As a business owner or a service provider – We all have experiences with clients who are hard to deal with and don’t pay on time! You feel like you’re begging to them for your own hard-earned money.
What to do when the client doesn’t pay on time?
Sadly, there’s no concrete or surefire way to make someone pay your hard-earned money happily if that person doesn’t want to pay you on time. It’s bitter, but that’s the truth! You can go legal with him and struggle for months to get your payment out or keep ringing that phone to get the payment sooner or later!
I always suggest to people that they should avoid working with clients who are hard to deal with. Don’t get & feel desperate for work because when you do, the client takes advantage of your desperation, and you end up in many unfavorable situations, where you’re always the one holding the short end of the stick!
Do you want to get paid less for your efforts? Do you want to deal with clients that make you less productive and decrease your profitability?
No, right! Any good business owner would not like to be in an unfavorable situation ever, and you are a good businessman, entrepreneur.
What can be done to avoid clients like these, and how can we not get into all these unfavorable situations with clients?
I’d share 3 tips that I use to reduce the chance of working with clients who pay less and don’t pay on time!
Let’s get started!
THE DESPERATION
You and I are well aware that it’s a business, and it can not be fruitful and profitable always. There are going to be rainy days, where the business opportunities and profit would be less! In those times, we tend to make choices that cost us a lot in later days.
When we don’t have much business, we tend to become desperate for new opportunities. In desperation, we make tons of rash decisions, which we are going to regret in the future.
In the negotiation process, if you show your desperation to the client like you’re begging them to do business with you. The moment you start to sound like that, the control of the whole negotiation shifts towards the client. The bitter truth is when the client leads the negotiation; the first thing you are going to lose is profit, as well as the upper hand you’d have had throughout the whole business deal.
Desperation sends a signal to the client that you must not be selling a lot of your products or services. It drastically lowers the quality and the value of your service or the product for the client, even though that might not be the case. The client will assume that you’re hiding something and feel pressured with your too many attempts for the conversion.
Do you want that to happen?
No, right! Then avoid being or sound like a desperate entrepreneur.
5 Way to Avoid Appearing Desperate In The Negotiation Process!
- Don’t drop your product or service prices too early in the negotiation process!
- Don’t focus too much on why your product is better and it’s benefits rather than focus more on the client’s needs.
- Don’t compare yourself to your competitors or people that have already quoted to the client, instead focus on setting yourself apart from them using your USP.
- Be prepared for the negotiation and the possible questions that the client might ask you.
- Be & Sound confident throughout the pitch.
Don’t ever be desperate for work! Stay focused on growth, sooner or later you’d find an opportunity that would help you to skyrocket your business.
FOCUS ON CLIENT ATTRACTION
When you want someone to spend their money, you need to make them feel like what you are offering worth more than what they are paying, and it’s an investment that they are making for their growth and profitability.
The client does not care how you are going to get them from point A to point B because they assume that if you’re a business expert, you can. What they care is wheater you’re going to get them from point A to point B with tons of profit or with mear pennies.
You’ve to present yourself in a way where you sound credible and expert on what you do. The confidence that you’ve in your skill and service should be present every second of the negotiation because when it’s not there, you’re losing.
You’ve to focus on attracting the client’s attention, not on describing how good is your product or service. Because the client is already sitting with you, so he has a very good idea about your service or the product. What they don’t know or trying to evaluate is how well you can get the job done, and what’s your caliber?
Attracting a client is all about listening to what he wants and then presenting your solution most simplistically but with confidence. Focus on every single problem that they describe, and give them genuine pieces of advice that sound possible yet effective without caring whether they would do business with you or not.
4 Ways To Attract The Attention Of The Client In Negotiation
- Always think about the benefits of the client in the negotiation. Share ideas, suggestions that sound possible, and convincing whether the client does business with you or not.
- Don’t lower your prices easily. When the client asks for a discount, focus on explaining why they are paying that amount and the value you’d be bringing on the table.
- Take time to listen to what they have to say, and ask questions to make your understanding about their problem crystal clear.
- Don’t act desperate and start to pressure the client to do business with you, stick with your natural posture, and confident tone till the end.
When you do all of these, you win! Why? Because you sound like an expert, you don’t care whether you get the client or not, it elevates your credibility and trust in the eye of the client.
LISTEN TO YOUR GUT FEELING
Not all clients are going to make you feel like a rainbow, there are going to be the ones that would give you headaches, and it’s you who made that choice, so you’ve to deal with them.
There are going to be clients that you’d regret working with. You’d want to go back in time and refuse the business. But sorry, we do not have a time machine here.
At the time of negotiation, if you get a vibe or feel like that this client is going to be a headache in the future, then I’d suggest finding a good reason to refuse the work subtly and humbly. In desperation, if you end up working for that client, you know the plausible situations you’d have to deal with.
Late payments, follow-ups, blame games, too many freebies, stress, and loss, why bother going through all that when a simple NO can save you.
Are you begging to your clients, or are you choosing your clients?
