Freelancers: Here’s how to talk money to clients and prospects

A friend of mine once confided in me that she was having trouble getting paid for her freelance work. After a little conversation, we figured out that she wasn’t sending invoices because she was embarrassed to talk about money with the client. No bill, no pay.

It is embarrassing to talk about money. We’d all rather talk about the client’s problems and how we can help solve them — after all, that’s what we’re expert at. It can seem awkward to bring up the bills, but frankly, it’s a lot more uncomfortable to not have money in the bank.

It helps to have a plan. So I’m sharing one with you, based on my nearly ten years as a freelancer who has gotten paid every dollar I’ve billed for.

Tips to get paid without awkward conversations

You deserve to get paid what you and the client have agreed upon. This is not some uncomfortable truth, it is how business works, and your client knows that.

The main principle is: Don’t be afraid to talk about money, but don’t bring it up all the time, either (that’s crass, and you should be mostly talking about work, not money). And don’t make a joke out of it, either. “Here’s my bill,” is serious. “Giggle, giggle, sure, when you finally pay me,” makes you sound like an amateur and certainly doesn’t encourage the client to cough up what’s owed.

Here’s what I recommend:

• When pitching, agree on the scope of work first, but discuss the cost at the end of the discovery call. If you need a little time to come up with a quote, tell the prospect how long that will take — and it had better be less than two days. Follow up with a quote in writing including scope of work, milestones, and payment amounts. Bill for one-third to one-half up front.
• Negotiate on scope, not price. If the prospect feels the price is too high, throw in some free extras for the same price. If that doesn’t work, cut some elements out of the proposal and reduce the price accordingly. Never agree to do the same work for less money; that just tells the prospect that you don’t really value your work and you’ll cave on every price demand.
• Put the agreement in writing. For large projects, a contract is useful. For smaller or quicker projects, you still need agreement on an email that says what you’re doing and what it costs.
• Send dated invoices that describe the completed milestone and the payment due. One purpose of getting the first invoice paid up front is to work out the kinks in the client’s payables system. Individuals sometime want to use Zelle, Paypal, Venmo, or checks — but you need to make sure that’s working properly. Businesses often have elaborate payment systems you need to sign up for and navigate, sometimes including purchase order. Make sure those systems are working before moving forward. The invoice doesn’t have to be fancy; I use an invoice template that came with Microsoft Word.
• Mention payment milestones at the end of regular calls. For example, after discussing the completion of four chapters of ghostwriting, point out that you’ve completed a milestone and will be sending an invoice for $x dollars after the call. This positions the payment properly: the work is more important to both you and the client, but the payment is important, too. Then follow up and send the invoice within one day.
• Bring up late payments similarly. At the end of a call about the work you are doing, it’s appropriate to point out something like “You’ve got three unpaid invoices for a total of $10,000. For me to continue to do the work we just agreed upon, you’ll have to get me payment for those.” Often, this is what’s necessary to get clients to shake loose the money.
• Encourage your clients to poke people in their accounting departments. Your client wants the work done. If payments are late or stuck in their organization, the clients are the best people to motivate the people in accounts payable to remove technical obstacles and move faster. My clients are typically senior executives; they often take actual pride in saying, “I’ll have my CFO prioritize this, you’ll get paid soon.” If the accounting folks are any good, you won’t have to do this more than once.
• Use out-of-scope discussions to generate extra income. When you’re doing good work and the client likes it, a paradoxical problem often occurs: they want you to do more and more, and it’s work you’ll be good at, but it’s not in the contract. A little of this is fine — if they ask you to review the publisher’s cover design, giving your opinion isn’t going to swallow up a big part of your day. But if the scope is expanding, don’t be afraid to ask for more. In one recent writing contract, I pointed out that the client was asking for extensive and time-consuming research even though in our initial discussions they promised they had already done all the research. We negotiated an additional payment for that work. And at the end of a ghostwriting project, the client kept asking me to review marketing materials. I told them that review of marketing materials was not included in the original contract, and that it might be useful for them to put more on retainer not just to review materials but to draft them as well. The client was delighted, and now I get an additional check every month.

If you’re good at what you do, there’s always an opportunity to get paid for it. But you’ll have to ask for it. Get used to asking for compensation when you deserve it; while it may feel awkward to you, it’s another way to encourage clients to respect you and your expertise.