Get your clients to pre-pay.

That’s only a part of the smart approach.

To do it in an even better way, put your customers on automated recurring payments, like SaaS startups do for their subscription products. Much like how we pay for Netflix or Amazon Prime.

This helps your business in multiple ways.

One, you save yourself from the hassle of sending invoices and following up for payments.

Not sure how much they appreciate it but you also help clients because they don’t have to worry about remembering to pay or log in to a software or their bank account to pay.

Hassle and time saved on both sides.

There is more to it.

When you follow this approach you save a lot of time and mental energy that you can invest in growing your business and serving your clients.

When you serve clients well, they tend to stick longer than usual. That’s good for business.

And, the biggest win is that you get money in the bank early. That you can use for both growth and expenses, without needing to dip into your savings.

Some post pay clients can hold payments and ask you to complete something outside the scope which you as a business owner do in anticipation of the payment. Advance payments make sure that such clients don’t become ‘scope creep’ monsters.  

With automated payments, you also keep clients longer because they don’t have to look at an invoice everytime and justify the payment they are making.

And, usually the clients who agree to prepay understand the value of the service being delivered and appreciate the work more. So you attract better clients this way, those who look at the relationship as an equal partnership where the client pays money and you, the seller, deliver value.

Setting the automated recurring payments is simple to set up with Stripe, PayPal or RazorPay, or any other major payment processor.

You just need the will and courage to do it.

Hope you are able to implement it in your business.