Find the Bargaining Chip
Dog owners know they need to negotiate or bargain with their dogs at times. The smarter they are, the more you may need to negotiate. You may be surprised how similar they can be to humans at times!
We have recently found ourselves and clients attempting to bargain with vendors and clients. As expected, it often surrounds money. How much should we be paid? How much should we pay? How much of a discount can be absorbed on either end? Where is my check? The list of questions can go on and on, but money seems to be at the source of them.
One tactic we have found to be successful is to find that bargaining chip. The one topic they have to respond to, even if they have been ghosting you. We see this often when we are asking where payment is. Identify another topic, say a policy or product discussion that you know they will or must respond to, and add on your money question at the end of the conversation.
You can always try ghosting them back for any information they are seeking from you. After a few attempts, responding with a simple, ‘I am happy to answer your question if you will kindly answer mine as well.’ We have often found clients will avoid a payment question when that is the entire subject of the request. Adding it tactfully to a non-payment related discussion seems to have more success, in our experiences.
Another approach to get the answer no one is providing, is to ask another person at that firm. If the project manager is not responding, ask another consultant if they have received payment yet or ask their bookkeeper or CFO when their next check run may be. It is less desirable to go to additional workers at your client, but if your primary contact will not give you an answer and you have a contract, someone there owes you a response.
It really should not be so hard to get paid for work completed. Yet, we continue to see this bottleneck for the sole professionals we work with the most. And those firms have the least capital available to bridge the gap between work complete and actual invoice payment. If your payment questions go unanswered, assess your bargaining chips, one of them is bound to lead to that answer you have been seeking.
Be well.
