One of the most surprising things I found when I started working in B2B is the percentage of clients who simply don't pay their bills.
Like tptacek said, I think that's just the way it is and, at least at a certain scale, the only reasonable approach to hire people to do collections.
In some types of business, putting late terms in contracts and hassling customers for payments is normal.
In other types, quietly putting up with late payment is normal. In those cases, as a vendor, you factor the likelihood of late payment into the price. For repeat customers, it turns into a game of tit-for-tat. For one-offs, it's harder.
The most quixotic thing is, engineering expenses are scrutinized heavily. I literally can't get basic equipment needed, yet we have 100's of unnecessary managers flying all over the world on lavish expense accounts.
Why did I become an engineer again?
We used to say we were their bank, lending money for cash flow. Except never charging interests :)
Also: That's not why I'm getting paid late. I get paid late for a variety of reasons.
Good observation, and humour points for the light-hearted snark. I don't quite disapprove of these articles, but I agree once you see the pattern it is rather ubiquitous.
Where I am with these at the moment is questioning whether the person would have written it anyway and is tagging their business into it (reasonable) or writing something specifically to increase their visibility (I'm more skeptical).
Occasionally I imagine such a writer sitting at their desk with "the big book of business basics" saying "which one shall I write up today and post to HN to obliquely promote my product?". But then, if they're sharing something of value then do I even care? The ones which seem dangerous are those which have distorted something of value to specifically relate to their product. There was one a few months ago (re)defining "Technical Intelligence" in a really confusing way in an attempt to tie it to the business in question - absolute train wreck.
I'd love an actual discussion about dealing with late-paying clients. This article contributes nothing. In fact, it makes the claim that not paying your bills on time is just fine! As long as the person you owe isn't constantly pestering you about it, hold on to that cash! Suckers! Sorry: That's not just fine and if you consistently do it, you're going to earn a nice reputation as someone who's a pain-in-the-ass to work for because extracting payment takes forever. It's not up to the person you hired to bug the shit out of you until you decide to grace them with payment for their work.
As far as advertising Hourglass and the FREE GUIDE that's plastered all over that page... More harm than good. Because they clearly have a very amateur view of how business works.
I've worked with a company that always pays me late. I've told others to be wary about working with them because of it.
I don't see how this is a good thing since it makes you seem extremely unprofessional.
Another way of looking at it is that by paying late you pass some risk from yourself to the recipient. Interest rates quantify both the time value of money and the risks associated with payment in the future. Paying late without penalty is an interest free loan.
If you're gonna piss off your readers to make a few extra sales at least do it right.
If some one is kind enough to extend it to 60 days without complaining, then its more free money for the customer.
I was going to say a lot more, but what can I say to a line ending it "but they didn't complain". Pretty sure that would justify a heck of a lot of things.
