Ever have a client fail to pay a bill? I once actually had a bankruptcy attorney order a large book order and then go bankrupt! Now, most clients and customers who are late on payments aren’t going to go bankrupt on you. But they may be having challenges that are preventing them from paying.

The WORST thing you can do is to constantly hound your clients. Yes, them not paying maybe affecting your ability to pay your bills. But pressuring them to pay you so you aren’t worried about paying your bills doesn’t create an incentive for them.

The truth is, your clients and customers WANT to pay you. So the trick is to figure out ways that they can do so that are win-win-win. My father owned a construction company. He arranged payment in barter whenever a client was short on cash. We got a wonderful school-quality playground set that way. My father even got paid nearly twice what a job was worth when someone gave him a boat in payment, which he then turned around and sold to generate the cash he needed for paying the bills. I once got a BMW Z3 in payment for work I’d done. Which worked out wonderfully, since I was in the market for a new car!

Instead of pressuring your clients to come up with a big lump sum, be willing to take weekly or monthly payments of even as little as $5 or $10, set up in an systematic way. When you do this, you free up both of you to work on building your businesses rather than scrambling to pay creditors.

Please leave a comment below if you would like to share your challenges or successes with getting clients to pay their bill – we’d love to hear from you!

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Paula Langguth Ryan is a mediation and marketing maven, specializing in financial issues for small businesses. She’s the creator of the Supersonic Prosperity Oriented Copywriting System http://www.paulalangguthryan.com/shop/supersonic-copywriting/ and provides strategic financial consulting services to small business owners. She’s also the author of Bounce Back From Bankruptcy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Getting Back on Your Financial Feet and the forthcoming Break the Debt Cycle – For Good! You can follow her on Twitter at copytamer and get free resources at www.paulalangguthryan.com. If you need help or assist please email us at info@kickstartwebsites.com.