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Rant: Lost a big client because I didn't invoice them fast enough
I was sitting at my kitchen table in Austin last month after a slow week, finally sending out three invoices at once because I got lazy. Two of them bounced back, and when I called the main one, they said they already filled the budget for the quarter so my payment was stuck until next cycle. Has anyone else dealt with losing money just because of bad timing on when you send a bill?
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davidshah14d ago
Wait they actually said "budget's full" like you were ordering pizza or something?
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shane17014d ago
Taylor is right about asking for the actual numbers, that's always the first move. Cutting non-essentials worked for me once too, I just listed out every single line item and asked them to rank what actually mattered for launch. Suddenly that "full" budget had room for coffee and pizza all over again.
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taylor.brooke14d ago
Right? That "budget's full" line is hilarious but also way too real. I've had literally that exact conversation with a client before, like, you don't just run out of money like it's a pitcher of soda at a party. Thing is @davidshah, they probably froze all new spending approvals and the project lead just had to say something. What worked for me once was asking for a list of non-essential items they could cut to free up the "budget" again, even if it felt arbitrary. Sometimes you just have to reframe the whole project scope to fit whatever arbitrary cap they set, otherwise you're stuck spinning wheels. It's annoying but if you can get them to show you the actual numbers instead of just "it's full" you can usually find wiggle room.
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