My “getting paid for the work” story

Consulting is about getting the work, doing the work, and getting paid for the work.

This is my “getting paid for the work” story.

I was a contractor helping build out an ecommerce site for a startup.  I had been introduced to this client by a colleague, and felt like I had a good relationship with the technical lead, “Bob”.  We were making progress on getting the site built out and I’d worked a couple of months with them–they were my primary client.  I believe I was billing semi-monthly.

One fall day, I got a note from “Bob” that he’s leaving, and I should send all my future invoices to “Joe”, from accounting.  I seem to recall that the project was over budget and was being shut down.  I had one outstanding invoice for about $4,000.

“Joe” wasn’t very interested in making me whole.  He probably was interested in trying to keep the company afloat and keep cash in the company’s pockets.  I was, however, interested in collecting that money.

I didn’t have much leverage since the project was shut down and my primary contact had moved on.  What I did have was persistence.  And I was also able to get “Joe”‘s skype handle.

Every two weeks I would re-send the invoice, always with the same format:

Hi,

I just wanted to send you this invoice for work I’ve done previously.  It was due on XX/XXXX.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Dan

And then I’d ping “Joe” on skype to see if he had received the invoice.  Needless to say, it didn’t take long before “Joe” wasn’t on skype very often.  I still continued to send the invoice to his email address.

Every year I give holiday gifts to my clients as a way of saying “thank you”.  I gave a box of chocolates to the ecommerce startup that year. Even though they were stiffing me for thousands of dollars, I still appreciated the money they’d paid me and the work they’d let me do.

Within two weeks, I was paid in full.