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Podcast: Podcasts – The Deep End Design
Episode:

Where’s My Money?!
Category: Arts
Duration: 00:49:02
Publish Date: 2014-08-21 10:25:42
Description:

Join the DesignCast crew as Wes McDowell, Mikelle Morrison, and Nick Longo dip into the  headlines of their lives!

Once in a while we like to dip into our personal experiences, peeling back the curtain and talking about events that have affected us in recent months – customer issues, invoicing problems, and the general craziness of being in the wild world of design.

Why make the mistakes when you can learn about them from us?

Invoicing

Unless you are an accountant moonlighting as a designer, invoicing is probably one of the scarier parts of the business.

How do you bypass all the possible pitfalls? How can you be sure you can get the money you’ve earned when, sometimes, a client might not want to pay?

How do you cover yourself?

It’s rarely a black and white situation. A client might have the wrong idea of what finished means when it comes to a website, for example, not realizing that your part of the job is completed. Or a family emergency may pop up and divert their attention, leaving you in the lurch even as you send follow up emails for weeks. Or, maybe, they just weren’t very serious to begin with.

Wes outlines a recent situation where a client, having not yet fulfilled their end of the process by providing the copy for the site, refused to pay the remainder for the completed project. He outlines step by step how he handled the problem, and what you can do to head off such an issue yourself.

Other times there is little you can do about the more serious situations except count it as a loss and attempt to soften the blow to your finances. Mikelle talks us through a few situations where, in the end, she let her accountant deal with the losses at tax time.

And don’t think it is just the smaller clients that play with your payments! Nick spends some time filling us in on a large corporate client that loved his work, and yet still decided not to pay him because they weren’t successful in using the completed project to its fullest. Complicating matters was the fact the company in question was in Florida, while Nick is in California, meaning he would need to travel across country to press for the money.

Let us know your experiences!

Tell us your experiences! Have you had an issue collecting the money you earned? Did it change how you approach the business as a whole? What did you take away from the experience?

Tell us all about it in the comments below!

 Todays Listener Question:

As designers, we are asked to create things that our clients will use to improve their business, or sell a product, or maybe show support for a cause.

What do you do if a client wants to hire you to create something you aren’t comfortable with? Flyers for a political party you dislike, posters for or against a particular social issue, or an ad designed to sell something you have serious doubts about…

Do you do it because it’s a job? Or do you step back from the situation and decline?

Show Links:

  • Shake – A web and mobile app designed to make creating small, simple contracts as easy as a handshake.
  • FreshBooks– Cloud based accounting and invoicing software.
  • LegalZoom – LegalZoom is the nation’s leading provider of personalized, online legal solutions for small business owners and families.
  • Shutterstock: Promo code DEEP814 for 20% off any image subscription!
  • lynda.com – Visit lynda.com/deepend to start your lynda.com free trial

The post Where’s My Money?! appeared first on The Deep End Design.
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