Exploring creative payment terms for agencies, negotiating onerous payment terms, advocating for fair payment terms for small businesses, adopting a cash neutrality policy to combat unfair payment terms, highlighting the importance of prepayment and timely payment in business transactions.
Small businesses can leverage their size to push back against onerous payment terms by emphasizing their inability to afford extended terms and the need for payment within 30 days.
Diversity can be used as a leverage point in negotiations, where underrepresented groups highlight the contradiction between promoting diversity and imposing unfair payment terms, making it harder for large companies to continue pushing them.
Deep dives
Playing the Small Business Card
In negotiations with large companies, small businesses can leverage their size to push back against onerous payment terms. Small businesses should emphasize that they cannot afford extended payment terms and need to be paid within 30 days. By playing the small business card, it signals to the larger companies that they can't impose unfair terms on smaller businesses and highlights the need for equitable payment terms.
Leveraging Diversity as a Negotiating Point
Diversity can be used as a leverage point when negotiating with large companies. Minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses, and other underrepresented groups can highlight that these onerous payment terms are detrimental to small businesses, including those that contribute to increasing diversity. By bringing attention to the contradiction between promoting diversity and imposing unfair payment terms, it becomes more challenging for large companies to continue pushing these terms.
Adopting a Cash Neutrality Policy
Implementing a cash neutrality policy can give small businesses the moral authority to push back against onerous payment terms. This policy ensures that everyone in the value stack, from clients to suppliers, gets paid within 30 days or less. By taking responsibility and fixing payment issues within their own business, small businesses can call out clients who seek to impose longer payment terms. This approach fosters a fair and engaged relationship between clients and agencies.
Combining Leverage and Positioning
To successfully navigate negotiations with large companies, it is vital to have leverage derived from strong positioning. Understanding the dynamics of the value stack and emphasizing the importance of fair payment terms can help small businesses secure equitable arrangements. By being proactive in addressing payment terms and adopting a cash neutrality policy, small businesses can create a positive impact and drive change within the industry.
Blair sees non-standard payment terms as a two-sided issue, where agencies should be creatively leveraging terms more to their own benefit as opposed to just defending themselves against procurement departments who impose onerous terms.