How to deal with deadbeat customers

You can learn a lot online, sure, but the best way in my experience is to establish a relationship with someone who has been very successful in your field.

The problem with internet forums when it comes to general business advice is that there are about 100 less experienced people asking questions for every 1 person who’s been through the whole success/failure cycle. And yet, on the Internet anyone can be ‘an expert’ as it’s relatively anonymous so you get lots of varied answers.

For example, if you ask the question ‘should I take a deposit’ you’ll get answers from people swearing that you never work without a 50% deposit under any circumstances. Then you get answers from other people who say that if you have great clients and good cashflow then you don’t have to worry about deposits. Which answer is right? Well, they are both ‘correct’ in the right context but you have to ask yourself which of the answers comes from someone who has been very successful in business, and which comes from someone who is still playing defense against bad clients.

If you can find a mentor, that is usually very high value and you can see for yourself how successful someone is before you start taking their advice.

That is a great idea, I had one once but he turned out to not do things the right way and got himself into a world of trouble. Not a good choice on my part.

Thanks mate, your advice is priceless.

The first thing to do when dealing with deadbeat customers is not to refer to them as deadbeat customers when they’re taking longer than a few days to pay :slight_smile: My experience is people who express negative feelings towards customers privately normally end up unintentionally giving negative vibes to their customers. Remember, every business owner is in customer service!

Secondly, as others have mentioned, 30 days is completely standard. Companies have cash flow cycles that are dependent on this 30 day schedule and the last thing you want to do is come across as a ‘needy’ person to do business with.

Thank you, there was quite a bit more involved for me to phrase it that way, but I understand your message.

Yeah I understand the “looks like desperation” thing, I was just used to doing business at some of the other boards where payment within 48 hours was the norm, not being the best policy as I have learned, but I no longer use those boards now. I am in no means desperate, I definitely do not want to give that feeling to customers. Typically I am very friendly and thankful to my customers, but this one customer was, shall we say, “not the norm” for me… wanted a lot more work done than was even part of the job.