Being charged a full monthly payment when she’s only done 20% of the work

[borderlinediabetes]

I pay a monthly retainer to a marketing manager who has her own agency, and she’s really lovely and does have children. I really liked this about her as I have a little boy and the first meeting went really well.

I signed in for three months and the first two months went okay, but in December I only received around 20% of the agreed package offering. Her children have been unwell and so I totally get how hard that is, I was unwell in December, however I’m lucky to have a team to take over for me whereas she doesn’t.

Every time I did receive anything it was based on me emailing her, and I kept being told to expect things the next day which didn’t happen.

On 1st December I received an invoice for the full monthly payment which shocked me a bit as, if this was one of my clients I wouldn’t be charging them 100% for 20% of the work.

I queried it and explained that while I do totally understand the difficulty in working I didn’t feel comfortable paying for a full month when I haven’t received the work. I’ve been offered 20% off the full amount and told that she’ll be back on track this month.

Normally I wouldn’t be asking ‘Do I pay this or not?’ but I am feeling conflicted. I really like her and know how difficult running a business on your own is with children. On the other hand business is business and why should my expenses remain the same for 80% less work.

How would you handle this to keep it amicable on both sides?

I'd calmly ask for her plan as to how she's going to catch up on that work - can you have 120% of usual for the next four months? And if not, you only pay 20%.

No you don't pay. That would be madness.

If you pay her despite her not fulfilling the contract, it creates a precedent that you will pay her even if she doesn't do the work. This creates a disincentive for her to prioritize completion of the work, and if she has to decide between timely finishing YOUR deliverables vs finishing her deliverables for other clients who have been more hard-nosed about expecting her to complete her work, then she will likely do their work and allow yours to languish.

That's what I think will happen. Just from intuition, obviously I don't know this person.

What are the terms of the agreement? do you have a contact?

If it's a retainer, what are the contract terms?

Nope, you pay for what has been done, not what should have been done.

Or you pay and agree in writing a timeline of how she's going to complete all the missed tasks and non-worked hours over the next month, maybe 2 if you're feeling generous. With an agreed in writing penalty should she fail, again, to deliver.

Liking someone is all very well, but she's in business and can't expect to be paid for things she hasnt done. That's ludicrous.

I’m self employed and do kind of similar work. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid (and I don’t invoice for it either). So no, pay her only for the days worked.

She’s not employed, she doesn’t get sick pay/parental leave. If she doesn‘t work she doesn’t get paid.

Voted for YABU because you say you signed with her because she had a DS. That must be the weirdest reason to pick someone to do business with I’ve ever heard. Good to hear you are looking a at it from a business POV now, and no, I wouldn’t agree with paying 100% if not all work has been done either.
But really, focus on what is relevant when doing business next time!

What does your actual contract say? Is it a retainer or is it a monthly payment for certain things to be done?

What does the contract say?

@MontblancTheSecond I had the meeting with her after reviewing her proposal, and during our conversation she talked about being a working mum, which I liked because I am also a working mum so felt she was relatable seemed to have a good work ethic. I really respect mums in business, and like to network with others too. So no. I didn’t sign up with someone just because they have children, so I’m not sure why this is being framed as a weird situation tbh. As I said, the first two months went fine, so I had no reason to think this would happen!

@PickledPurplePickle It is a set fee for a certain number of tasks to be completed within each month

I’d pay her for what she did in December and tell her she can invoice you for the outstanding work once she’s done it (on top of what you’d expect her to do in January).

I would say you would like to pay her for work completed in December and if she does more in January, she can invoice accordingly. You don't pay a retainer fee when work hasn't been done.( I'm a marketing contractor)

If December was the last month of the 3 months you have signed on for, I would tell her you will pay her when she has completed the still outstanding work. Find someone else moving onwards.

Would it even make sense for her to catch up on the work now? Like does she agree to do X emails per month of X number of social media posts for you. So if she has missed them then she can’t exactly make up the work the next month as she is already doing the January email and it doesn’t make sense for her to do the December one now.

I think it would be fair to pro rata payment based on how many/what percentage of tasks have been completed.

Please don’t pay her the full amount.

Being a working mum is not an excuse to rip you off.

It sounds like it’s very easy to demonstrate that you’ve only had 20% of the work so she’s absolutely taking the piss charging you 100% and then 80% of the fee. Frankly she’s giving working mums a bad name. It would be give and take to allow her to submit her work in the evening after the kids have gone to bed, or catch up at the weekends, not just not to do the work at all because she has kids!

id be very clear you’re only paying 20% of the fee for December and I’d think very carefully about whether you want to use her going forward - she’s got you marked as a mug.

This is a brilliant idea - you are still offering to give her the opportunity to earn the full fee but she understandably needs to complete all the tasks she had originally signed up to doing. It also makes it clear she needs to do them in addition to January tasks to earn the full January fee.

Working Mum or not - she has chosen to be self-employed and the that means you earn based on output. If she hasn't produced the goods, she can't expect to be paid

Reframe this: if you'd hired a builder to build you a 10ft wall and he'd only built a 2ft wall, because the weather was bad.. would you pay him for building a 10ft wall?

No, of course you wouldn't! Nobody can control the weather, but you still want your wall building!

If you'd hired a baker to make you 100 cupcakes and she only produced 20 cupcakes, stating that there weren't enough eggs, would you pay still pay for 100
Cupcakes?

No...it's her issue to source the ingredients, and you still need 100 cupcakes!

Same here...she's only done 20% of what you requested, so she only gets 20% of the invoice 🤷‍♀️

If you'd signed up for three months of daily doorstep milk deliveries and only had milk on your doorstep on 20% of the days during the second month, what would you do? Do that.

Yes running a business with kids is tricky, but she's doing herself no favours by shafting the clients she's already got in hand, that's bad business whether you've got kids or not.

I would let her know that I was paying her 20% of her invoice, for the work you've received and if she can get back on track to 100% next month you'll pay 100% of the invoice.

You don't really need to keep this amicable, it's business and I'd presume you're looking for somone else to fulfill the role going forward.

cross post, similar thinking @OldBeyondMyYears 😊

Check your contract.

A "retainer" fee is a fee that is due whether or not any work is done on the understanding that a consultant/freelancer will keep a set number of hours available for you if you need work done. The fee is to guarantee availability so that if you need a job done you can have it done right away rather than waiting till they have availability, and any hours actually worked are invoiced over and above the retainer usually.

It's a bit weird that you use the term retainer for a contract to specifically achieve set tasks each month.

If she thinks she can invoice you for her standard hours whether or not she does the work she's considering herself an employee with rights to annual leave/compassionate leave for dependents/sick leave etc.

The government does have some strict rules to prevent you from using contracts when you should be treating someone as an employee (including giving them their employee rights and paying National Insurance) so check whether she should actually have employee status.