I was chatting with a long-time friend about this today. We were talking about clients who don’t pay on time and those clients who love to haggle on price and tell you the value of your offering.

I’ve had clients ignore my terms and pay me whenever. This usually from larger companies versus smaller outfits. Bigger companies because of their size, have rules that trump your little minion rules in your company of one.

These are the breaks and this is the real world. However, would it be different if we had a cushion to fall back on?

Most times we are living on the crazy edge of earning – literally project fee to project fee.

Not having a cushion means that we are forced to accept projects that don’t necessarily align with who we are and what we’d prefer to be doing. It means that more than likely we take the project for the money and nothing else. And that’s also the reason why we allow clients to beat us down in price and accept just not what they’ll pay for the project but also when they will pay.

Desperation is a mofo and as professionals we need to guard against being in that situation.

So yeah, if you haven’t already done so, it’s time to save. A cushion is essential if you are to do your best work and remain confident about what you do and how you do it.

There is no other way. If you want to be a well-paid pro, you need to have a cushion.