Hello Reader,
A few days ago, I drove past a young girl standing by the side of the road waving a sign that said, "Cookies and pay ID."
Since I like to support kids who are being entrepreneurial, I pulled over, walked back and found out a little bit more about these cookies.
Turns out that the girl and her brother make them with the help of her mom, and they sell them from home every Wednesday, as well as at markets around the territory.
And since this week's batch of cookies were my favourite (chocolate chip), I said,
"That sounds really lovely. I'll have six cookies, thanks."
And the girl looked a bit embarrassed and said,
"Um, well, actually, we only have five."
"That's okay."
"Well, um, one of those five is broken."
"That's okay."
And she brightened slightly and said, "Oh, we'll give you a discount for it."
And then she and her brother promptly got into an argument about how much of a discount I should get, which made me smile.
Anyway, long story short, after settling the amount of the discount, I waited and waited, but nothing was happening.
Confused, I finally asked, "Is somebody getting the cookies?" And she said, "Well, actually, you have to pay first, and then I'll go get them."
"Well, I don't have any cash," I said, somewhat sheepishly.
"That's okay," she smiled. "You can use PayID."
That was a problem. To that point, I had never used PayID. Didn't even really know what it was. I had to get her to explain it to me. And then we tried to get it set up on my phone.
We must have tried 5 or 6 times, but nothing worked. And the one person who could have helped (her mother) was apparently in the shower and currently unavailable to ask.
Just as we were ready to give up, something the girl said connected a couple of the dots in my brain and I suddenly realized what the problem was.
After that it was simple. They got their money. I got my cookies and everyone was happy.
And I had a little nibble on the way home. Delicious.
The ending to that little story would have been completely different if we'd given up.
It's true that my waist probably would be a little thinner, but my mouth would have been much, much sadder.
And a young girl and her brother would have missed out on a sale. I guess it would have been a valuable lesson in some ways, but not anywhere as much fun for any of us.
When your client can't pay you, it's not always their fault
That little dance with PayID is a smaller version of something a lot of freelance writers run into. A client wants to pay you, the invoice is sitting right there, and then something small and stupid gets in the way. A bank detail that's out of date. A portal that needs a password nobody remembers. A PDF that won't open on their end.
None of that is a client trying to dodge you. It's usually just a system nobody has tested lately, on either side.
The two minute check that protects your income
Before you head off on any break this year, it's worth running your own payment setup the way that girl and I worked through PayID together. Log into your invoicing tool as if you were a client seeing it for the first time. Check the bank details are current. Check the link actually opens. Check what happens if someone tries to pay you a different way than usual.
If you want a hand with this, try asking ChatGPT or Claude something like, "Here's how a client currently pays me [describe your process]. Ask me as many questions as you need to find where this could break, then suggest how I could simplify or automate it." Let it ask the questions instead of guessing at your setup.
Speaking of getting paid properly
This week's podcast episode ties in nicely here. I talked to Per Sjofors, known as The Price Whisperer, about the two questions you can ask potential clients to find your actual pricing range instead of guessing.
He also explained why your cheapest clients can quietly end up being your most expensive ones, which is worth sitting with if you've ever taken on a low ball job just to keep busy.
You can listen to the full conversation here: Ep. 251, The Two Questions That Take the Guesswork Out of Pricing
And a young girl arguing with her brother over how big a discount to give me is, weirdly, a pretty good reminder that knowing your worth takes practice at any age.
And that's it for this week. Hope you have a lovely weekend.
Trudy (and Treasa)
P.S. If pricing has ever felt like a guessing game, The Price Whisperer, A Holistic Approach to Pricing Power(affiliate link) by Per Sjofors is worth a read. It's the two questions from this week's episode, plus a lot more on why your rate is doing more work than you think.
