . I'm really looking forward to our conversations . I am as well . Thank you for inviting me . All right , so let's just jump into day .

One question , and I'm going to ask you this one . We are starting the week out with you . When you end up taking one of those red flag clients that you know you shouldn't , and it goes as badly as you knew deep down it would , and you're not getting paid on time , what should you do ? And this is the context they've given .

The one time I got stiffed it was for $400 , which isn't a huge amount of money , but definitely enough to really make me mad . And , of course , I had very much undercharged because I made every single new freelancer mistake with this client .

Anyway , I repeatedly invoiced , contacted everyone I could find at the company , tried calling their accounting department and eventually talked to an attorney who wanted to charge $500 for a demand letter . In the end , I let it go , but I still wonder if there's something else I should have done .

So I was probably out about $3,000 by the end , which at the time just felt like this insurmountable amount of money and I was so devastated by it . But I so there are definitely things you can do . There are no , it's important to say right out of the gates there are no absolute , complete , 100% guarantees .

There are safety nets that you can put in place to increase the odds that you will get paid and that you're not going to fall into the situation , but nothing is a 100% silver bullet . So first thing I would say is absolutely always work with a contract . That doesn't have to be something that you draft as a lawyer .

It doesn't have to be full of legalese , it doesn't have to be like both parties signing on the dotted line . It can just be a written down description of the terms of the project , the pay rate and both people saying yes , I agree to this . If it's written down and you have those sort of three checkboxes .

You have a contract , so it doesn't have to be official , but always operate with some written down record of what everybody has agreed to . That's one leg to stand on . So I do always like to operate with a contract . That's one .

Then , once you have a contract , you can add some clauses that will incentivize clients to not leave payment on the table or not pay you late , so you can have financial penalties for paying late . You can have a little clause in there that says , hey , I retain the rights to this work until payment has been made in full .

You can include a locked or a watermarked document to the client that they're not able to just right-click and copy and paste and get the text until payment has been made and then you can give them a clear copy that they can actually use . If a client's really motivated , they could probably find ways around that . But these are just deterrents , right .

So those are all kinds of things you can do in the world of contracts to protect yourself . But again , we've probably all been there , even with a contract . I know when I didn't get paid I had a contract and it still happened . So there have to be other safety nets you put into place . So some of those are . For me and my business , deposits are big .

I do not start work until some amount of payment has been made from the client and depends on the scope and the size of the project . But I typically do 50% upfront , 50% upon completion .

But if you're getting red flag vibes or you're not really sure about the client , if there's anything that's unsettling to you about the deal , it is 100% within your rights to ask for 100% upfront . That's not unusual .

If they balk at it , you can either have the conversation and decide whether that's a flag that they are going to be a non-paying client or you can open up the conversation and start negotiating . But deposits are really big .

Not putting one ounce of mental effort or time or energy until some amount of money has been exchanged is really important , because it's just been my experience that if a client pays something , they will pay everything . The ones who are going to scam you outright aren't giving you a dime . So deposits are big .

And then and this is a , this was a big one for me in the case where I wasn't paid I it was very early on in my freelancing career . I was very young . I started freelancing when I was about 18 or 19 . So I was just a kid , you were a baby .

I was just a baby and talking about money , having those conversations asserting myself with grown adults running their own businesses I didn't think of myself as running a business , even though I was , but that's not how I thought about it yet . That was really uncomfortable for me .

So a big part of this facing the nonpayment issue is finding the confidence to get comfortable with the uncomfortable conversations and asserting your voice .

And the second there's something that goes sideways a payment is late or it's partial when it should be full Any of these things that kind of start happening that lead to non-payment not being afraid to use your voice and to stand up and say no , no , no , Work doesn't continue until we get up to date .

And part of that is just it's almost like aversion therapy Just the more you do it , the more comfortable you get with it . It's not something you just snap your fingers . And maybe there's some people out there who just are bored , able to have those conversations , but that wasn't me . I know that wasn't me .

I had to get comfortable with it , I had to get used to it . So that's a really big part of it . And then , honestly , probably the biggest part of all is being really selective and careful about the clients that you work with . Yes , so that's really huge and I have built a lot of my business on referrals . That's just the way that it shook out for me .

And so everybody who I was working with I wouldn't say everybody , but a lot of the people I was working with were people who came to me vetted , trusted . Hey , here's somebody I know from my networking group and he's a great guy and he wants a copywriter right .

So working with people who come to you trusted , you don't obviously have to do that for every single client . Some people are going to come to you as inboundly , you know , strangers to you .

But being really selective and careful about who you work with can really help because a contract , whatever the terms , are only as good as the person that you enter into that agreement with . So that's really a big piece of it . And listening to your gut when you feel like something isn't right about that client , that's a huge piece of it .

You know , learning to trust that intuition and saying something's not right about this , that probably means something's not right about this . So picking obviously in this landscape , it's hard . Something's not right about this .

So picking obviously in this landscape , it's hard to say be picky about your clients , because everyone feels like everyone's taking what they can get in this particular landscape . But it can really make the work more enjoyable .

Make sure those payments are made on time all of that good stuff and then just not bending on those boundaries and rules , even if it's a client that you know and trust .

The person who didn't pay me had paid on time every time , in full , for years and then that stopped and I bent my own rules because I knew them and trusted them , and on and on , and at the end of the day you're running a business and if the payments stop coming in , you have to stop that bleeding as soon as you can .

So if I had put my foot down , I probably would have walked away with a couple hundred dollars in missed invoices , but I didn't and I was stuck with several thousand dollars that ended up never getting paid .

But with that , when you're working with an existing client and they stop paying , one of the ways I gained that confidence to have that conversation was making it not about me . It's not about me , it's about my business . You're not paying my business and I don't get paid by my business if you don't pay my business . So ultimately it's about me .

But right now this is about my business and I really do use that neutral terminology and that seems to set clients back a little bit . They're like I thought she was going to take this personally , but no , she's not . This is a business thing and for some reason that I don't know why that works to get payment a little bit more , but it does .

Another thing I found and this is really only applicable to the female part of the audience , but it is a thing Women have a harder time getting paid than men , and I don't . It's a disrespect thing . I don't know what the issue is .

Whatever the issue is , it happens and it's not always just for male clients and I found a really sneaky workaround very early on that has worked 100% of the time . I have a fake mail colleague . He is set up and I change his name periodically and I still use him . Sometimes he's set up on my work email .

Sometimes his name's Mike , sometimes it's Zach , Sometimes it's always like a power name and all it ever takes is him sending one email saying Teresa's passed this invoice over to me to collect payment . And here are the terms this is what you agreed to . The payment is now this many days past due .

The dude gets the payment and it's the most bizarre thing , and I only pull him out in absolute emergencies , but it happens . It's . And it's the most bizarre thing , and I only pull him out in absolute emergencies , but it happens interesting it's and it works .

But sometimes just the threat of legal action is enough to light a fire under people , even if you have no intention of pursuing it , because obviously you're not going to spend $4,000 to hunt down $400 . That doesn't make sense . But just saying we will need to escalate this to legal terms then sometimes that can push the final lever .

Usually that final invoice , the project is attached to it , and it's not released until they make that payment , which is very handy , so I love doing that , but I also , at one point , probably about 10 years into running my business , I had the opportunity to buy a templatized cease and desist notice , and because back then , I wasn't requiring a deposit and I had

a couple of people who paid very sluggishly , they paid , but it was pulling teeth , and I had that read through by a lawyer .

So it's a lot cheaper to have a lawyer read through something than it is to have them write it , and I had them make sure everything was right for my state and for the laws and all of that stuff , and I'll just flat out send that . I've tried to get the invoice three times . I see that you're using the work already .

This is an official cease and desist notice . I maintain ownership of that and I will be contacting . This is the kicker , though . I flat out say I will be contacting search engines to have the content removed because of copyright infringement . And the second you say that they're like pay the person because no one wants that ding . No one wants that ding .

Yeah , so I've found and I hate dealing with that issue ever it is totally a mindset issue . It's not something it's not pleasant , right ? Yeah , it's not , but it's part of running your business and you have to do it with confidence , even if you fake that confidence for five minutes . You have to do it .

And confidence , even if you fake that confidence for five minutes you have to do it and find what works for you Absolutely fine . But the being selective about clients is when all of that changed for me and I found out that the more I charge , the less I have issues with clients who 100% of them are paying .

The ones who are paying a fair to great rate , they're the ones who pay the day you send the invoice , or before , or before , or before . I have the real angel clients out there who are paying before

Peace .

It's 20 or it's 50% upfront , and then these , and he's like I don't want to deal with this , can I just send you the whole thing ? And I'm like , okay , I suppose that would be okay . Sure , and that was after I raised my rates , because I wasn't sure if I even wanted to do ghostwriting anymore .

So it works , you find your way , and it's never just about payment . It's never just about payment . There are always other factors at play , and if you get all of those factors figured out in your business , then payment's just going to be a lot more smooth . So that's a killer day one , liz A lot to talk about in non-payment .