A few things....... I DO take money upfront on anything very big, and always will. I'm not talking 10,000 dollar jobs, I mean THE BIG STUFF. I also would never walk into something huge without a payment schedule, whether its based on dates, or percentage complete on the work. I DO NOT do the whole 30-90 day wait for payment. My terms of payment are spelled out and legally worded in a contract from the start.
So as to sitting and waiting for a check for six months, my terms on paper, as drawn up by an attorney state a finance charge on anything 30 days past due. Still not bullet proof, but a hair safer.
As to other clients waiting in the meantime while out working a large project.......well, there's a lot to be said there. Understand that i am a YOUNG business and dont have people beating down my door for work like many of you may have. I do my fair share of tree work but i never get booked up a month out. Not yet. On top of all that, times are bad as we all know. Work has not taken off for myself or many of the other tree services in my community as it should have. I anticipate a HARD year ahead for myself. As though things arent slow enough trying to build a name, now I'm battling a major nose dive in the economy. My feelings are that if there was ever a time to take on a large project that would provide stable work for half a year, now is it. My work load is zero at the moment and with that in mind, I MUST do what it takes to keep the lights on. if not for my business or myself, for my family.
I then planned on working 6 days per week and spent 2-3 days each week trying to keep up with normal work so that no one was put off an inordinately long time. The large client was okay with that arrangement-everyone got work performed in a timely fashion and, while I got rather tired since some of the "small job" days were quite long, everybody won.
