VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Glenn Moore]

Do any of you have trouble collecting payment from clients to the point of it going over 120 days? pulling my hair here over a couple of clients that owe me some good money. any advice is appreciated.

[Deirdre]

Gah, I hate this.
If a client lets me know it could be 60 days, then I don't start sending "friendly reminders" until after that point. Otherwise the little e-mail nudges start up about 2 or 3 days after the 30-day deadline.

What a colossal pain in the @$$ it is to have to remind people to pay the money they owe you.

120 days is 4 months, man.
Too.
Freakin'.
Long.
_________________
DBCooperVO.com
IMDB

[Philip Banks]

In any reminder you should point out that the rights to use transfer to the client/production company on receipt of full payment. Any permission to use prior to payment is extended as a professional courtesy only.

Final warning should contain the phrase "rights to use material supplied are withdrawn with immediate effect".

Chasing bad payers is something I do when I have a few minutes to kill. I did the time/reward test a little while ago and discovered it was more profitable to find a new client than it was to chase a bad payer.

Once you have discovered that someone is highly unlikely to pay you, treat them with the contempt they deserve. One email to a the boss of a TV production company contained the phrase "you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself".

[brianforrester]

Banksey....

It's quite apparent that you're less likely to walk on egg shells than I am! I wish I had the stones to be as forward as what you've described. I'm always sooo scared that if I offend someone because of a billing or other business related issue, the word will get around that I'm difficult to work with and SLAM!!!! the door to any future voice gigs hits me square in the butt on my way out of the business!

I personally realize that the difficult one is obviously being the client, but I'm always afraid that it sure won't be portrayed that way when they're talking with their buddy at the studio down the road that I want to get into!

I just ran into an issue similar to this, where the client quite angrily responded to my e-mail in which I provided a firm deadline, basically threatening me via professional reputation. I promptly turned with my tail between my legs and appologized!

In the humble opinions of everyone here, am I being an overly polite Canadian? Where is that fine line between paralyzingly polite and achieving the desired professional results?

It's obvious that clients in this category will no longer be welcome to request my services, but it's all about what they say to others in the industry that worries me.

What are your thoughts?
_________________
Brian Forrester Voice Overs
www.brianforrester.com
brian@brianforrester.com
778.668.5715

[Andy]

If he owes you money, he owes you money. He's being the SOB. Not you.

Had one not too recently where he ignored my continual requests for payment. Finally, out of the blue I get an email asking how I was doing. I let him have it. Turns out he had left the care of my account to an assistant whom he had fired. He had no clue that I'd been left hanging. The former employee never took care of the issue. I was paid within thirty minutes of his receiving my less than friendly email reply. It came with an apology and a nice bonus for my inconvenience.

So, Brian, you turned tail. Did you get paid? Take his ass to collection. The plumber down the street would do the same. And I doubt he'll lose business because of it.

[Philip Banks]

Most grown-ups in the business genuinely understand the need to be paid and their contractual obligations. Any organisation that objects to being politely reminded of where they stand should not be considered "a centre of influence", in other words, should they pass on negative comments about your conduct it is unlikely that anyone you're likely to do business with is going to hear them.

In the initial stages of chasing for payment I am always diplomatic, friendly and go out of my way to be helpful but there comes a point when there is nothing to lose and then it calls for plain speaking. Worth noting that you should never be rude, crude or make it about anything other than business.

Although I tease and poke fun as you will have noticed on this site, my rule for clients and other voice over artists is always, if you hear a bad word about them you didn't hear it from me -No Exceptions, no matter what they may have said about me or done to me.

[brianforrester]

In the end everything worked out, but it certainly left a bad taste in my mouth.

Unfortunately going the collections route would have been challenging because the client was from overseas! Note to self... require payment in full prior to delivery of completed project for overseas stuff.

It's good to hear you guys voicing what I was feeling at the time. Next time (hopefully it won't happen again, but innevitably it will) I'll take the polite yet firm route and treat it just like a studio would treat me if I skipped out on payment.

Cheers,
_________________
Brian Forrester Voice Overs
www.brianforrester.com
brian@brianforrester.com
778.668.5715

[nick reed]

[mcm]

I've had a couple of slow clients. In both cases, I probably could have avoided the problem if I had asked up front, "to whom should I address the invoice?" In one case, sending a second invoice to the producer got me nowhere, it was only when I called and spoke to the phone-answerer that I made progress (they looked up the account, said "I don't know why this hasn't been paid and I'll get a check out today." And they did). Second case, I had emailed the invoice to the producer, then snail-mailed the second invoice to "Accounts Payable". I still had to call, was told it had been mailed out on such & such a date (they even gave me the check number), 2 weeks later still no check, another call, we'll check with the bank, they now have sent out another check. If this one doesn't arrive, from one state away, then I'll be scratching my head.

I have learned to ask, who gets the bill?

[schaer]

If I don't make it in the VO business I'll start a collection business.....

Bernard
_________________
BuyMyVoice.com
Bernard Schaer - German/English Bilingual Voice
Available via SourceConnect
SaVoa.org No. 09023

[lisaloo]

That's actually not a bad idea, Schaer.

Someone could create a billing and collection service that caters specifically to freelancers of all kinds. Keep the fee low enough to be affordable, do the dirty work for the good guys and even put a little good will into the community. Not a bad idea at all.

And we should not forget, either, that once in a while the producer who hired the VO was freelancing, too. They can get burned, too. So can directors and copywriters, etc.

And just think of the business someone would get from consultants in other industries -- people who might be owed thousands from corporations and can't collect.

Lisa

PS: One way to work around the thorny issue of a person having to "turn someone over to collections" is to offer that regular billing service, too. If a VO did his/her original billing via the service for a small fee (ala a paymaster), it would be out of their hands when it got turned over to collections. Someone could do this on ALL gigs or maybe just on ones they are nervous about.