Rule One of Business: Get Paid

May 25, 2010 by Mark Currey · Leave a Comment
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To get paid, just as you would imagine is vitally fundamental in your business because if you are not paid, what are you doing in business?

You may be laughing at the heaps of business people who only get their customers to pay them when and if they remember it. I know a business owner who persistently gets bad debts like weeds. How? Most likely because he cannot bring himself to demand the money and people just overpower him.

If you give a customer credit, only do so if they have proved themselves to you by paying cash on delivery (COD) for a time. Also, you can find whether they have the resources to pay you - if not you should not do business with them. Don’t push yourself into saying “I need the work” or “I need the sales”. It’s damaging doing the job or providing the goods for nothing if you do not get paid.

If you are the sort of person who can’t ask for the payment even after the job has been completed, try these hints:
Tell your client that when all the work is finished, you require cash or cheque. They should more than likely have it ready at the point of sale and you do not have to ask for your fee.

When sending out the quote, make sure your payment terms are simple.

Do up an invoice with the terms of payment plainly printed and send the client the invoice when the work is finished up. They will take the invoice and generally know they should pay it off now without you needing to say a thing. Fabricate a “cruel boss” who will torture you alive if you do not bring back the payment for the job.

Set up your banking institution to set you up with Merchant facilities so you can use credit cards for example Mastercard and Visa. Many people use credit cards and it could cease the dilemma of the client not operating a cheque account or not having enough cash on hand.

Otherwise, don’t be persuaded against to keep your goods until after the payment has been made. Know, until they have been paid for, the goods still are yours.

If you decide to permit a client credit, be sure you get the following contact information of them at a point PREVIOUSLY you give them credit.

  • Name
  • Address
  • Phone number
  • Bank name and address
  • Account no.
  • 3 trade references with their names, addresses and phone numbers

When you have all this information, call the bank branch and make for certain that they do use an account there. Then, phone all of the trade reference and find out if they pay their invoices on time or if they have had any issues 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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Relationship Marketing Fundamentals

January 2, 2010 by Mark Currey · Leave a Comment
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As a customer service concept, relationship marketing is not new. For decades, business-to-business marketers have employed account managers who have the responsibility to dedicate themselves to key clients. In the financial world, `relationship banking’, whereby high-yield customers are assigned a personal manager, has been practised for many years.

When direct marketing is embraced to establish connections or relations between the marketer and the consumer, it is too easy to suggest that all forms of direct marketing communications achieve a closer relationship, a closer bond between the two parties. Such a conclusion exaggerates what generally happens in the marketplace.

Direct marketing is all about generating a direct response from the consumer and about direct communications to the consumer. A direct response is needed to generate better understanding of the advertising message or to motivate transactions. Direct communication is simply about media reach efficiency. Relationship marketing is a concept that transcends these pragmatic direct marketing objectives.

Kotler appropriately positions the concept of relationship marketing as one which applies principally to business-to-business situations:

Smart marketers try to build up long-term, trusting, `win—win’ relationships with customers, distributors, dealers and suppliers. That is accomplished by promising and delivering high quality, good service, and fair prices to the other party over time.

It is accomplished by strengthening the economic, technical, and social ties between members of the two organizations. The two parties grow more trusting, more knowledgeable, and more interested in helping each other. Relationship marketing cuts down on transaction costs and time; in the best cases, transactions move from being negotiated each time to being routinized.

Outside of `membership’ or `continuity’ programs, there are two basic ways to approach consumers. The first is with a product and price combination considered to be `the standard’. That is, the proposition is essentially of long standing and relies on the features and benefits being competitive. The second way, normally of short-term duration, is a `special offer’. Direct marketing textbooks are full of the theory, practice and case histories relating to `the offer’.

The choice of basic propositions or selection of special offers depends on the circumstances of the individual firm and its competitive environment. The right proposition or offer can make a world of difference to response cost-effectiveness.

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