1 lesson a crack-smoking binge taught me about business:

Alright boys and girls, it’s story time.

In this email, I’m gonna show you how a crack smoking binge reinforced an important business lesson I learned about taking payments from clients.

Allow me to explain…

For those of you who don’t know, my father has a peculiar hobby.

Some fathers like painting model trains, others enjoy jogging.

Mine smokes crack.

For all of my 24 years of living, he’s been on and off the magic pipe.

And recently, he went on a lil binge.

Long story short, he’s in deep debt and needs to sell his $19,000 car.

So… who does he call with a sweet deal? Yes, yours truly.

For the low price of $6,000, it can be all mine. So, I ponder the idea for a few minutes…

“Alright, I’ll buy it off ya.” I tell him.

Better he sells it to me than some random dude, I think to myself.

My father sounds a bit relieved and reassures me of what a great deal I’m getting. He then asks for $1000 as a down payment so he can pay for some immediate bills.

I agree and send him the money.

He thanks me and tells me he’ll be in my city tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes, and he tells me there’s an issue with the tire.

“I need another $1000.” he tells me.

“Sure!” I send it.

He tells me he’ll get there later that day.

Later in the day approaches and guess what?

No sign of him.

The next day, he tells me he’s driving over and needs to stay in a city overnight. And he “needs another $500 for food.”

At this point, I’m around $2500 in and he was supposed to show up 5 days ago.

So I ask him what the hell is going on.

He fesses up and tells me he used some of the money I sent for crack.

Nice.

Now, to keep the story short, it’s been about 4 days since he told me that.

And he said he’d be in town yesterday.

Spoiler alert: he’s not.

I’m sure he’ll show up eventually, but at this point I’m not holding my breath lol.

But, why am I telling you this story?

And wtf does this have to do with business?

Well, this reminded me of a recent situation with a client.

I started working with them around 2 months ago. Hell, I even hit the gym with them a few times before working together. We vibed well together.

Because of this, I started working with them before taking payment.

Big mistake.

I knew this person was good for the money and had integrity so I was in no rush to ask for payment.

But…

3 weeks into working together, I finally sent them the invoice.

They told me they’d get to it.

So I wait.

And I wait.

And wait…

Now it’s been another 2 weeks.

Expenses are piling up and I’m around $8,000 deep.

*Insert nervous laughter*

So I ask again for payment.

“Just send the invoice to my email and I’ll get you paid later!”

So I do.

And I wait.

And wait…

Another 2 weeks pass and I was almost $10,000 in.

Thankfully, on the 3rd or 4th ask, my client paid the invoice.

But…

If it were someone else, I could have easily gotten shafted.

And that brings me to my lesson.

When it comes to business, you need to put feelings and relationships aside.

Don’t do ANY work until the invoice is paid.

There are 3 reasons for this:

1) Since the client knows you won’t work until you get paid, this incentivizes them to actually pay you.

2) You set expectations from the start. This prevents late payments from becoming a common occurrence.

3) You eliminate the risk of spending money on business expenses for the client and not getting paid.

Although it worked out okay for me in the end, it could have gone the other way.

So, my friend, I strongly urge you to make the mistake I did.

Whatever your relationship is, put your emotions aside.

ALWAYS take payment from the client before doing any work.

And ALWAYS have the car delivered to you from your crackhead father before sending any money.

That’s all I got for ya today. Have a kickass Thursday.

Your Canadian friend,

Dakota “Don’t Smoke Crack” Robertson.