What do you do if you've made an order, but your customer won't pay?

Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do, but you can stop it from happening again

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Hello and welcome to the Croce Business School podcast.

But you can use your crochet to build a business that will give you the lifestyle you've been dreaming of.

What if my customer doesn't pay well?

The short answer is you should have taken payment up front, but that will make the shortest podcast episode ever.

So let's look back at the beginning problem.

When you take an order, why don't you get your customers to pay up front?

Paying upfront is normal.

It's the standard way of doing things.

When you order from Amazon, you pay at the time of making the order.

You don't wait until everything is delivered before you pay.

No one does that.

When you buy yarn online, you pay when you order and nothing gets shipped until you pay to not pay until something is ready and it's ready to be delivered.

It's not normal.

It is not the standard way of doing things in business and waiting until the order is made and ready be sent out.

It's not safe for you because it gives your customer a back out option and you could be left holding stock that you may not be able to sell elsewhere simply because all the customer has to do is refused to pay you.

And then you can't post it because you have been paid and you're stuck.

So to avoid this, you should always take payment up front.

Now many fear that they will lose customers by doing this, but it's normal business practise to take payment at the time of order.

Amazon does it.

All the big online companies do it.

To not take payment when the order is made is not a standard way of doing things is not the way people are used to doing things.

And I would argue that a customer who doesn't pay up front is far more likely to back out later, when you're ready to send what you spent hours creating, they will back out and leave you in the lurch.

I've seen so many posts in Facebook Cruz, where people say I've made this order and now it's ready to send or collect, and the customers ghosting me.

They're not answering messages.

What do I do?

And the short answer is, you should always take payment upfront.

No exceptions.

You should never start making something, especially if it's custom and you cannot sell his elsewhere.

Or if it's an unusual design that you really sell, you should never start making anything until you have that payment up front.

It just leaves you in the lurch.

If the customer changes their mind and until there's money involved, they're not actually your customer.

You're just making something because you want to.

Until the money changes hands, there is no contract, even if it's unspoken, even if it's only yes, I want to order.

Here's the money.

There is no contract, and without that contract, you cannot compel your customer to pay you.

You'll spend hours doing all this work for nothing.

So no matter what sob story you're given, and unfortunately, there are people out there who will give you sob stories to get their own way.

You have to stand firm to protect yourself, because you all the time you spent making the older that eventually was never paid for, you could have spent on an order that you did get payment for and have been compensated for your time and your efforts.

It doesn't really matter how desperate you are for the money.

You should never start making anything without payment first, because unless you get that payment, you haven't got the money.

It's conditional it's not there yet.

A promise of being paid is not actually having the money.

And you could be out there finding business somewhere else and finding a customer who will pay you up front.

And when you're first starting out or you're not used to being in business, it can feel like you're being very money orientated and very sales E.

By insisting on payment, you may feel like you're not being very friendly and it's quite a cold way of doing things.

But don't forget.

You need to be paid.

Your time is worth something.

Your time is worth a lot, and there are people out there who will take advantage of you being a bit looser with the rules and persuading you to bend them.

You are not doing this entirely for fun.

You do need that money.

It is not cold.

It is not.

It is not the wrong thing to insist on being paid up front.

You have the right to do that, and this all comes down to setting boundaries in your business, and this is one that you should definitely set.

There are several boundaries that you should put in place concerning time opening hours, types of orders you'll take on replying to customers, returns, policies all that which will cover another time.

But this boundary here not making anything until you have been paid, should be the first thing that you put in place.

Just don't do it because you leave yourself open to wasting your time wasting your yard and feeling quite used and frustrated when that customer backs out.

So for your own protection and for your own sanity, Please please, please do not start an order before you have been paid absolute golden rule for me, and I very much hope that you understand why you should have it for your sake and make it an absolute rule that can never be broken.

Going forward.

Thank you for joining me today and listening to this episode.

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So thanks again for joining me.

And I shall see you next time for the next episode.