If you haven’t experienced chasing after a client for money they owe you, you probably will at some point. This is a topic I wrote a very snarky post about previously.

Small business owners are frequently bootstrapping their business, so when a client doesn’t pay on time, the business owner may have to scramble to pay their vendors, contractors, or employees.

Lou Bortone was a longtime contributor to the blog and his new book immediately caught our attention. In “How a Famous Movie Mantra Can Help Entrepreneurs Get Paid Faster,” Carol interviews Lou for entrepreneur.com. Carol begins:

For many entrepreneurs and freelancers, getting clients to pay — both on-time and at all — is a challenge. It can affect an entrepreneur’s cash flow and sometimes even lead to writing off work that they spent their precious time completing.

So, how do you go about getting paid more efficiently for the work that you’ve done? Lou Bortone took inspiration from the well-known Goodfellas quote and wrote a book to help solve this problem for entrepreneurs in a fun way. As he says, the book: “F*ck You, Pay Me! is a delightful “kids” book for grown-ups. Based on a true story, it provides a message of courage and hope to millions of hardworking freelancers, work-at-home moms and dads, and entrepreneurs just trying to get paid for their work.

I had a chance to talk to Bortone a bit more about this book and how it can help you get paid!

What inspired you to write this book?

Bortone: I’m part of a mastermind group made up of entrepreneurs and small-business owners, and a recurring theme within the group is collections. It seems as though there’s always someone in the group who is having a hard time collecting their fees. We’ve all been there!

So, our advice usually involves recalling that classic line from Goodfellas, “F*ck You, Pay Me!” We may not actually go back and say that to the clients who are trying to stiff us, but it does give the entrepreneur a sense of empowerment.

So, I decided to take our battle cry one step further and do a fun parody book!

You can read the rest of the interview here.