You deserve to get paid (without the chase)

If your payment policies are pretty fuzzy or non-existent now's the time to shape them up . Make sure you're creating policies and systems and processes that serve you. Otherwise, you are gonna burn out. You are gonna have terrible cash flow.

You are gonna have a struggle of a business. I don't think you got into this business in order to be a debt collector. So don't put yourself in that position. Welcome to the Differently Aligned podcast for neurodivergent business owners.

I'm Adina Levy. I'm an autistic, ADHDer, business coach, speech therapist, professional educator, and multiple business owner. I support neurodivergent business owners to create businesses that are sustainable, enjoyable, impactful, profitable, and burnout free. This podcast is recorded on the Aboriginal lands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people.

I acknowledge the traditional owners, elders past and present, and I extend my respect to any First Nations people who are listening in. You deserve to get paid for the work that you do, and you also deserve to get paid without the and the hassle and the poor cash flow of waiting or chasing that payment. One of my one-on-one clients shared with me the other day and she's given me permission to share this. She wrote.

I found lately something that really stresses me out is having to chase people to pay their invoices. I'm finding it hard to find the line where I say I won't do work for someone anymore if they can't pay in a timely manner. 'cause I wanna be affirming, especially when it's an individual for so many service-based professionals, we fell into business because we wanted to help people and business became our avenue for doing that. Your payment policies and processes might have come about quite organically.

I and all too often I see payment policies and practices that don't support the business owner. What happens then is you end up getting screwed. You have poor cash flow. There's work you've done.

You've got this guilt and this heartache of, oh gosh, I need to chase them. And this burden the time, but also the energy and the emotion that sometimes we spend. wondering how to follow up, should I follow up? Am I gonna get paid?

All of that is completely unnecessary and it's undeserved. You're doing amazing work and you deserve to get paid for it effortlessly. And so while it can be hard to hold together these two ideas of I'm here to help people and I deserve to get paid for it. I need you to feel those two truths at the same time, your business will not be viable without it.

So I am sharing this today because I worked with my client to look into the situation, look into the more immediate pressing, how are we gonna get her paid for these outstanding invoices? And the next phase of our work is going to be a bigger zoom out, pull back, refresh, start again, and really rebuild the payment processes, systems, policies, communication, rebuild it all from the ground up. I am quite obsessed with business systems and helping others create a business that is frictionless.

That's, that's a goal, let's say, relatively frictionless. And I know that asking to be paid and waiting to be paid is such a common friction point for small business owners. There is so much you can do to make it easier. Now, in this episode, we're more gonna focus on what do you do when you're already not getting paid?

You're in this. Sticky awkward situation where you're trying to get your invoices paid. Maybe there's a particular one in mind where you're like, oh, I have to chase that up. Or maybe you know, that generally this is a challenge for you.

I have a script and I'll actually just pop it into the show notes as like a little template that you can take and then make your own and use in your. To help you get paid faster, and quite literally what happened yesterday was my client and I worked on her messaging in our session. She sent an email using this template to the client. In this case, it was actually an organization who was the payer, and the organization paid.

Within two hours. So she literally wrote to me two hours after our session, all the invoices got paid and, you know, a few laughing emojis, which I deeply appreciated. More to the point, I love the fact that it worked. Some of it I think it was from September.

So it was about , eight weeks ago the work was delivered and it was overdue by about seven weeks. I can't quantify the amount of effort, energy, cognitive load, emotional load that my client went through quite unnecessarily because this organization didn't pay the invoices as they had agreed and didn't follow her business policies. And the glimmer in the future is yes. I'm gonna give you the template and I'm gonna tell you what it can sound like where you, follow up your invoices and get them paid.

But the other glimmer is that you have the power to redesign your business systems, your processes, your tech, your policies, in a way that serves you, you deserve to have a business that fits you. Of course it has to fit your clients too, but you get to set your terms of business in most cases. Unfortunately, for many Allied health practices in Australia. If we're in the world of.

NDIS funding at all. There are some constraints, but there is so much more wiggle room than you probably think. And I'm very familiar with all of this. So what I wanna say before I tell you, what the template and wording can be that will help you actually get paid.

I wanna let you know a couple of ways that you can get support from me now and into the future. Number one is keep listening to the podcast and also send me messages. Send me your questions, your challenges. I'll be really happy to address them on the podcast.

I prioritize questions coming from my clients and from my Neurodivergent Business Collective members, but I am very, very happy to, you know, pop up here and share ideas that you bring to me. If you've got a question, the more specific you can get, the better. You can always send me an email and catch me on Instagram. All the details are in the show notes, so you know, stick around here and I'm happy to keep sharing and I will be on the podcast a lot more now and into the future as I've finally.

Nailed down my content processes and systems. Well, it's still in progress, but the bulk of a kind of big new system I've been building for myself is complete so I can actually make content, not just create the systems about making content. So quite literally, you're gonna see the result of that in me showing up more on the podcast, on Instagram, in emails, and so on. if you're in the boat where you realize your business is a miscellaneous floppy, unstructured thing, and you wanna get it into shape and you're ready to systematize, streamline, and learn more about how you can use AI to help you in that process.

I have a big group coaching program. It's running for the first half of 2026. It is called the Differently Aligned AI lab. It is AI forward, but it is not only ai.

The whole point of the lab is that I'm co-creating with you and a very small group of other business owners. We are gonna build your systems that fit you. I'm not gonna say, here is the system you must do. We are gonna learn and work together.

You're going to upskill and get direct support and advice from me as well, and we're gonna learn from each other in the group too. There are only eight spots in the program and I've pretty much just announced it to my community this week. And two spots are probably already taken at the time I'm recording. We're in discussions and in finalizing that, but basically it looks like we're a quarter full already from, you know, one little announcements.

I'm keeping it very small so it can be very personalized and actionable and if you're curious at all, please go and check it out and get in touch as quickly as possible. It is the Differently Aligned AI lab, and that is gonna be in the show notes. So it's an online program I. With fortnightly support from January to June, 2026.

If you're listening and the differently aligned AI lab If it's closed or if it's full or if it's after the fact, go to the link anyway and you'll be able to find other ways I can support you. And if you are ready for more middle of. The budget support, I have a special offer right now. This week, the Neurodivergent Business Collective core membership is 20% off until the 12th of December.

If you are listening after the fact, go and check the page anyway. You'll see what's on offer. It's always open at that core level, which is where you get instant access to a ton of resources, templates, AI tools. Q and as you get my brain in your business, you can put questions to me and There's so much, and it's always dynamic, and I follow the lead of what members need.

So if you're listening before the 12th of December and you want support for your business that is flexible, affordable, it's 20% off right now. All the info's in the show notes, go and check it out, . Now I wanna share what is the email that we actually sent to get my client paid? First I'm gonna share with you with my client's permission.

Part of the previous email she had sent to unfortunately unsuccessfully chase up payment of her very late invoices she wrote, can we please have all outstanding invoices paid as soon as possible? We appreciate payment of three invoices last week. However, there are still four invoices unpaid. If there are any reasons invoices cannot be paid, please let us know so we can make arrangements.

And then she ends with, thank you for your understanding. Best wishes. It didn't result in payment. We created this other email, which she then completed the template with her own, you know, specifics and I'm gonna say the template and it's gonna be in the show notes for you.

The big idea is to be much more clear about everything. Getting paid is not a kindness or a thing you're supposed to beg for. It is okay to have some niceties, but that email, the original one, my client and I both agreed, was a little bit too gentle and being more firm is really important and necessary, especially in terms of the clarity around what's expected, how much by what day, and what happens if it's not paid. Side note here it's super important that you have very clear policies and you follow them on your end for ceasing or pausing services.

If previous invoices are overdue, depends on your terms of business and the structures that you're working within, but generally, I would not allow more than one unpaid invoice. Before raising another invoice or, you know, having another service that might lead you out of pocket more and more and more. So here is the email template that got my client paid. Hi, blah blah.

There is an unpaid and overdue invoice. Or in her case we've changed it to say. There are two unpaid and overdue invoices, and then we listed them out. And so I've got this in the template, the date.

So the date that the invoice was raised in bracket, it was due on what date? What's the invoice number and what's the amount to be paid. You could also attach the invoices again to that email. It depends on, you know, who you are working with and the system you're in.

In some cases it might accidentally mean that you get paid twice, which could be its own admin nightmare, but if you think it will be helpful for that person we wanna make it easy for them to. Know what they owe. You know how to pay, you know that it's legitimate and know what are the boundaries, when do they need to pay by? Anyway, continuing with the email template.

This invoice is overdue and we require a full payment of blah dollars by what date. And don't say in three days or in the next few days, like give a very specific date. We will require the overdue invoice to be paid by that date in order to keep our scheduled. Next session date, so, you know, 15th of December, regards, blah, blah.

And I, I even changed best wishes to regards and so that is firm and clear, and there's a lovely phrase by Brene Brown. She says, clear is kind, unclear, is unkind. And this is kind to everyone, but especially to yourself. You deserve to be paid.

So what you need to do here is grab that template, copy it, email it to yourself, whatever you need to do to keep track of it. If you're in my Neurodivergent Business Collective, you'll have access to this template. And there are so many more tools, templates, training videos. Heaps, heaps, heaps, heaps of ways that I support you in your business.

But this is my gift for you right now. I want you to get paid, and if you did get paid using this template, please let me know. Send me a line, I wanna hear it. I wanna know that I've helped your cash flow if I have indeed.

The second part of sending an email like this is that you need to keep on top of it. So whatever is that final due date that you have. You know, the invoices have to be paid by this date in order to keep the other appointment. Make sure you're upholding that side of it.

If it hasn't been paid, cancel that appointment. Notify them, close the service. Whatever fits your policies. And if your policies are pretty fuzzy or non-existent here, now's the time to shape them up .

Make sure you're creating policies and systems and processes that serve you. Otherwise, you are gonna burn out. You are gonna have terrible cash flow. You are gonna have a struggle of a business.

I don't think you got into this business in order to be a debt collector. So don't do that. Don't put yourself in that position. And the one last thing I'll suggest is that don't just copy and paste this email, but save it to your email system as an actual template.

If you're using Gmail, go to settings and advanced and you can turn on templates if you haven't already. And then in any email you go to like create a new email, there's three dots and a little templates thing will pop up as an option. So you can save that there. And that then is gonna mean you don't have the heartache.

Each time you're chasing up an invoice of thinking, oh, how do I say it? What do I say? You, you just open it up, you got your template, you fill it in, and. Breathe a sigh of relief and watch that money come in bigger picture.

Please address your payment processes. Please get me to help. I love this stuff. I can help you across your whole business.

I can help you with getting clients marketing. Making sure your business structure and commitments are a fit for you and your energy and what you need. Making sure your policies and processes and the tech behind it works for you. I love this stuff and I can't wait to hear how I can connect with you, whether it's in the Differently Aligned AI lab, whether it's in Neurodivergent Business Collective, whether you're gonna stick around here and keep listening, thank you so much for being here and for looking after yourself.

That way you can stick around and continue to look after your clients and customers. Connect with me on Instagram. I am @differently.Aligned.

Have an awesome day.