It’s the first of the month and I’m scared to death. I feel this way on the first of every month.

I’ve been feeling this way, on the first of every month, since we switched from hourly billing to fixed fees many, many years ago.

On the first day of the month we start over. Our revenues are zero. We don’t have money in trust. We don’t have receivables outstanding.

We start at zero.

It doesn’t seem to matter how long I’ve been doing this. I have the same reaction at the beginning of every month.

Our revenues for September will consist of payments for consultations, payments from new clients and some payments on unresolved litigation cases. Will the money come in? I don’t know. It depends on whether new clients walk in the door.

Will they come? They’ve always come before. That’s what I have to keep telling myself. It helps, but it doesn’t make me feel okay. I only feel better when the revenues start to flow – when my daily report is something other than zero.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night – sweating. It’s a nightmare, literally. I imagine that the phones won’t ring, that the referral sources will stop referring, that our scheduled consultations will cancel. I totally freak out.

Maybe the fear is part of what makes it work. Maybe if I wasn’t stressing out we wouldn’t do the work necessary to keep the coffers full. I don’t know, but I can tell you that starting over at zero isn’t easy for me.

I’ve read a bunch of articles and books on “alternative billing.” None of them mention sleepless nights, cold sweat and nightmares.

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