No cash flow? It’s your fault

Oh dear. You’ve been working hard at your freelance writing business. You have lots of clients, and complete their projects on deadline, if not before. Now you realize that a week has passed, and no cash has flowed into your PayPal account.

What gives?

Unfortunately, you do — you’re giving your writing services away. You do the work, and you don’t have a system in place to make sure that you get paid regularly.

As this article points out 40 Tips to Accelerate Your Cash Flow : Money :: American Express OPEN Forum:

“1. Invoice on-time because every day you are late is at least one more day your customer will wait to pay.”

You need a system in place to ensure that:

1. You get paid as soon as you accept a commission — always take a deposit (on small jobs, under $500, the “deposit” is payment in advance);

2. You invoice regularly on longer projects, at least once a week, because you’ve set milestone payments;

3. You invoice outstanding fees immediately you complete a project;

4. Your clients understand that the copyright in a project remains with you, until you’re paid in full.

Your clients are business people so you need to think the way they do

You’re a freelance writer, and you live on the words you create. You’re dealing with business people, who are by definition, BUSY. It’s not their job to look out for you and make sure that you’re paid (because you’re such a deserving person) — it’s your job to ensure you get paid, because that’s what being a professional writer entails.

Therefore, get a system. Follow it — just stick to your Terms of Service. Re #1 above, if a prospect tells you “we pay on delivery” or similar, politely point out that your TOS states that that on projects under $500, you’re paid on project acceptance. Be polite, and be professional, and get paid. It’s up to you to see that it happens.

Discover the secrets of running a well-paid writing career with Devilish Writer.