30-Day Persistence Challenge: Happy Tax Day

This qualifies as a persistence victory: Today, I paid my 2008 taxes on time and in full.

You may recall that I didn't expect to be able to pay the full bill today. Indeed, by my calculations, and with how screwy cashflow has been recently, I wondered if I'd be able to pay any of it at all.

The reasons I was able to remove the tax monkey that had been suctioned to my back for about a month had some to do with luck and some more to do with persistence.
The persistence part

Following up on invoices it not fun. When I started freelancing full-time a few years ago, I was convinced that checking on invoices was akin to begging for money. But as I've matured in my freelance life, I've come to see following up on invoices as just another part of the job. Here's how I do it:

Mark check due-dates on your calendar
Thirty, 45 or (god forbid) 60 days from the day you submit the invoice (or after scheduled publication, if that's your thing), note the due date on your calendar. Now ignore it and enjoy the rest of your day.

Send a friendly email
The day the check is due--or sometimes a few days later, I send an email checking in on the check's status. This does two things: It alleviates some of the anxiety inherent in the cash-flow cycle, and it lets your client know that you're keeping track. Squeaky wheel and all that.

What should the email say? Mine usually go something like this:

Hi there, nice AP person, I hope you're well. I'm checking in on the status of the check I am expecting from your company (invoice #X for $Y). My records indicate that it should have arrived yesterday, last week, etc. Can you let me know when I should expect to receive it? It will greatly help with my bookkeeping. Sincerely, Your friendly, professional neighborhood freelancer

I'm couching the query in professional, non-reactive language ("bookkeeping," "status of check," etc.). I'm not saying what I'm sometimes thinking ("For the love of god, please send me my money. Taxes are due!")

Follow up
Last month I discovered on a writers board that one of my favorite clients was paying later and later. So I asked a fellow freelancer for the contact information for the AP person and sent her an email asking something similar to the above. She confirmed she had my invoice, but said it "wasn't scheduled to be sent." Uh, really? Because it was due to be paid last week per your contract with me.

So I followed up asking, "What can I do to expedite the process? Is there anything I can do to help you?" Again--not confrontational. I'm simply looking for ways to make this work. After all, I have friends who are accountants and they hate paying people late. I know she'd pay me if she could.

Her answer was less than thrilling. She told me there was nothing I could do and I'd just have to wait.

So I sat on my hands--but not for long.

Call
Just like querying, getting your money takes follow up after follow up after follow up sometimes. It maybe shouldn't but reality is more important than ideals.

So in this case, I called the AP person a week and a half later and, a little panicked, I left a message. "I really need that check to pay my bills." Embarrassing? A little. But facts are facts and I was hoping it would help.

The result
I didn't get a call back, an apology or a check sent by Fed Ex. What I did get, a few days later, was an email from her saying she'd put the check in the mail--and not just a check for the outstanding invoice, but also a check for the invoice due in a few weeks.

The same goes for another check I received on Monday: I simply followed up and checked in to see when I should expect to be paid. The check wasn't due yet, but I wanted to know how they worked, since they were a relatively new client. Well, I got that check early, too.

And so, taxes got paid.

The luck part

I'm not saying all of this is due to my diligence. I am sure it helped. But just like I have no control over late payment, I certainly can't control early payment. Something about the loosening of the credit market and some internal wrangling at the companies that had nothing to do with me was also in play here.

The truth is, I don't care what caused it. I do care that going into the middle of the month I have both done my part and filled my wallet.

How do you follow up on invoices?

Photo by CarbonNYC.

30-Day Persistence Challenge: Starting Now!

First, I apologize for both starting the challenge late and for not keeping up with posting. This is part of why I need this challenge: To create systems that allow me to do the things I love every day, like this blog.

You guys chose persistence for the next challenge, and I'm excited about it.

First, I think it's important to define persistence. What I mean when I say persistence is this: Persistence is the act of doing the thankless unpaid work that makes all the high-reward, income-generating work possible.

That includes:

• Regular querying
• Setting and following a business plan
• Meeting with fellow writers
• Invoicing and collections
• Setting time to write and sticking to it; and
• Organizing

So in this challenge, those are the topics we'll be tackling. But before we get underway, I need your help: What do you want to read most about and what's your biggest persistence challenge? Do you have a great story of how persistence paid off for you (we all have one, big or small)?

I want to hear about it. Email me at heather @ HeatherBoerner.com, DM me on Twitter or comment below. I want to hear what you have to say and I want to make this challenge as useful to you as possible.

Photo by Redvers'.

30-Day Economic Stability Challenge: Collecting what's yours

One of the things freelancers hate the most about the business side of the job is collecting money that's owed to them. In this economy, doing it is becoming even more important, and common. So I've asked a fellow freelancer Kristine Hansen, to explain how she tries to avoid having to do collections in the first place, and then how she approaches it when she has to do it. It turns out that it's much easier than you may think--and it requires more persistence than perhaps you'd like.

Hansen is a freelance writer in Milwaukee and covers travel, food/drink and eco-living topics for many national publications. She just entered into her 10th year of freelancing. Read more about her at KristineAHansen.com.

How common has it been for you to have to go to bat to get your checks? Has it changed recently?
Having to chase down checks has, fortunately, not been something I've had to do often. I intentionally seek out magazines that seem to be viable and are committed to paying on time and in full. (Note: Having a solid network of writers who dish on their clients is key to finding them!) My first brush with a "deadbeat client" came in 2000, right after I began freelancing, and it was because the Web site I had been hired to write for filed for Chapter 11. There has only been one other instance (see below).

What happened in 2000?
I was doing a lot of writing for a Web site and it may have been because I was new to the business of freelancing, but I made maybe two calls to the subcontractor before giving up on collecting the $600 that was owed to me. Because the subcontractor pleaded ignorance but was extremely kind to me, I dropped my plea. I now realize that his demeanor was likely a ploy to put me off! If this were to happen today there is no way I would drop the matter so easily.

How much time do you spend a week on collections, would you say?
Honestly? Other than the time it takes to drop relevant info into an invoice and then e-mail it, zilch.

Would you describe how you go about doing collections: How do you track when payment is due, how soon after the due-by date do you contact the editor, and how high up the food chain have you gone?

What I would highly recommend is sending the invoice immediately after filing your story. Each publication plays by its own set of rules for how it cuts checks. The more days you wait to invoice, the more likely your check could end up in the next cycle (lots of times publications cut checks in batches). Being a day late in that cycle could mean you are waiting an additional 30 days for the money. You'll know based on the contract you sign what the terms are (ie, how many days after either acceptance or publication the check is processed) and that helps you guess when "pay day" really is. What can sometimes happen is that the editor does not receive your e-mailed invoice. So that can hold up the process.

Give your editor a few days after submitting yours before sending a follow-up message to confirm its receipt. I keep track of three kinds of dates in an Excel file:

• The date of the invoice;
• Any times I'm in touch with the editor or accounting about payment; and
• The date my check arrives.

For repeat clients, this makes it easy to determine a publication's pattern for cutting a check (in other words, how long it will take). One last thing to know is that its the accounting department that cuts the checks, and not your editor. So if your editor doesn't seem to be going to bat for you, politely ask for the name and contact info for someone who can.

What mistakes have you made with collections, and how would you advise other freelancers to avoid them?
The classic mistake I seem to make more times than I'd care to admit is to not follow up on sent invoices.

You mentioned elsewhere that you hate having to be the "squeaky wheel" to get paid. Can you elaborate on that?

Just last week, I realized that a magazine's promises to cut a check were not coming through. Every few weeks I would receive an e-mail that announced the check was en route -- but in actuality, it was not. It occurred to me that being a squeaky wheel in this magazine's "engine"
could result in a check being cut.

The good news is that it worked!

My editor had also become frustrated with the matter and while I knew she was doing her job to see that I got paid, I asked if there was someone in accounting that I could speak with. When I got this person on the phone, I calmly relayed the series of mishaps when she said that the check would go out in the next few days. I requested that the check arrive within the week and if not, I would be obligated to report this incident to the professional writers organizations I am a member of. But even as I was saying those words, realizing that they could be interpreted as a threat, I knew that I was doing what any other business owner would do.

Because freelancers are working project by project, there's a strong want to be pleasant, polite and flexible. That's hard to do in situations like this. But taking good notes on the correspondence you have had, and taking a lot of deep breaths helps. It's also helpful to view the discussions with a strong sense of
teamwork. It's not you vs. them. Getting paid is a natural step in the relationship a writer has with his or her editor.