It's a tough situation as a small business owner. Obviously you shouldn't commit resources you can't afford until you have either a payment or an enforceable contract. There comes a time when you have to spend money to make the customer's scheduled delivery time, and if you don't want any risk you have to decline the order entirely if you haven't received payment by that time. But it may generally seem (and even be) worth hedging your bets in situations like these by extending the deadline a little past that time so that you risk some money for a potential large sale opportunity that you'd otherwise "lose".
This time, that hedging did not pay off. It's an expensive lesson to learn.
I'd say that "Tesla" will also learn a lesson from the media exposure, and maybe it will pressure them into paying for cakes on that future date. But what lesson is there for Tesla to learn? Most likely, some arbitrary employee had no idea that they were putting the small business in a difficult position - generally as consumers we think of things as either "purchased" or "not purchased". Those without B2B purchasing experience don't understand that with large orders there's a middle ground where producers have to "ramp up", prepare stock, plan schedule to make it all work, etc. The woman at Tesla calling about the cakes may not have had any of this B2B experience.
Also, pressuring Elon's companies using media exposure generally doesn't get compliance. More often it gets a scorched earth response. :-(
This time, that hedging did not pay off. It's an expensive lesson to learn.
I'd say that "Tesla" will also learn a lesson from the media exposure, and maybe it will pressure them into paying for cakes on that future date. But what lesson is there for Tesla to learn? Most likely, some arbitrary employee had no idea that they were putting the small business in a difficult position - generally as consumers we think of things as either "purchased" or "not purchased". Those without B2B purchasing experience don't understand that with large orders there's a middle ground where producers have to "ramp up", prepare stock, plan schedule to make it all work, etc. The woman at Tesla calling about the cakes may not have had any of this B2B experience.
Also, pressuring Elon's companies using media exposure generally doesn't get compliance. More often it gets a scorched earth response. :-(