Rule One of Business: Get Paid
To be paid, like you would realise is essentially crucial at your business because if you aren’t being paid, what are you doing in business?
You will be astounded at the loads of business people who have their clients to simply pay when and if they get on with it. I know such a businessman who persistently collects bad debts like weeds. How is that? Very possibly because he cannot bring himself to request the money and people just intimidate him.
If you permit somebody credit, only do so after they proved their worth to you by paying cash on delivery (COD) for some period of time. Secondly, you can find whether they have the means to pay you - if they don’t then you shouldn’t do business with them. Don’t fool yourself into the line of “I need the work” or “I need the sales”. It’s ultimately to do the work or providing the goods for zip if you don’t get paid.
If you are the sort of person who can’t ask for the payment after the service has been completed, try these cheats:
Tell your customer that when the service is finished up, you need cash or cheque. They will more than likely have it there at the point of sale and you will not have to ask for your pay.
When you send out an initial quote, make sure your payment terms are clear.
Complete an invoice with your terms of payment simply stated and send the client the invoice when the task is done. They can take the invoice and reactively understand they have to pay the fee now without you needing to say a thing. Invent a “vicious boss” who might torture you alive if you do not leave with the cash for the work.
Ask your branch to hook you up with Merchant facilities so you can use credit cards like Mastercard and Visa. The majority of people utilize credit cards and it will cease the difficulty of the customer not having a cheque account or not having the right cash in their pocket.
Likewise, don’t be asked not to hold any goods til the payment has been made. Don’t forget, until they have been paid for, the goods remain yours.
If you decide to give a customer credit, make sure you take the following contact information off them at a time BEFORE you permit them credit.
- Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Bank name and address
- Account no.
- 3 trade references with their names, addresses and phone numbers
After you have all this detail, telephone the banking institution and make for sure that they do have an account then. Then, phone each trade reference and request if they pay their debts correctly or if there have been any dilemmas with them.
Most people will be willing to tell you if the person is troublesome. If everything is OK, allow them a moderate level of debt, say no more than $500 (depending on your business). Monitor the operation of the account for a few months before allowing this amount to be exceeded.
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Sphere: Related ContentPlanning Your Ad Campaigns and Promotions
If you publish one lousy ad, meaning, nobody responds, the world does not collapse. But if you plan poorly, or not at all, you have cause to be concerned about your business coming to a halt.
Once you’ve determined where you should advertise, analysed your target audience, and picked the media you’ll use, the planning of what you’ll say and when you’ll say it is essential to your success. You’ve got to plan with your goals in mind as well as your budget, your competition, your plans for the future, and the realities of the moment.
Might your short or long-range planning include promotions with other companies? Smart marketers are always on the lookout for joint advertising opportunities, chances to tie in with other advertisers so that the advertising gets more exposure but at a lower price, since the cost is shared with others.
If three local stores, all compatible, such as a drapery store, a carpet showroom, and a wallpaper shop, combine to run a full-page ad in a regional edition of a national magazine, they all gain the credibility of the ad, but the cost will be only a third of what it normally would be. That’s one of the benefits of cooperative advertising, and that’s why you should consider the concept before planning your campaign. Just be sure that you never lose your own identity in fusion ventures.
Plan your advertising campaign with an eye toward what you’ll do in case you are copied. If you come up with a dynamite plan and it is highly successful, you can count on being copied. So be certain that your name, your look, your logo, the whole works, are synonymous with your name and identity. You may be copied, but your consumers won’t confuse you with the others. Be certain that your plan takes into consideration five important variables:
1. Advertising
2. Promotions
3. Other marketing weapons like promotional products
4. Coordination
5. Timing
Think of these as a basketball team with five players. No matter how good it is, if it lost only one player and had to play with a four-player team, it would lose most of its games to complete teams that excel at teamwork. A good plan includes all the players and is the essence of teamwork. Alone, each of these players just can’t do the job. They need each other. Every smart marketing professional plays with his or her full team.
The smart marketer knows that an advertising campaign must have continuity to do the persuading job well. In advertising, intermittent communication is no communication at all. Your plan must have consistency built right into it. The idea is not to flirt with your public but to convince them. There is a huge difference between the two. Any true advertising expert will tell you that frequency and persistence are the secrets of success in marketing. A major commitment to one or a few of the media will work better in most cases than an across-the-board plan with a variety of media but a short insertion schedule.
You should plan your campaign so that you are consistent, but never boring, committed, but never predictable. You’ve got to build special promotions into your plan to keep your staff on their feet and your competitors off balance. The only part of the plan engraved in stone is your identity. Flexibility and an ability to make alterations in your advertising is crucial.
Promotional products like printed carrier bags, promotional balloons and promotional badges are a great marketing investment. They can be used to thank existing customers, generate curiousity in prospects and keep your brand top of mind. Need ideas? Visit hotline.co.uk today and browse our fabulous range of promotional products and corporate give-aways.
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