Recently, I had a client who wasn’t paying me, I didn’t feel he was purposely delaying, I just don’t think he was bothered, so as a subtle reminder I sent him the above cartoon.

Within two days he had paid me!

Which reminds me of something we did some years ago, a football club owed us some money, we wanted to keep their business, so we sent them a poem:

I can’t believe we’re still not paid,

We did the work and made the grade.

We moved a job to get it done

So for delay you would have none.

We’re great supporters of your Club,

And want to help sell seats and grub.

Advance payment is our natural terms

But for your ease we were less firm.

Up to now you’ve been quite good

And paid up as you know you should.

This time it seems it’s all gone wrong,

Thirty-five days late, still going strong.

We’ve rung and often got voicemail,

This cash delay makes us quite pale.

We can’t think why it should be late

You get your money on the gate!

So please get our cheque on its way

We’ll pick it up to save delay.

We don’t like being in the dark,

And our bank account is rather stark!

So take this in the way it’s meant,

And get our cheque signed now and sent.

Thank you

It won’t win any poetry prizes, but it worked. We sent it as a fax that we later learnt had been passed rounds all the offices. Almost immediately we got a phone call telling us to come over and collect a cheque.

We got our money without offending our customer. We continued to work with them, and were always paid on the due date.

Sometimes communicating in a different and friendly way works. The real benefit is that you keep a happy customer.

That’s Think Cash!

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