Of the many great interactions I’ve had with clients, I’ve had a few unpleasant ones (an understatement), and from these experiences I do my best to learn and adjust my process to make sure I don’t have these experiences again. A few examples: I do the work for a client and even though I’ve got due dates and late penalties on my invoices, their payments are still late (much later than I need them to be to pay my bills on time). And another scenario, I get a really good feeling from a client and they seem ready to go so I clear my schedule only to find out a week or two later that they are not ready or are thinking about going with someone else. Neither of these work for me. After all, I’ve got a family to take care of and bills to pay and I can’t afford all of this uncertainty.
If you’ve had, or are currently having experiences like this with your clients, you know how frustrating and disheartening it can be. One thing I learned that turned around the scenarios I described above is this: The people that “put me in this situation” are actually NOT YET my clients. I put quotations around “put me in this situation” because I believe that it’s not clients who put us in compromising positions, but our own shortcomings as professionals. A true professional uses every opportunity to find ways to learn and grow when they experience challenges with their clients, because it is ultimately the professional’s responsibility to facilitate a smooth interaction with their client.
So here is where we as professionals can be more responsible: until a potential client has paid a reasonable amount of money to secure your services, they are not your client.
-But what if they’ve communicated with me via e-mail and said “We’re ready to go?” They are not your client.
-But what if they’ve sent their content and shared their goals with me? They are not your client.
-But what if they’ve signed a contract and sent it to me? They are not your client.
-A potential client doesn’t become your client until they PAY you.
I’d like to share a few guidelines and some reasons why I believe it’s vital to require payment from your client first:
Guidelines
I highly recommend requiring payment in order to secure not just your services, but a place in your schedule. This means that even if you are booked up and can’t start working on their project until 4 weeks from now, their up-front payment now secures their future spot in your schedule.
Depending on the size and scope of the project, you may be able to get full payment up front. If it’s a smaller project and it’s a sensible investment for the client, this shouldn’t be a problem for them. If it’s a larger project you may get 50% or more up front, or you could break the project into phases and require up front payment before commencing each phase.
Remember, when your client sees you as the professional, you get to set the tone and expectation for how the project is going to work.
Benefits
Establishes trust – This is one of the biggest benefits of accepting payment from your client up-front. When a client pays money for a service they have not yet received, they are communicating that they see you as a professional and that they trust you to carry out your end of the deal.
Positions your services as an investment – A payment up front is an investment. The client is essentially saying “I’m willing to invest in your design solution now, because I believe the potential return on this investment is worth it.”
Places you and the client in your rightful places in the client/professional relationship – This one is tremendously important. The healthiest client/professional relationship is one in which each party fully understands and is fully equipped to carry out their own respective roles. The role of the client is to provide content and goals as they relate to their vision for their business, and the designer’s role is to use their expertise to craft an effective solution, using the provided content, to meet the client’s goals. When you’ve already received payment, the client must submit to you as the professional. That means that they don’t have the leverage to insert their subjective ideas and opinions into the design process, and you have the leverage to support this idea. This is good news for everybody because, as long as you’re carrying out your role as the professional, your design will be a solution that will be most effective at accomplishing their goals, regardless of whether or not it satisfies their (completely unrelated) style preferences.
Can put an end to the feast or famine cycle – I’ve talked about this cycle before, where you get a bunch of client work, so financially you’re good for a while, then you have to do some administrative/on-boarding work with new clients, and things are thin again. The benefit to requiring payment for scheduling your services, is that you can potentially be booked weeks in advance with fully paid projects that you have yet to do. As long as you are smart about how you budget that advanced income, it should make for a relatively even experience when it comes to your cash flow.
Note: don’t book too far ahead at the same rate. If you do book more than a few months out, take into account the fact that the more experience you have, the more you can charge. This means that you’re probably going to be worth more to your client by the time you start on their project. Price your services accordingly.
If you’re reading this thinking ‘I can’t ask that of my clients, they’ll just say no and go to someone else’ then chances are you might be allowing the wrong people to become your clients. You should only allow someone to become your client who is willing to entrust you with their investment, sees you as a professional, and will submit to your process. This is how you will do your best, most fulfilling work, and how you will offer the most value for your clients.
As always, if you have thoughts, stories, questions or comments, please feel free to share below!