How to start getting deposits

Recently in “Every job starts with a deposit” Brian Schofield and Karin Levin spelled out the importance of getting a deposit for every job—including for the design phase. Many sign businesspeople don’t do this. But if you’re tired of doing designs that you never get paid for, collection problems, and having customers take designs that they didn’t pay for to other shops, you may be ready to start collecting deposits.

So how do you change to a deposit policy if you’ve not been getting deposits in the past? It’s a bit of a transition because you have accidentally trained your customers that a deposit isn’t necessary—and now you are changing the rules.