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Overdue payment letter for Public Relations

handling an overdue invoice can be difficult but i'm going to show you how you can ask for payment professionally and make sure you never fall behind on your accounts receivable ever again if you want to find out the six steps to making this a reality you have to join me for this episode of the inside bs show hi my name is dave lorenzo this is the show that takes you inside business strategy shares all the insider business secrets with you and today we're talking about handling an overdue invoice you need to ask for payment professionally and you can't let your accounts receivable get too far out of hand if you have accounts receivable that are older than 30 days this is the most important video you're ever going to watch i'm going to give you six things you can do six things you can do in order to make sure you get paid right away in order to make sure you get paid and you don't have to worry so sit back and relax let's dive right into the content right now the first thing i have to tell you is to avoid this problem totally you need to make your business exclusively payment upfront only never ever have accounts receivable if you have outstanding accounts receivable you're asking for trouble so get paid upfront now i know what you're thinking you're thinking to yourself dave that is a huge competitive disadvantage for me all my competitors extend payment terms they get paid 60 days 90 days sometimes 120 days in advance i'll tell you you can do this in any business there are three steps to making sure you can and do get paid up front the first step is to be very good at what you do you have to be exceptional you have to be in the top 10 percent of everyone who does what you do once you're in that exceptional category it elevates you above the average get in the exceptional category be the best at what you do and then you can move on to step two and step two is have overwhelming sales and marketing prowess you have to be fantastic at selling you have to be fantastic at marketing you have to have a great system for attracting clients increasing client lifetime value i mean that's why you come here that's why you're part of my community here on youtube you want to be great at sales and marketing so step two to get paid upfront is to be great at sales and marketing then step three is simply to be firm and say i only do business based on getting paid up front that's it i don't get paid after the work is done i don't get paid in installments i get paid upfront now if you think this isn't possible i'm gonna share some stories with you about how i implemented this in just about every type of business i try to make all my clients convert to this system because worrying about money that people owe you is unproductive it is the highest and worst use of your time it is the absolute worst use of your time you should have already been paid and you should move on you don't need to worry about collecting money that people owe you all right so what do you need to do to gain the marketing prowess well you got to be great at what you do i already said that to gain the marketing prowess i'm going to give you something for free scroll down in the description of this video you'll see a free gift from dave there's my revenue roadmap guide download my revenue roadmap guide it's my system for business development it's my system for both sales and marketing works in every business i've used it for 30 years take it it's yours you can have it it's my gift to you take that system right now at the end of that 20-page guide there's a questionnaire fill out the questionnaire it will customize the system for you and your business and you'll be fantastic at marketing and this way you can walk away from any piece of business at any time if they don't want to pay you up front now you're thinking it's a competitive disadvantage you've already got the marketing prowess because i just gave you the system you've already decided that you're only going to do business with people who pay you up front you're already really good at what you do so what happens if you're thinking to yourself nobody in my industry does this this exact thing happened to me three different times it happened to me in the hotel industry then it happened to me in corporate housing and real estate and then it happened to me in consulting and people said nobody's going to do business with you because you want to get paid up front in the hotel industry i converted a really crappy horrible hotel at the meadowlands sports complex in new jersey it was full of truckers and bikers and hookers i converted it into a corporate run establishment i turned it into a marriott and i did it based on getting paid up front and i never lost a client as a result didn't direct bill only got paid up front i did it in the corporate housing industry in the corporate housing industry i worked with morgan stanley goldman sachs cantor fitzgerald everyone in the financial services industry i worked with insurance companies like american general and aig all of them paid me upfront in consulting i worked with pfizer and ibm and they're notorious for paying their bills not only at 60 days not at 90 days at 120 days or longer and i said to them no we will not do business with you unless you pay us up front and guess what they did in every business there is someone who can write a check and they will write a check in advance if they believe number one that you are the best and only solution for them number two that you are an expert who deserves the money you're getting and number three if you plant your feet and your firm and you say the only way we can do this is if you pay us upfront and everyone does all right so let's say you happen to have accounts receivable now let's move on to step two what you can do if you have outstanding accounts receivable is you can offer a discount if they pay in the next 48 hours say offer a 5 discount if they pay the bill in full in the next 48 hours if it's a big bill people will be willing to do that if you have to sweeten the pot and offer a 10 discount then sweeten the pot and offer a 10 discount money today is better than money in the future money today is far more valuable than money in the future so discount the bill for immediate payment do it if you have to all right step number three your attitude step number three is right between your ears you have to understand and you have to believe that if you don't get paid in advance you're never going to get paid at all here's the scenario for you i work with a lot of lawyers i work with a lot of law firms and i tell them they got to get paid in advance i hate hourly billing but if they do bill by the hour they have to get large retainers and when the work is done they can bill against the retainer and the money's already in the bank account they can pull the money out of the bank account and pay themselves sometimes especially in litigation the retainer is depleted and they feel stupid they feel funny asking for it to be replenished you know what happens the case goes to trial sometimes the law firm loses and guess what they don't get paid maybe they don't get paid because the client is unhappy with the result or maybe they don't get paid because the client now is broke they got to pay a big judgment and they can't pay the lawyer what does that mean that means the law firm then has to sue their client so they have to do more work to get paid for the work they already did and the work they have to do to get paid is not going to be paid for itself that is the stupidest thing i've ever heard of so your attitude needs to be anything not paid in advance will never be paid at all you need to write that on a post-it note put it on a wall in front of your desk put it on your mirror in your bathroom and realize that if you don't get paid in advance you don't deserve to be paid at all and it's your fault if that's your attitude you will always get paid in advance so what do you do if people owe you money here's what you do this is step four in how to handle an overdue invoice right step four in how to handle an overdue invoice is how to ask for payment professionally you do an email and direct mail and you email once a week after the bill is due once a week you email and the email says dear mr smith as you know we agreed that you would pay the bill when it was presented to you i presented the bill to you on this date it is now due in full please pay me immediately and here's how you can pay now every business i don't care if your professional services business or you sell products every business must take credit cards every business must have ach capabilities that's bank transfer capabilities and every business must take wire transfers you have to have those three credit cards ach wire transfers this is the day and age of paper free business you shouldn't wait for a check you should ask for payment using one of those three methods include your payment terms in your email email people with that script that i just gave you once a week for 30 days then send a physical letter that says exactly the script i just gave you once a month if it goes beyond 30 days you start emailing every single day and you send a letter once a week you send it to your contact okay now the letter after 30 days is less friendly and it says final notice or legal action will commence that's what the letter says after 30 days okay no more being nice they've got your money they need to give it to you so after 30 days the email says final notice legal action will commence if the bill is not paid by this day at this time and then you give them the payment options you email every day and you direct mail a letter once a week after that if it goes beyond 60 days then i want you to call every day you call your contact every day and then you also call the ceo of the company once a week you leave a voicemail for the ceo he sure as heck is not going to take your call because they owe you money you leave a voicemail for the ceo eventually his assistant will get sick of hearing your voice and somebody will pay you now i went through those steps quickly so let's take a step back step four is the email and the letter the direct mail letter the 30-day letter before you get to 30 days it says please uh remit payment it was due on this date payment is now past due uh please send it immediately to me at this address or please wire it here here's the wire instructions please ach it here's ach instructions please pay by credit card here's how you can do that after 30 days final notice that's in the subject line you owe us this amount of money it was due on this date it is now past due we will take legal action if you don't pay by this date and this time okay that's step five step six you start calling here's what you say you take out your phone and you call every day and you go hey mr smith this is dave lorenzo you owed us this money it was due on april 1st we did the work for you you said you were happy with the work there's a delay in the payment i need to know when you're going to pay i need you to pay as soon as possible i sent you the payment options please let me know when you're going to pay this i don't want to have to get the attorneys involved but i will if i have to and then you call the ceo hi mr jones i just want to let you know that you have a past due invoice with us for fifty thousand dollars it was due on april first it's now june 15th and we still haven't received payment um we have our lawyers on the on this matter and i don't want to have to sue um i also don't want to have to publicize the fact that you're taking a long time paying your bills people may think you're having financial trouble so please let me know how soon you can pay i've offered several different payment options to mr smith down in accounting i haven't heard back from him uh please give me a call back let me know when you can take care of this those are the scripts for calling the ceo for calling your contact look here's the bottom line on how to get paid it's your money you did the work you got gotta be tough from now on you're only gonna accept payment in advance if you're behind i've given you six steps that you can get ahead or you can get current if you're having trouble with this and you want more help there are more videos available i'm going to link to them you'll see the videos down below there's a video on cash flow there's another video on how to get paid if you have overdue invoices don't let yourself get in this position but if you are watch those videos right now i'll see you in the next video