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Client refuses to pay
Hi all  I found a thread with a similar topic going now, but I didn't want to hijack that. A couple of weeks ago I was hired to do a very last minute job in a salon by a makeup artist who suddenly couldn't do it. The manager was meant to call me and let me know how it would work and so on but never did. So I met up there at 10, and eventually got dragged out of the receptionist that I don't have any clients until 5.30 in the evening(and salon closed at 7), so I waited around until that. By the time I got to start, they were running late, and kept adding in "last minute" customers(in addition to the three scheduled), so time was tight to put it nicely (when I finally said I couldn't possibly do two extra faces in 15 minutes, the manager said she would just borrow my blush and do it herself). Not finding out the details of how much time I would have is my completely mistake, of course. Because it was rushed I decided to do simple looks, avoiding elaborate liner looks and anything too time consuming. One I could absolutely for the life of me not get out of what she wanted. "Strong eyes" was all I was given. She had me change it about three times, and we were running overtime. It was so frustrating, I wanted to make sure she was happy as I hate having unsatisfied clients. All the others were happy at first go. At the end, the manager told me that the one was unhappy with her makeup(but that the rest were happy) and I was absolutely unable to do anything about it at that point. I felt awful! A few days ago, the makeup artist who was supposed to do the job sent me a message saying that two of the clients had refused to pay and so they could only "justify" paying me £40 for the day (I was told £90). I told her the situation, but I only got the reply that they thought my standard was low and avoided questioning me. Is this reasonable? Probably not much I can do, apart from learning from the experience, but still wanted to hear some opinions. Mar 02 15 06:03 am Link At this point, chalk it up to a learning experience. What are your learning takeaways from this? 1. Always have details of time, what job entails, pay established ahead of time, preferably in a written deal memo. 2. If a client is late for an appointment, be clear up front that your time is now limited and you may not be able to do the complete look they wanted. 3. If possible, obtain inspiration pictures from client so there can be clear communication what they want. 4. If you are given incorrect information as to job, negotiate any changes to fees/time before you pick up a brush. Time is money - no way you should have sat around most of the day. This place sounds like it is very disorganized and not run in a professional manner. Mar 02 15 03:39 pm Link I have to wonder if the other MUA didn't totally dump on you. Occasionally we know someone is going to be hard to please, and the negatives aren't worth it. One of the biggest mistakes of my life was helping a co-worker with a difficult customer. When another MUA has a reason to not work with a client, think twice. Mar 02 15 04:09 pm Link Pictures of Life wrote: I think you were taken advantage of and handed a difficult situation and the other MUA knew about it. Then next time refuse when it is on such short notice unless you know the track record of the people. We all get taken advantage of sooner or later. hopefully sooner so we learn from it. Mar 02 15 04:23 pm Link Denise wrote: Thank you, Denise, really appreciate it! Will definitely remember, learn and take this with me. Feeling better about the experience knowing there are many things I can do to avoid having it again! Mar 03 15 04:03 am Link robert b mitchell wrote: Thank you both, I had actually not thought about it like that. For sure will be more careful in the future! Mar 03 15 04:45 am Link I agree with pretty much everything that has been said. I took a quick glance at your portfolio and your work is good and you look like a competent artist. Some people are impossible to please and look for a reason not to pay. Coupled with the time constraints and the whole unorganized time table I think you were set up to fail. Mar 03 15 07:51 pm Link In the future (and this doesn't just apply to makeup services, but to any services that are performed for a client where there is a middle-man, or broker): In your contract or engagement letter, or services agreement, (if they're penning it), don't permit their payment from the client to be tied to their payment to you. Just don't permit it. I'm often modifying contracts that try this. A typical way to rephrase it is that should the client dispute payment, you and the broker/middleman/whatever will work together in best effort to resolve the dispute and insure payment. If you are penning the engagement letter, services contract/agreement, you might also add that if the client refuses to pay the middle entity, that you have the right to pursue the client directly to insure payment. Also, you should have some sort of relationship with a collection firm. Mar 03 15 09:04 pm Link My contracts for private clients (individuals) state that if they are late I will do my best to meet their needs but that the end result will have to be adjusted to what can be accomplished in that amount of time. If I don't have time to do a makeup, I don't do it. They still have to pay me if they are late. I explain this and they sign before I do anything. I also don't accept clients who I have had no communication with and/or are handed to me by a third party. If I know the third party very well personally I may accept a client but will still require prior communication with the client and a contract. This all avoids lots of headaches as well as ensuring happy clients. Mar 04 15 01:38 pm Link Your work looks beautiful, your profile picture is absolutely stunning! You're definitely not a terrible makeup artist, you just got a very difficult client. I never accept a job unless I speak directly to the client so I understand exactly what they want. Reference pictures are key. Someones "smokey eye" vision could be entirely different to another persons "smokey eye" visions. Some people think Jennifer Aniston's makeup is natural (which it is) and other people think Kim Kardashian's makeup is natural (which it isn't) but people just have entirely different opinions, so reference photos are very important. Also, I totally agree, if a client is late, you let them know before you start that because of them being late, the look will have to be simplified so it can be done in the amount of time you have left. And they will not be getting any sort of "discount", they must pay full price. This is why contracts are important, get the price down in writing have them sign off on all agreements so you will be paid. I agree this will just be a learning experience. Next time always discuss the look with the client before hand and have a contract. Mar 16 15 08:55 pm Link I'll just share what I did with a client that wasn't paying me I did work for an up coming designer ,julia Karol. a month later I still wasn't paid and called everyone else on the job to find out if they were The model, photographer were all paid camera assistants ect. So I called the client asking when they were going to pay me and was told I had to wait because they needed to rebuild their website ( as if it was my problem). Being a nice guy I waited another month ( btw were at 3 months ) and now I'm not getting return calls so I found the designer on fb and she told me it wasn't her problem lol. She wanted nothing to do with it even though they are enjoying my work on her reviews and web galleries. I mentioned it on a makeup forum with some heavy hitters makeup friends of mine and they got on a web campaign ) to get me paid including adding comments on her design reviews on italian vogues website to tweets to Instagram. Well next thing you know my phone was ringing and I got paid and they begged me to have the comments removed from my colleagues about they don't pay their employees , it's crappy that it had to come to that but we don't work for free unless agreed before #hashtags work ! Twitter works. The Internet is forever And as far as retaliation. There was none and if they tweet something crappy about you you can respond. Good bye and good ridden deadbeats lol Mar 21 15 12:07 pm Link Mar 21 15 05:23 pm Link Wow, didn't realise this had so many replies! Thank you all, really appreciate it. Writing down all the notes especially on what to put in a contract. For this job, we didn't do one. I will probably try to avoid a salon environment (so I can have more control over which clients and business myself) in the future, but now it seems pretty obvious to use a contract. I did end up sending a new invoice, with the lower amount, but haven't received anything yet. I still find it strange that the salon didn't contact me themselves, and just went through that other makeup artist. And a bit ironic that the manager added me on linkedin. I don't understand these people at all haha. Mar 30 15 01:20 pm Link TheMakeupMan wrote: This is such a great story! Mar 30 15 01:22 pm Link L O C U T U S wrote: Thanks for this, many good points actually! Although the headline may be a bit harsh to send to clients, the message is great. Mar 30 15 01:32 pm Link |
Good to hear it ended well.