So many of our members talk about the simple emotional impact that getting paid late has on their confidence. Not only does it feel like a personal slap in the face that they can't pay you on time, it can often raise questions around "Is this the right thing for me? Should I be freelancing? Am I okay to chase for payment?".
It's unfair that a businesses's poor management of your invoice has such a dramatic impact on your confidence - try and recognise that their bad behaviours are a failing in their business, not a failure of yours.
Chasing invoices often puts us into a 'conflict' mode, and few of us enjoy conflict, most of us actively avoid conflict, and when you have to deal with late invoices on a regular basis, this really can eat away at you.
Wherever possible, reposition the situation from 'conflict' to 'transaction' and see the tension purely as a task to be completed.
Chasing invoices takes your focus away from doing great work. There's always going to be business admin if you're running your own business, but when you get that email from the client explaining they're not paying on time, or you notice the red flag in your invoicing software, it distracts you from the valuable tasks you're wanting and needing to spend time on.
Automate as much of the process as possible, so your time is not taking up sending emails and reminders.
Feeling like you're going to have a negative experience at the end of a project is not going to help you with your motivation during a project, and can even have an impact on deciding whether to take the project on. We've heard plenty of folk explaining they're not going take new work on from a client because of their bad payment behaviours - which means you're left to find other work.
Take a client's previous payment behaviours into consideration when deciding to take on a new project.
Most of all, it's something you shouldn't need to be worrying about, but having an outstanding invoice (and often a handful at a time) when you're already probably 60+ days from having done the work, just makes it harder to stay less stressed about work. And it's not your fault.
Recognise dealing with late payments as part of the experience - whilst it's not acceptable behaviour, you do have to accept the likelihood of it happening.
