Split a big payment into parts, without getting stuck halfway
Knows how to split a big price into milestone payments for construction-type jobs, decide how much to ask for upfront, and what to do if the client stops paying partway through the job.
When the price is high, almost nobody pays it all on day one: they ask to split it up, and that's where the trouble starts. If you split by calendar dates, you get paid even when the work hasn't moved forward, or you miss a payment even though it has. If you ask for too little upfront, you're buying materials and putting in hours with your own money before you see a dollar from the client. And if the client stops paying halfway through a phase, you're left with work done, no payment, and no idea whether to keep going, stop, or hand over what you've got.
This course lays out the decisions that solve this, in the order you need them: how many installments to set and which project milestone, not which date, triggers each one; how much to ask for before you touch the first material; how to weigh each installment based on what that phase actually costs; how to get the whole payment schedule signed into the estimate before you start; and what you do, what you hand over, what you hold back, what deadline you give, the day an installment goes unpaid.
This is for anyone billing for work with clear phases, a renovation, an installation, a custom project, who needs more than one payment so they're not financing it out of pocket; it's not for you if you sell something paid in full upfront, like a product or a one-off consultation.
- Split a large price into installments triggered by project milestones, not calendar dates
- Set the deposit based on what you're risking from day one, not a standard percentage
- Calculate what percentage of the price each mid-project installment should be, based on what that phase actually costs
- Write the full payment schedule into the estimate and decide what to do if an installment goes unpaid
Already have the final price for the job and the phases the work is divided into.
The 6 lessons
In the order it makes the most sense to read them.
- 1
One charge per project phase, not by the calendar
By the end, you'll know how many installments to split a large payment into and what point in the project, not what date, triggers each one.
7 min - 2
How much to ask for before touching the first material
You'll know how to set your deposit based on what you risk from day one, not a percentage that happens to work for someone else's business.
6 min - 3
What you've already put in determines how much each following installment is worth
After this lesson, you'll know how to calculate what percentage of the price each mid-project installment should be based on what that phase actually costs, not split evenly.
7 min - 4
The full payment schedule gets signed before the first hour of work
By the end of this lesson, you'll have the entire payment schedule, installments, amounts, and what triggers each one, written into the estimate and signed before you touch the first material.
5 min - 5
If an installment doesn't get paid, the job doesn't move to the next phase
By the end of this lesson, you'll know how to close out an unpaid installment without leaving the job unsafe, and how many days' grace to give before officially calling it stalled.
6 min - 6
Anything still in progress stays with you until that installment is paid in full
You know what to deliver and what to hold back when a client stops paying partway through an installment, and you already have the message and the deadline ready for that day.
7 min