Consider the source: “Early on, I was having cash-flow problems, mainly due to clients with big balances dragging their feet in paying invoices. A trusted family member who was the comptroller for a mid-sized company suggested that I should add an early pay offer: a discount of, say, 5 percent if the invoice was paid in 10 days. Not one company ever took me up on it. Ever. I fixed the cash-flow problem by requiring 50 percent retainers and process payments throughout the projects. Also early on, I paid some hefty monthly fees to have an ad in the Yellow Pages. This was on the advice of the sales guy! Never got a nibble. It took me a year to realize that my target market would never look in the Yellow Pages for my services. I wasn’t a plumber, I was a graphic designer. Oy.”
