How to take charge of clients who want free work

When you are conducting your own business there will become a time when a person feels you should do certain work for them and not get paid. Relatives and ‘friends’ are notorious for this and it is not uncommon for others who simply feel they are close enough to you to enable them to extract the same ‘favours.’ There are also others who damn well have no intentions of paying for anything unless they are somehow forced into doing so.How you handle your friends and relatives is up to you but there is no way a virtual stranger should have any work done for them and not expect to have to pay at the finish. No business can sustain giving away free products or services for too long and if you want to be successful you too must ensure that your efforts are rewarded. Why? There will be a cost involved in running your business and in order to survive you will need to make a profit over and above that cost. It is really that simple.What is not so simple however is how to get a serial bad payer to cough up as many play on the fact you will eventually give up asking for compensation and they will then have got what they wanted.There are some basic rules about lowering the risks of not getting paid and if you cover all these bases you may avoid building up too large a list of debtors. Debtors than can put you out of business, even when, on paper, your enterprise looks quite sound.Rule Number OneBe upfront right form the beginning. Don’t undertake any work unless you have an agreement in place of how and when you are to be paid for the work you are about to embark on. This need not have to be a long winded policy statement full of small print and traps. It can be quite brief and straight to the point. The main thing being that you both know where each other stands before you you get started.Rule Number TwoInsist on part payment as a show of goodwill. If you are fortunate enough to be in a business where you can insist on payment before you start any

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