Shoutout to a client who told me my invoices were too nice

Ngl, a client I work with in Austin straight up told me my invoices looked like birthday cards with all the extra thank you notes and emojis. She said it made me seem less professional and harder to take serious for payments. I stripped all that fluff out and started using a template from FreshBooks instead. Has anyone else gotten told their invoices are too casual?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_drew17d ago

Hear me out but I actually think the birthday card invoices were a better move. People remember you when you stand out from the boring corporate templates everyone uses. If a client can't take a smiley face seriously then maybe they're not your target audience in the first place.

mitchell.thomas17d ago

72% of invoices get paid late on average, but @the_drew your point about standing out is actually way bigger than just the birthday card thing. I've seen small businesses get way better results from unconventional billing because it forces the client to actually read the invoice instead of auto-approving it. The smiley face thing is more about human psychology than professionalism - people trust humans more than they trust faceless corporations. Plus if someone dumps you over a birthday card invoice they were probably gonna be a pain about late payments anyway.

sanchez.ivan17d ago

Nailed it, man. So true about weeding out the bad clients early.