Mastering Boundaries - Transform Unpaid Invoices into Steady Cash Flow and Respectful Client Relationships

Have you ever felt victimized or resentful because you weren’t paid on time? Today, we tackle the often uncomfortable yet critical topic of setting payment boundaries to ensure business success. I'll share my personal experiences and insights to help you establish firm payment and fee schedules, which not only safeguard your finances but also enhance your professional relationships and self-worth. By enforcing pre-payment guidelines and clear terms, you can avoid the common pitfalls of unpaid invoices and elevate the respect and value clients place on your services. This episode is packed with practical advice on securing upfront payments, offering discounts for full payments, and pausing services if payments are delayed.

We’ll also challenge the mindset that viewing financial transactions as burdensome is the norm and help you see them as valuable exchanges. Recognize the significant investment you’ve made in developing your skills and learn to set clear payment structures to maintain respect and smooth operations. From structured onboarding processes to maintaining professional boundaries, this episode provides the essential tools to foster successful client relationships. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review for more insights, and follow us on social media for additional resources and complimentary gifts. Let's build a business where you are confidently in control of your financial boundaries!

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting Payment Boundaries for Business Success
• 9:16 Setting Financial Boundaries for Business Success
• 27:52 Building Professional Relationships for Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Having the confidence to set your payment and fee schedule, having the confidence to set boundaries and firm boundaries around this. This is a big one for a lot of my entrepreneurs, my freelancers, my business owners. We're going to dig in. If you've had challenges with not getting paid, this episode is for you. Stay tuned. As always, it's going to be a good one.

Speaker 2: 0:31

You're tuning into the Confident, Connected Leader podcast, your premier destination for breaking through your current professional barriers. Your coach and host, Lisa Jeffs, will help you transcend limitations and achieve new levels of professional success beyond self-doubt, sabotage and burnout. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1: 0:56

When I'm working with a very powerful, capable, established client and they still have this challenge. It's okay. If you have this challenge with your own clients, understand that. It's okay. It's not a reflection on you as a person. Let's say you're doing work and you're not getting paid. It can create an internal dialogue what am I doing? What am I doing wrong? Why am I getting paid? It can create a victim mentality and all of that is not going to help you get paid. But we want to understand it in for the purpose of why is my business like this? Because not all business owners freelancers, consultants, coaches, whatever wherever you are in your scope operate like this.

Speaker 1: 2:01

One of the biggest things is realizing that you do not have to run your business like so. Let me get into what I've is part of the issue here. You can have very clear, firm boundaries In my business. I have very clear guidelines and I get paid before I produce work or before I start the agreement. It's always been like that and there's never been any pushback from people that decide to work with me Ever. Everyone has pushback. Now, sometimes for my longer program, which are a bigger investment, we can do an installment Even still, though I am always paid in advance before working. This allows me to show up fully and give 150% because I feel I'm not even sure what the right word. I'm in the space where I feel like I want to just over deliver and I want to give so much because I feel supported.

Speaker 1: 3:36

When we don't have those guidelines in place, we can start, as the service provider, business owner, start to feel resentful, which is not good for any working relationship. You can start to feel taken advantage of and really it's a two-way relationship, right. So this is where the victim mode can come in and there can be a anger and a frustration and a resentment towards the client. But understanding that if you had these guidelines in place to begin with and the confidence to refute any and the confidence to refuse any professional relationship that doesn't abide by these guidelines, then you wouldn't even be in this place, right? So it's a two-way street here. There's two people in the relationship. This is two people, even if it's in a professional relationship. So know that you can set these firm guidelines about being paid in advance for your services and people will respect that they are going off of what you set. So if you set that, you are doing the work and then getting paid.

Speaker 1: 5:06

And I've worked with a lot of freelancers and individuals who structure their business like this that they will do the work, send an invoice or a receipt and sometimes even put the net 30 on it, meaning that they're even getting paid for two months and sometimes even longer, because people tend to drag out the invoice when the invoice, when you have a net 30 on it, you may not even be getting paid until net 30. This is not a good feeling for anyone and it is not helpful for the clients you're working for. It is not good the way I structured my business. I can't remember who I modeled it from. So a lot of the way I did my structuring my business was modeled or it was.

Speaker 1: 6:13

When I first started my business, I went right into, I had a coach right away and I went into a business program right away and the business program was run by a woman who is a no-nonsense woman, so she may have been the one who instilled this. I can't remember, but it's been this way from the beginning. Because I'm not interested in chasing people to pay invoices, I'm not interested in the whole hoopla. My guideline is I don't even start. A lot of times I won't even set the first scheduled date with a new client unless there's a different relationship, unless there's something that you know intuitively, I'm like we can set it. It would be a good next step to set it right away. I won't even set it until the payment comes through, because this is a way of taking a client through the process to where everything is very clean and structured, and this is just the way it is. I'm going to take you through.

Speaker 1: 7:22

First. Let me go into why do we do this? So people get stuck in this pattern of clients not paying doing work. One thing we got to look below the surface. What is this actually teaching you? What is this teaching you about self-worth, self-respect, you about self-worth, self-respect, respecting your own time, respecting the value that you give, and teaching you about boundaries and advocating for yourself. So is there a part of you that feels like you can't set firm guidelines, that if you get pushed back, there's a story around that, such as maybe I'm not worthy enough, maybe I need to take the business that I get. So let me make it clear by saying a lot of this when you're doing these agreements with clients, it doesn't have to be this whole emotional aspect of it. It's simply an agreement, it's simply the guidelines of an agreement and a lot of times people are just going to go with whatever your guidelines are and it's much easier to set firm, strong guidelines at the beginning. Again, I've never had any pushback from this from anyone and in fact, when I do an onboarding call, a lot of times people are excited onboarding call. A lot of times people are excited. They're excited to pay. Sometimes they're nervous or they feel a little bit scared, but they're excited and they're happy.

Speaker 1: 9:16

You don't have to take all that pressure and make it into I don't want to ask for money, I don't want to seem greedy or don't want people not to like me. A lot of times it's these patterns around not being liked, around not being liked, not wanting to look like the greedy, money-hungry person and all these money stories and money beliefs. I want to invite you to just see it as simply an exchange and see that, whatever someone is investing in you, you are of huge value. I want you to look at and take into account what you invested in yourself to get the skills that you do to be able to provide this service for the person. What hours, how many hours have you put into this? I can't even count the amount of hours and the amount of money and the amount of effort that I've put into my work and my practice and getting really good at what I do and because of that, it's really easy for me to show up on calls as a code and be able to help someone have a breakthrough within a few minutes. That is of huge value.

Speaker 1: 10:45

So I need you to see the work that you do as being of huge value and I need you to look at am I afraid of not being liked? Let me tell you it's not your job to be liked and it feels a lot better to be respected than to be liked. You don't need to like me and sometimes, as a coach, you're not going to like me because I'm going to call you out on certain things that are going to help you move forward, because it's not my job as a coach to be a yes person. Sometimes there is accountability that you need to move forward and that's my job. It's a lot better to feel respected in a professional relationship than liked. That's not to say you can't be liked or you can't have great clients. I have amazing clients, clients that I've worked with for years and they are not only clients or dear friends, but there's a respect level and that's what you want.

Speaker 1: 11:44

And you have to set the stage as the service because once you do, it's a lot easier to continue that momentum. And then there's no chasing after invoices. I can't even imagine the extra burden and just frustration and even the heavy load of, you know, sending invoices after work has been done, not getting paid, having to chase after. No, I'm sorry, that is no more. I want you to literally be like no more. If this is what you've been experiencing, you can change it right off the bat. So I'll give you an example of how and this may not be applicable for everyone's business, but I'll show you just from over the years what I've realized in my business that keeps things running so smooth.

Speaker 1: 12:43

And anytime I deviate from this, I'll have, let's say, a really great intro call and I'll be like, oh, you know what. This person is on the ball. I don't need to do this specific, maybe I can have some wiggle room here. And then I always regret it, because it's not that the person is a bad person, it's that people are so busy and their minds are often all over the place, especially if they're having challenges with things. If you're a consultant or a coach or someone there to help you, give your expertise, it's not that people are being malicious most of the time, it's that they need the structure. So for me, my on-point structure is always once I get a yes for a person yes, we're going to work together Great, payment up front.

Speaker 1: 13:45

If they choose to pay in full for the whole project or the whole time, that I do offer a discount, a 5% to 10% discount. This allows for the person to take advantage of this discount and allows you to get paid in full. Great. When, if not, we go on an installment? But there's always a payment up front and the payment up front is always for the first month, so it's always getting paid before work is done.

Speaker 1: 14:24

If a payment is not made or paused and I've only had this a few times with a few clients who have needed to pause for a week or two, which is fine If it was a pause for a month or more, then the project or the coaching container would be paused, and this can be made very clear. That's okay that you need an extra. Sometimes things happen, I totally understand, we'll pause the program or we'll pause the service. If you're doing website development, okay, we'll pause the project before and once you pay, we'll restart it. This encourages the person to be proactive and come up with the funds to then pay for the next installment of the service. Never now, because of the energy that I. It's not a lesson that I need to learn anymore about setting boundaries around fee schedules, so I want you to have those in place.

Speaker 1: 15:46

Going back to my system, so once it's in place and the payment comes through, the next step is signing the client agreement. This is an agreement that has all your terms and conditions. You should have in your terms and conditions specific terms and conditions around fees and payment. So it's very clear Once that agreement is completed, welcome packet goes out. Welcome packet is all the information I need to start the program. Once that is in place, then we schedule the session and when done like that, everything is so smooth and it just falls into place the welcome packet. I need to chase people for the welcome packet, so I've, over the years, having one step in front of the other.

Speaker 1: 16:47

After this completion, this after this, this after this. This takes people through such an easy process that is clear and concise and people are motivated to get through the next one because they want the next one. It's just human nature. Going through a process, I've completed it, great. Now my reward is the next step. Let me know if you have questions on that, please.

Speaker 1: 17:27

Obviously, every business is different, but I'm sure if you are to look at, if you have a business where you're onboarding new clientele, there's going to be a system and you can create a system that is seamless and it helps you avoid having to chase people for things. That is what we want to avoid, specifically around money. Now we're going to get into what do you actually do if you are on a call, because I think this is where a lot of people get that awkward feeling and this is where the problem arises, especially if you are, let's say, a freelancer or you're taking sales calls and you feel weird about taking money on the call or asking for a credit card. You say something like okay, I'll send you the invoice or whatever it is. You don't want to deal with it in person, you'd rather send emails. And this is where the challenge comes, because if you send an email with an invoice and it says something like net 30.

Speaker 1: 18:40

First there is no rush to pay, that there's no urgency put on that client. So when there's no urgency it's very easy to put it off, even if the person has good intention. So you want to put it off even if the person has good intention. So you want to put the due on arrival as soon as you get that invoice. The payment is due. But you don't want to also leave it to the invoice to do your work. You want to make it very clear for the client that no work is being started until the payment is made.

Speaker 1: 19:21

But let's go back to taking payment on the call, because if you have a lot of money beliefs going on or if you have different things within you, you're going to project that and make it feel like a very awkward conversation of taking the credit card when it doesn't need to be. Again, you need to get into the mindset that what you are delivering and it's very easy when you know that you always over deliver because you are very well compensated it's much easier to do this and we're not going to get into what you should be charging in this episode. But note that if you are undercharged you're not going to have the same confidence because you're going to give so much value for what you're doing, because you're so compensated and you just want to pour on so much value for these clients. If you're a person on planet earth working through your money, beliefs, anything that around guilt or greediness or anything like that needs to be worked through Okay, cause it's going to hinder you in business and in life in general. But taking payment on the call supports you and it supports your current, because it's very easy to allow life and stuff and they're investing in their own business or they're investing in their health or they're investing in their relationships or their well-being.

Speaker 1: 21:19

People will talk themselves out of certain things Even though they were fully invested on the call, if they have any kind of sabotaging patterns going. It's very easy to talk yourself out of something after this to support your clients, especially if you are helping people that are lost in, stuck in pattern where they keep putting things off. So taking payments on the phone and learning how to do this, practicing in the mirror practice, saying out loud it's great. I'm looking forward to starting the project with you. I'm looking forward to starting this professional relationship. How would you like to pay Credit card? I'd like to pay credit card e-transfer and doing it while they're on the call credit card and they're waiting to give me their credit card number, I'm like, oh, just a second. And if I had a whole bunch of money, belief of lack and limitation and greediness and this, and that of lack and limitation and greediness and this, and that it would be a very awkward space in that time? Because I do not have, because I'm confident in myself and what I offer and what I do. My nervous system is regulated, I am calm, cool and collected and that allows the client to feel calm, cool and collected.

Speaker 1: 23:13

Again, this typically happens when it's a bigger investment or it's a small business to consumer. This doesn't typically happen in corporate relationships or corporate agreement right that, where it's very much more just. These are the terms. This is what it is. Even still, if it as a service provider, it doesn't matter if they have their own terms. You have your own terms. So state that your terms are payment before work is started, pay in full. Offer them discount 5% to 10%. There are some terms in corporate contracts that state if they are offered a discount, they are to take whatever that is with the discount. So if they say these are the terms you state. Oh, I completely understand. These are the terms that are in my agreement to work together and if you need to be a little bit flexible, do not compromise on work being paid after work is done. That is unacceptable.

Speaker 1: 24:45

A great book that you can get that speaks in great detail about proposals and specific if you're working in, if you're doing corporate contract, is Million Dollar Consultant by Alan White, I believe his last name is pronounced. He has many different editions to this book. I would suggest getting the most recent edition because it is up to date in what current in the world. But there's a lot of value in his older editions as well. I think one of his first editions. Really, if you are new to business, it walks you through. Of course, some of it's not gonna be applicable anymore, but what kind of equipment you need, how to set up your office really detailed. So, million Dollar Consultant, alan Wise great book. But I'm going to wrap it up.

Speaker 1: 25:43

But if you have questions specifics that you want answered to your business or the work that you're doing, please send me a message on the podcast website. Message on the podcast website. If you cannot, depending on where you're accessing this. You may not see the send message send text message but if you go on my Instagram at Lisa underscore Jeff's and you go into the link in the bio, you're going to see the podcast website. You'll be able to find the button. I believe it's a green color and it says send a message if you'd like a question answered on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 26:25

I cannot guarantee I will answer your question. If it makes sense for the collective of all listeners, I will answer it because I really enjoy giving you specific answers to the questions you have. And that's it. So believe in yourself, know you are valuable, know that people follow your guidelines and if you are not getting paid and if you are frustrated and you are feeling like you are frazzled and starting to resent your clients, it's time to set new guidelines. It's time to set new boundaries. Figure it out in whatever way works for you, but make sure that you feel supported and that the work you are doing is being compensated appropriately, because this not only supports you, it supports the client. There's nothing worse than you resenting your client, feeling angry and frustrated, because then it's not only eating a hole within you, which you don't deserve, but it's having this ripple effect, this energy sprawled out into all the work you're doing for your client. I hope this was helpful. Let's continue the conversation If you're still with me. I appreciate you more than you realize.

Speaker 2: 28:13

And, as always, let's stay connected, breakthrough barriers and climb to new professional heights. If today's episode inspired you, we'd be honored if you could subscribe, wait and leave a review To stay updated with practical tips and insights. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. You'll find all relevant links, including those for our complimentary gifts and trainings, in the show notes. Until our next episode, embrace your confidence and stay connected.