Have you ever been shafted out of a fee that you feel you truly deserve?
Perhaps, you have been working so hard on a project day in and day out for about a month or so and when it’s all done you were disappointed to discover that the promised cheque will never have a chance of arriving in your mail box.
Perhaps, you were lured into a million-dollar share of the profit when the website you are trying build eventually sells to some giant corporation looking to devour a startup pet project. After all, it looks promising and what is an extra two hours a day (or night) spent over the project, right?
Perhaps you have partnered with a son-of-a-rich (dad?) who provided the financial capital to materialize that something only you can explain though given a nice Integrated Development Environment you are 100% sure you can implement the thing and offer to the marketplace. Too bad, your partner turned out to be a jerk and sucked all the proceeds of your invention.
Or perhaps simply, your client just flatly never paid you for your effort. Period. OMG, how can the bastard afford to do it to you, a technical guru who knows how to code even while asleep?
Does any of these sound familiar to you? Well, I can relate to you, my friend.
And this I am sure: hundreds, or even thousands, of other freelancers out there who have the guts to lay open their experiences in the jungle can relate to that as well.
Those are classic examples of money lost by one’s failure to face the realities of a business deal. It’s expensive; it’s stressful; and it hurts. But there’s definitely a lot of lessons to be learned from your failure to collect the money that you deserve.
In Part 2 of this article, I will share some techniques I use to handle those kinds of deals and ensure that the money I demanded, is the money that I get.
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Hello there,
I have a question (apologies if I missed your post on this one), yes we can do the contract but how are we going to be paid, do we need to issue a receipt for the service? In legal terms, how are we going to do the transactions, is it taxable etc?
Thanks.