{"id":859,"date":"2018-08-06T17:16:50","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T21:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/?p=859"},"modified":"2018-08-08T22:22:23","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T02:22:23","slug":"how-to-deal-with-customers-who-dont-want-to-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/06\/how-to-deal-with-customers-who-dont-want-to-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Deal With Customers Who Don\u2019t Want to Pay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/customers-who-dont-want-to-pay.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-867\" src=\"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/customers-who-dont-want-to-pay-300x266.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"266\" data-size=\"894x794\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/customers-who-dont-want-to-pay-300x266.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/customers-who-dont-want-to-pay-768x682.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/customers-who-dont-want-to-pay.jpg 894w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/> <\/a>When customers pay late &#8211; or don\u2019t pay at all &#8211; it can hurt your<br \/>\ncash flow. Here are some ways to prevent problems and deal with issues<br \/>\nwhen they do happen.<\/p>\n<h4>Tips for Preventing Customer Payment Problems<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Be wary of projects that were started by another contractor.<\/strong> It raises a red flag when a customer wishes to suddenly switch from one contractor to another. Make sure the \u201copportunity\u201d didn\u2019t come to you because the customer didn\u2019t pay the other contractor and is looking to find the next unsuspecting business to do the work.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Set up a payment schedule to insulate\u00a0<\/strong><strong>your business from non-payment.\u00a0<\/strong>What works well for many contractors is asking for one-third of the project rate up front, another third at some point during the project, and then the final third at the end of the job. Getting payments in installments can help keep you on solid ground as you devote time, materials, and effort to a job.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Don\u2019t put all of your eggs in one\u00a0<\/strong><strong>basket.<\/strong> Contractors that rely on one or\u00a0two customers for their income are at<br \/>\nrisk of needing to scramble to find work if the customer suddenly hits a slump or decides to use a different contractor. It also puts the price negotiation power in the hands of the customer. Try to diversify where your revenue comes from, but if you do put all of your eggs in one basket, watch that basket carefully!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Tips for Dealing With Delinquent Customers<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Be professional, calm, and politely persistent.<\/strong> Set a schedule for calling non-paying customers regularly to check on the status of their payment. Set expectations that you\u2019ll be calling back again to check in.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Propose a mutually agreeable payment plan.<\/strong> Often, slow payers are either poor managers or in a financial crunch. They want to pay, but they\u2019re struggling.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Consider a collections firm, but only after other tactics have failed.<\/strong> If the dollars at stake are significant enough, then it may be worth trying this. Realize, however, that this could do permanent damage to the customer-contractor relationship.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When customers pay late &#8211; or don\u2019t pay at all &#8211; it can hurt your cash flow. Here are some ways to prevent problems and deal with issues when they do happen. Tips for Preventing Customer Payment Problems Be wary of projects that were started by another contractor. It raises a red flag when a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions\/880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}