It's time for the b a qa A. The b a q A what you say, the b a q A mand the b a q A with Tipp and a. The b a qa A, It's Brad a question answered. You have questions. We have some of your answers because we are smart, beautiful brown girls who know a thing or two about business, career, money, and entrepreneurship.
That was the other one, I think, So yeah, welcome back to b a qa I'm so excited about this week's questions. We are diving into y'all's career questions and there's some juicy ones in here. And also one of them, I'm pretty sure Tip's going to have some some juicy advice for too, because it's about someone who's dipping their toe into consulting and contracting and wants to know how they make people pay him on time or her on time.
But let's get into it. Just remind her, like Tiff said, we're not financial experts or you know, especially certainly not your trusted advisor out side of the podcast, so please don't sue us. You know, we're just here for a fun time and a good time and to leave y'all with hopefully a little bit of wisdom. But yeah, you can miss us with your lawsuits. Let's jump into it. This first question comes from concerned contractor. They say, longtime listener,
first time writer, Love you both, bunches. I recently began grad school and have been dipping my toe into part time consulting and contracting. So I have a two part question. How do you on the front end prevent non payment when you are consulting? And number two, what do you do when you when you haven't been paved and you're starting to receive the run around. I'm currently in situation number two. I've been trying to be patient, as I
have a previous relationship with your organization. However, I'm beginning to feel taken advantage of I'm non confrontational by nature, but I can be sugnighted if it comes to that. Help concerned contractor, all right, let's put the piece down. We don't need any sugar night shenanigans here, okay, but I not tiff like in your work and certainly in my work. Now I have dealt with more contracts and more you know, looking at the terms of the agreement and like when will I get paid? And it's funny
because or not funny. It sucks when you are, you know, expecting people to pay you during it, like you think you should get paid right away, but sometimes these contracts be like you know, what's the word what's that phrase they use for when they're going to pay you? Yes, thank you? Yeah, net thirty, next sixty, next ninety. So my first piece of advice would be too, is to have a contract, like actually have the terms so that
you know and they know what you're agreeing to. And I'm wondering if in this case, did you have a contract or was it a situation where it was like because you had worked with them before, you know, you did the work and you know that you were all like Kiki, nice, nice, and and get it written down you know when they were gonna owe you, because that's really important.
Yeah.
And also to consider having some money being paid up front, you know, like like a deposit, so that way you know, at least you get something, you know, upfront, Like typically I get about half upfront.
Typically sometimes not, it.
Depends, like like for example, if I speak for a college or whatever, sometimes I'll you know, they'll literally have a check for me today I show up.
But typically I get that check before I hit that stage.
You know, really yeah, but consider you know, like in your contract having people pay you upfront, not not they're likely not to pay you all, but half upfront or like in thirds front middle end, depending how long the contract is for.
You know, they'll consider that too.
And I, I know this is really hard, Like you might have to take people to small claim score. You might have to you know, you should, like when you're in business, you don't have to have return an attorney on retainer, but you should have an attorney that you can reach out to that's different. So my attorney, Tony Moore, she's awesome, she's not on retainer, Like I don't just pay her every month and be like I could just
ask endless questions. But when I need something, I know I could say, hey, Tony, how much.
Does it go across?
Because this person is do that. I need your help with this. So you might have to take them to small claims court and you might need the help of an attorney, you know, Like there are some people you know, I work with enough that like, I know I'm gonna
get my money. And there's definitely been some times because a lot of my contract works gets filtered through my spokesperson, agent Ellie k. And I've seen her like write emails like hey Tiffany, I haven't gotten that first deposit, please stop work and take down that post.
So she'll do something like that like see seeing.
Me in the company and then like wait wait wait wait waitit because we did have somebody that was dragging their feet.
You know.
She made it very clear to them if we don't have this money by this time, Tiffany will stop working.
She won't ever work with you again.
So also see if maybe there's a third person, bad guy that can like reach out even if it's you. Girls, sometimes you just need to get another email address and be the.
Third person that I like real legal at contractor dot com exactly.
Yemm hmm.
So consider that too, and like I said, you might have to go to small claims court and know that you don't work with that again, you know, or if you do ever work with them again, because certainly not to shade the city I live in, but the city I live in is notorious for late or no payment. I said it no work, and I had to get real gully with them when they owed me like a lot of money it was like eight thousand dollars. And this is when I pretty early on in my career.
So eight thousand was a break because I had put they ordered books for me. I had paid for the books on my credit card, and when they received the books and nobody wanted to pay me, it was a run around. It was a nightmare. And I was like, it'd be one thing to not pay me for speaking, because I wouldn't necessarily come out of pocket. But I like, the books cost me like three thousand dollars, you know, And I was like, I don't have three thousand dollars.
And so what I did was I found out the email address of every council person, the mayor's personal and professional, every single person.
Of notes in Newark.
I put them on an email and I wrote a letter saying I'm writing this letter out of active desperation as a daughter of Newark, because they love that someone was born here, taught here as a preschool teacher, started my businesses here.
I spoke at this time.
I did this work and I have not been paid, and I tried everything in my power to recoup this income and I haven't been able to receive it. At this point, I'm at my wits end. I'm not sure what to do, so I'm reaching out to you for assistance. Before I learned the media, girl, it was good, and I took like I had screenshops of all the work, screenshops of everyone who I spoke to. Every person that's folks,
so that gave me the run around. I highlighted their name because I wanted them to know exactly who to yell at. When I told you my phone right a minute five May, my phone rang. So because the woman who was supposed to pay me actually went to college with she was a friend of mine, So I was like, girl, why did not pick it out?
Is this someone that you know? Girl?
Always that personal connection that screws you, I mean, which sucks because when you're early in your career, you rely on those yes like relationships to get your first gig sometimes, but they give me the run around.
But she had the right and the wrong one. So she was like, I can't believe you write that and that email. Nobody on there is related to this this whatever. And I was like, girl, get off my phone. Let you have my money, you know, I said, because she said, you could have just rolled me directly. I said, check your text messages. I've been texting you for months. I have been calling you for months. I've been emailing you for months. You've ignored me, and so now here we are.
And then then I was like, wait, hold on, boop. It was the Mayor's office. Your check is ready. You want to pick it up? I said, sure, dude, I at the time was driving my nineteen ninety eight Toyota Camri. That sounded like who shot John? And why I pulled up they I was like, They're like, do you want to come in to get your check? I said no, bring it to the car, because by then I was pissed. Garve rolled down the window just slightly so they could slip the check to the car.
And yeah, read to the bank.
But I just see all that to say, it might be that you have to email above and beyond whoever this person is running you around, c see everybody and write like a you know, an a not so overtly threatening, like this is what I've been through. Email, email, email, screenshop screenshot, screenshot, you know, and you know my next step. Unfortunately, will we have to take take this the small claims core, which is not ideal and so that's it.
Yeah, and also I love that as a first up. And then also I mean you could skip also to just having a letter from an attorney or drafting up something, and I bet you could find a template or something. But you know, hello, it has been and you have
your facts. You know, it's been so many days of non payment, and if you haven't completed the project, I would say stop, you know, until you get the payment, and then learn from it and make sure that in your future contracts that either you have the language you can. It does not have to be fancy legalies either. I remember I spoke for like a PR firm and in a Google doc, we just outlined, you know, when I was going to speak, the rate and when they would
pay me. They didn't have any kind of contract like in their you know, in the can that they could use for this kind of thing. They hadn't done it before, and I just we've signed it, like I printed it out, signed it and scanned it back, you know, and that was all it took. It doesn't always have to be super complicated, but you have to look out for yourself and make sure that people can take advantage of you.
And then yeah, there's I feel like the bigger the company, the longerson has it takes to get paid, you'd be surprised. It's never the people who are small businesses or other you know, other entrepreneurs who forgive me the run around. It's it's the big companies. So but exciting for you to have this additional source of income while you're in grad school. I think that's really smart. But I mean, if you want to work with people and you want to attract the best talent, you can't be paying them.
You can't like not be paying them on time. It's trash. It doesn't look good on you. I bet this person like you probably will look think really long and hard before.
You have to work for them again. You know, so money up for it?
If you ever worked for the city of Newark Hill before I do anything now, I'm like.
I need my money up. Five. Thanks. I love You're probably legendary.
They remember.
The daughter of Newark. Let's take it all. Second question. Let's do it.
All right, y'all, we are back with our second question. This book comes from Listener and you want to read it to sure.
Hey, ladies, A few weeks before I thought out I was pregnant, congratulations. Oh, I was fired from a new job I started due to budget cuts. Although being fired sucked, it was a blessing in disguise. I had a horrible first trimester. If I were at the job, I would have had to be put on FMLA for the entire trimester. Now that I'm striving in my second trimester, I decided to start looking for work. If I find a job
before giving birth in about twenty four weeks. When do I tell them I'm pregnant or should I wait until I give birth to start looking. I look forward to your suggestions.
Thank you. Oh, this is out of my wheelhouse.
Well, I'll say this as an employer, I would prefer her obviously that you let me know and let me decide, and I might say start after you come back from you know, the baby.
I don't mind because we've had people.
I mean, Tam, it's my CEO of the Literature Accounemy has had two kids while here. So having children when you're you know, when you are part of the staff, we love it. It's a little baby unicorn. You take your three four months whatever, no problem. But someone who's literally starting and then like a month later leaving, I feel like that might be a bit disruptive, and so as an employer, that would not be my first choice. I wouldn't want to know. So I can say you
seem awesome. How about you come back when you're back back.
Yeah, Well, the good news for you, Anne is that you have no legal obligation to tell your employer that you're pregnant before you take a job. Now that doesn't mean that in some cases, like TIF said, it wouldn't
be nice to give them a heads up. But I think the reality is, like I can see how if you're coming into a role and you're in an executive level position and you are going to have you know, you have more skin in the game and you are, you know, a key player in the business's success, that you would want to bring that up, probably before you know,
if you were getting closer to your due date. I remember when I was at Yahoo and Marissa Meyer, who came from Google, she took the Yahoo CEO job in twenty thirteen, fourteen or twelve, I don't forget, and she was like nine months pregnant with twins. So, and that was back when you had to interview in person. So it's a lot. It's harder to hide that, and I
think in that case you have to be upfront. But in your case, I mean, I'm not sure what position you are, what position you're in, but I would say I would keep that close to your chest, especially if you, like you're in your second trimester, so am I going to be doing around the same time. You're probably not showing terribly or not showing that much right now. I
would keep it to yourself. And I would say, if you get a job, which you likely are hopefully you do, you know, get a job and you still have a few weeks left before your due date, I would take it. I would tell them. I would tell HR you know when you join, like I. And also this is another thing, find a way to strategically ask about parental leave benefits before you join, because you're going to want to know will you need to be here a certain number of
weeks or months. Sometimes I'll want you to be there for a year before you qualify for additional paid leave, and based on that you may decide, Okay, I feel confident in taking this job, you know, because I will be accepting some leave with that. I know that there are companies who if they do find out that you're expecting, they have no problem holding your spot for you. And I'll mention Google my friends and it was not even
my friend who was pregnant, it was her husband. Got a brand new job at Google and he interviewed in August the baby was dueing Wait no, he interviewed in August. Baby was due in August, and they were like, you got the job, we'll see you in January. And they gave him his parental leave upfront. So the benefit of maybe telling them is that maybe there's a something that can be worked out where they can maybe give you your leave upfront and then hold that spot for you
to join down the line. It's dicey because, like you, you really have to feel it out and feel if you feel safe. Because I'm not gonna lie. Some jobs may just need someone you know in the seat right away, and they may come up with another reason for turning you down, but really it could be that, oh, you know, we want someone who can really hit the ground running, and that's discriminatory and illegal for them to deny you
a job based on, you know, your pregnancy. But I live in the real world and that shit still happens. So this is probably like a real unsatisfactory answer, But I at least want to make you feel like take the pressure off yourself, because you actually do not have a legal right, legal obligation to tell them unless you're probably like in the C suite executive level and they make you sign something in advance, being like, if you have anything you need to tell us, you know who's
gonna it's gonna potentially interfere with your work. You know you have to tell us, But that's very like rare and unlikely to be happening in this case. Then I get both sides, but we wish you a very healthy and easy birth, happy, delightful baby.
They have breathe like a dope job sis.
Okay, Yeah, well I hope you got some good, good severance. At least you could have been off at that time the first trimester, Yo, it can really kill. I don't know what I would be doing if I had to work nine to five right now? How did I do this?
Girl without my two to four naps?
You was like, no, I'm not sure about this, shifting change and now look shifting and changing livid.
Where would I be without my two thirty four to three thirty PM naps every day. I don't I can't go back. I can't go back. But and thank you for your question. Congratulations on your little one, our spring chickens.
If you have a question and you know your dooh about career, about business, by entrepreneurship, by your finances, or just about being brown girl, you know what I mean, we at here.
You can send it to us.
You can go to Brownivision podcast dot com that like can ask us anything button. You can send us a voice note via Instagram or Brownivision pod or podcast because we might have you in the stew virtually, you can tweet us the BA pod right is it the b.
A podcast right at the BA podcast. Yes, you can tweet us.
Yeah, we love your questions, and you know we love to have some of you guys back in the stew as well. Until next week, sisters and occasional brothers.
Kevin, what's up, Kevin?
You can't have them doing care Hoppy doing your cap to you and your beautiful wife. I love under say, I love the both of them. They're really awesome.
RBA fan, We'll see y'all. Bye bye, Hey BA fan, we could not do this show without your support or the support of our team behind the scenes. The Brown Emission Podcast is produced by Cumulus Podcast Network. It's edited by the wonderful Imani Crosby and produced by Tanya Bustos. Dennis Stimplinsky is our in house tech guru, and I am Bandy Woodard Santos your co host, and I will see y'all next week.