Johan

Sometimes, even if you think you’ve done your due diligence, you’ll run into a client who had you do work that they have no intention of paying. But most of the time, the problem is something else. Often, it can be traced to poor cash flow and poor planning. Thankfully, if you react carefully you can usually get them to pay you.

Don’t Do More Work

If you are working on more deliverables for the client that is not paying, you’ll want to stop doing any more work for them until you make fair payment arrangements. If you keep working, they’re not going to be incentivized to pay, and you’ll just end up with them owing even more that they obviously cannot afford to pay.

Send Reminders

Whenever you create an invoice, make it so that it sends them reminders every three to seven days automatically. If it’s legal where you live, you can add an automated late fee to the invoice too. That way, not only will they get the automatic reminder but they’ll also see their bill getting larger.

Open Multiple Lines of Communication

Don’t just communicate via email; resort to sending bills in snail mail and sending SMS messages too. That way, they can see that they can communicate with you in many ways. You can also phone your customer to remind them when the bill is due and leave a message with alternative plan options.

Avoid Making Threats

While it is infuriating when you’re not paid – after all, you’re likely counting on that money – it does happen. It’s illegal for you to make threats to the person or to tell them you’re going to do something such as contact their employer. You also cannot legally out them to the world without liability concerns, so be careful.

Give Them Payment Options

When you realize they’re more than 30 days overdue paying, one way to get them to take notice is by sending them a one-time option to make payments on the amount owed. One tactic is to let them pay 75% of the bill, and you’ll zero it out if they do it by a certain time.

Sell Your Unpaid Invoices to a Bill Collector

You can find a bill collector who will buy the bills from you and then collect the unpaid bills. You can do this if you have iron-clad contracts and proof that they owe you the money. A bill collector may pay from 30 to 70 percent of the invoice, or they may take them by offering you half of what they collect.

Seek Legal Remedies

One way to deal with an unpaid bill is to hire an attorney who will work for you only to collect the money. In some instances, you may take them to the small claims court too. There are often many ways you can deal with this, including putting a lean on their property if you can prove they owe the funds.

Change Your Onboarding Process

If you have an issue with one client not paying, consider checking your onboarding process to ensure you get only paying clients from now on.

Create Legally Binding Contracts with Your Clients

Ensure that every single client you work with signs a contract with you, stating both of your responsibilities. Get an attorney to help you make legally binding contracts that work with your type of business.

Whenever you have an issue with a client, always look at your contract before you take any steps. Then, when you communicate with your client, bring up the contract so that they’re reminded of it, but always do it in a non-threatening way. After that, add methods to prevent the problem from occurring again to old contracts. Any repeat customer who has trouble paying on time needs to start paying upfront.

Tips on How to Protect Your Intellectual Property

Intellectual property includes inventions and original work or products that are owned by your company. Intellectual property (IP) can sometimes seem intangible to some small businesses, but it does include written works, logos, products, design, systems and more. However, to ensure you are protecting your intellectual property, you have to actively work on it.

For some work, you’ll need copyright or a patent. Copyright happens the moment you create the IP, and you don’t really have to do anything else. If you prefer to apply for a copyright through the government for each thing you want a little extra information for, you can, but you don’t have to do it.

A patent will prevent other people from making your product, and it is required if you want to protect it. It happens with secret recipes, formulas, and other products – usually physical in nature. Patents are expensive, and the truth is, another company can still copy you and call it something else because it’s super-hard to prove. Also, when you do create a patent, you have to give your secrets to them.

Develop a Policy and System

To get something done right, it will help if you do it the same way each time. If you want to buy a copyright for each blog post you write, you can, but you don’t really need to. Instead, simply write that it’s copyrighted on each thing you create – whether a book, art, or something else.

Create Legal Contracts

When you work with others, especially creatives, you’ll want to ensure your business owns the copyright to their work. Put it in each contract that they sign so that they know any work they create is owned by your company.

Check Your Creations to Ensure Originality

When you create something or someone makes something for you, don’t assume it’s original. Even if no one meant to copy it, it can happen. Always check before you claim copyright that something is indeed original.

Hire an Expert

If you are dealing with a lot of products that need copyright and patent protection, you’ll want to ensure that you work with a good lawyer or another expert in intellectual property. Then you can simply let them deal with it for you.

Record All Your Evidence

As you are creating something new, document how you’re doing it – including timestamps on computers and other methods for proving the timeline of creation. This can help if you ever do need to go to court to prove your copyright.

Apply for a Patent Here and Abroad

If you’ve determined you need a patent to protect your IP, don’t assume it’s protected just by getting one in your own country. Check international laws regarding it to ensure you’re protected fully.

Copyright Your Material

Your art, writing, and thoughts that you put down are already protected, but for added protection you can apply online for about 35 dollars and up for copyright protection for your works. This is additional protection since works that require copyrights are already protected just because you say it is.

Prosecute Anyone Who Steals Your Intellectual Property

This is the primary key to protecting your IP. If you find out that anyone is violating your IP, you need to act each time – legally. If you don’t work to actively enforce copyright, you can lose it. That means if you think a new business is using your IP illegally, you need to ask them to stop via letter and hire an attorney if needed to enforce your rights.

No one wants to lose control of their own name, business identity, and product, but it does happen when unscrupulous people use someone’s intellectual property without the right to and you don’t call them to task legally if you can. Create a plan to protect yourself, and you’ll experience far fewer problems when word gets around that you don’t play when it comes to your intellectual property rights.