I like your idea of following up those lost/unresponsive leads – perhaps if I had a little more time – or if I was looking to expand then this is certainly something I should be doing more.

Anyways, we have recently started logging leads too, in order to try and manage them better and turn them into conversions. As soon as we get a new lead, the details (description, contacts etc) go into a simple database which we add notes to and update after communicating with the potential customer. When they agree to go ahead with a job, we delete/archive the lead record and enter it into our project management system.

Like you though, we have also found that the majority of leads can be poor and when we respond, we don’t often hear back. The lead management database helps this somewhat as we always make sure to follow them up if we don’t get a response. I don’t want to say something like “if they’re going to waste my time, I’ll waste theirs”, nor would we want to force someone into to committing to a job, but if they’ve taken the time to enquire then the least they can do is say yes or no. Following up leads by phone works alot better I find – especially if you can call them very shortly after they submit an enquiry. Emails can be too easily lost within other mail, ignored or deleted.

Similar to you, most of the clients who have committed to us have been either existing clients or references from other clients.

But I would still respond to the enquiries that might not seem too committed. You never know. We had one in February this year that we never heard back from until last month when they came back to us with a 5 figure project.

I too try to consider RAM upgrades first and have extended the life of a few machines by bumping up the RAM (from crucial also). My current (actually now, old) MacBook Pro (13inch) was rocking the maximum 4Gb and still running slow as a dog – hence the upgrade.

I found mine was going too slow for me earlier this year (PhotoShop, Coda, and a Windows 7 VM running) and instead of upgrading I decided to at least try out a RAM upgrade first – it was around £60 from Crucial so wasn’t exactly an extravagant expense – and took less than five minutes to install. The difference was like night and day!

It quite happily runs two Parallels VMs (Windows 7 and XP), Espresso, Cornerstone/Transmit (depending on what I’m working on), iTunes/Spotify, Firefox, and a couple of big PSDs in PhotoShop without so much as a stutter.

I’ll certainly be looking to upgrade the laptop itself again at some point over the next year, but knowing now just what a considerable difference the RAM makes, it will be top of my list next time I’m faced with a machine that’s not performing as well as I would like.

Next on my list is a hybrid SD harddrive!

I wouldn’t recommend strong arm tactics with accounts departments. They’ll just put you to the back of the queue. Be nice, be polite, jump through hoops but contact them regularly.

I always phone accounts quite quickly to check my invoice is in the system / PO correct / they don’t need statement etc. That sometimes helps.

Your advice about a savings account is great, and one I try to use. And Crunch sounds great too, lots of people on that, think I may have to move accountants….

Cheers

Ian

That being said, it is still tough for cashflow even payment is upon receipt, because that doesn’t help situations whereby the project is stalling or the client going MIA. ;)

Having recently gone back to freelance, I gave some thought to payment terms. Theoretically, you are the one who lays down the terms as you are invoicing them. The agency/clients terms are irrelevant.

As you are providing a service there is no reason to not get paid on completion (known as payment on account).. shouldn’t need to wait 7, 14, or 30 days.

Well, that’s the theory. The reality is everyone has to manage cashflow, including the client. Like you, I expect to be fobbed off/delayed with payment, so my strategy is as follows:

– Invoice monthly
– State (nicely) that full payment is required within 14 days
– Attach my T&Cs which include terms relating to interest being applied to late payment.

You are within your legal rights to charging a whacking percentage for late payment

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1073792170&type=RESOURCES

Not that you’d want to do this, but it means that on day 15, you can start hassling for settlement and hope to get paid within 30 days

You only need to attach your T&Cs on the first invoice.. unless you change your terms

If you don’t get paid, re-issue the invoice with interest requesting immediate payment; stop any further work. If they value you, they will rectify matters. Chances are the person in charge of finance is not the person that hired you. If the hirer values you, they should remove any obstacles.

BTW, Im using Crunch accounting.. helps me manage cashflow as it shows what I owe in Corp Tax etc. and lets me know what I can safely draw as salary or dividend

Something I’ve started doing recently is asking for prepayment on smaller jobs. It saves wasting time and effort chasing up a days work thirty or forty days after I did it. It doesn’t always work but when it comes off it can be a great help to cash-flow problems.