Wait, what? How is this supposed to work for something like consulting? Asking for a retainer up front is often a one-way ticket to a potential client saying "no thanks" and going with someone else. I definitely would have lost many highly profitable opportunities with that approach.
Just get at least some money up front. If you can't walk away. It's a pretty simple concept, and it's the way to solve this problem.
OK so maybe the only other exception to this rule is when you have a real life serious executed contract and a purchase order with a serious company with hundreds of employees at minimum. Actually just kidding even then don't do it unless you know what you're doing. Those guys decide not to pay or pay months or years later a lot of the time too and will put you right out of business.
If someone complains about your policy tell them that you don't have a business manager, billing department, or collections operation, and by not having that you're passing all the savings on those functions on to the client, in exchange for a simple deposit or retainer.
Trust me on this. I'm old and have seen a lot of shit. Until you have a ton of experience freelancing or consulting or running an agency and don't need to ask questions like this just start off by getting a deposit or retainer up front every single time you do any work at all.
Freelancing!=consulting,or at least not always. In consulting you'd normally sign engagement contracts, probably even come up with a proposal on what you'll do. Also depends what companies you deal with,in what industry and etc. Freelancing,at least in generally accepted terms,is slightly different,even though there's lots of overlapping areas.
I understand what you're saying, but I think the difference there is one of contractual maturity more than anything else. There's no reason a run of the mill freelancing setup can't utilize enforceable contracts, even for small projects. A statement I would agree with is something like, "Never do any work unless you have an enforceable contract in place or get a good-faith payment up front."
