Slashdot | So You Want To Be A Consultant

Slashdot | So You Want To Be A Consultant: "Re:are you going to pay me? (Score:5, Interesting)
by ScrewMaster (602015) on Sunday January 30, @02:18PM (#11521592)
Finance charges can help, but I've found (after a decade and a half as a consultant) that offering early-pay discounts help a *LOT*. Give them thirty days to pay, but if they pay early knock a couple percent off the bill. That eliminates their desire to play the float with your money by holding on to it as long as possible, because by delaying payment they are now losing money! Besides, you get more flies with honey than ... well.

Another tip: if you do anything for free, even something as simple as plugging in somebody's mouse or changing their desktop wallpaper, put it on the bill with a 100% discount so they can see all the benefits of keeping you happy. The more people at a given site that see an advantage in having you around, the more pressure there is to make sure you get taken care of promptly. All consultants (except, perhaps, lawyers) do things gratis now and then in an effort to accrue good will. But believe me, if you don't document the freebies you won't get credit for them.

Find out right away who approves your checks (if you are contracting for a large organization this may not be the person you think it is) and don't hesitate to give them a call if there a holdup in getting paid. And when you do speak to that person, be unfailingly polite and explain the importance of your work to their company. Often it just takes one phone call from that individual to whoever cuts your checks to get the job done.

Another point I'd like to bring up is that many large companies are depending more and more on outside help (seeing as how they've often fired most of their existing full-time staff in an effort to become 'right sized'.) Consequently, I've found that some corporations have special fast-pay plans for small contractors. They generally won't tell you about it (the perso"