Hello Fellow Freelancer,
We skipped the Digest in January. I took this time to work on
- the brand new Freelance Business Book (300 Freelance Business Tips is now published!);
- Integrate a new system for the FBM Call for Speakers;
- to experiment with a new tool to create an interactive, community-generated newsletter in order for us to share community-wide asks, offers, and opportunities. At the end of the day, it is not only me who should write the community digest :-) I have to say the idea is pretty cool and I need 10 volunteers to test this new tool. Send me a message if you are interested.
I also took this time to rethink the FBC strategy and decide how the
Freelance Business Month is going to look like this year.
Right after the FBM last year, we had a brilliant brainstorming session with community members, which gave birth to so many ideas! I am happy to share that some of these ideas will be implemented (well, at least we will try our best!).
The FBM transformation will also happen for the
programme. Having said that, I'm thrilled to announce that the
Call for Speakers is already open! I invite you to submit your speaker application until
the end of March. (p.s. You will enjoy our new speaker management system this time!)
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I was somewhat shocked to see a number of posts from freelancers recently about late payments or not being able to get the payment from a client. I therefore would like to dedicate this newsletter to this very matter as a reminder that managing your cashflow is the most important aspect of your freelance business. In fact, of any business.
I had several discussions on my LinkedIn (
here and
here) about not being paid on time or not being paid at all, and also got several messages asking for advice about what to do if a customer doesn't pay.
We published a blog about it.Once I had to wait for the payment more than 6 months. It hurt my cashflow tremendously. I was not able to pay my tax on time and thus, got penalties. Now, thinking retrospectively, there is little I could do to prevent it. It was a big, established organisation working with many freelancers. I had a contract with agreed payment terms. The payment upfront was not an option due to the nature of the work. And still I got into the situation where I had to chase the client for payment.
There is no way I could accelerate the payment just by sending kind reminders. I had to appeal to the CFO's common sense and elevate the issue to the General Manager. My last instance was to start sending reminders with the note that the next one will be sent by a debt collector. No one loves bailiffs!
There was another story of not being paid in full by another organisation, but it is even painful to describe. This made me think: would a
black list of such organisations be helpful to you? What if we, as a community, start sharing about such cases and help others to avoid potential issues? Let me know in
slack or via return email.
A few other things for you to read or watch:
Celebrating authors:
Let your freelance business be awesome and invoices are always paid (on time!)
As always, hit
reply and let me know what you think or suggest topics for next newsletter.
Regards,
Elina
