Clients: How To Avoid The Nightmare

A week ago a friend called me up with her grievances. First I thought it must have been something to do about her personal life but well this was even worse. Listening to her for about 15 minutes, it felt sad, very sad. How often have you heard about those clients who insincerely refuse to pay you? To be honest, deceitful clients happen to exist in every shame and size. You may begin a project in your own goodwill, but these clients call themselves the savant of any and every task. Investing hours and days to complete an assignment with complete dedication and then not being appreciated by the clients happens way too regularly than you think. With a hands on experience of a similar nightmare myself I feel it is important for all you fellow readers to know when working as freelancers. There are many ways you can ensure your payments such as pre-defined contracts, agreements and a a drafted course of action for everything that may go wrong.

After tirelessly working on an assignment for five days she finally mailed the first draft and kept waiting for a feedback for the next 10 days. On receiving a request to send the invoice, she immediately did the needful. The payment was verbally assured within a week of the delivery of the first draft. But as soon as she mailed the invoice, objections like the quality was not up to the mark, content is ridiculous, everything looks amateur-ish began coming through. And eventually after all sorts of severe criticism in person, they write her a cheque of an amount have than what she raised an invoice for.

Yes, they exist and they refuse. However, I have listed down a few ways you could save yourself from such treachery and work with a chilled out mind.

Always INSIST on an advance. Set your percentage amounts and state them in your contract. Make sure you get it signed before you begin working on the project. This will tell you about the interest and credibility of the client you are going to be dealing with.

You’re a business entity. These golden words, never forget them. You have to efficiently negotiate without any losses.

Learn from mistakes. And here the above real life incident should be a very apt lesson.

If it gets dirty, you have to take it one step ahead. Often disputes happen and clients stubbornly refuse to pay simply anything. So you will have to be mentally prepared to take this into a legal settlement.

I hope this is going to be helpful and take care for your future payments. Happy working!