Tag: PAY

No Credit to New Clients, Other Ways to Charge and Collect

Getting Paid Means No Credit to New Clients UNLESS it’s a Major Company

MANY of us have been ripped off in the past. I can honestly say I have only had it happen to me twice in 28 years, but advanced technology should certainly make it easier for us to get our money these days.

There is NOTHING worse than completing the work than being lied to and misled about the check being in the mail etc.

The worst part is like a fool, you are waiting for the mailman for a check that the client KNOWS is not coming.

You can save yourself from this by doing a few simple things. First: Always have high esteem when it comes to your business.

By high esteem, I’m not saying “Arrogance” I mean believing in your business, knowing your VALUE, and having an appreciation for what you do. If you show signs of weakness, potential clients can see that, and they will take advantage.

Here are five tips for collecting your money in a timely fashion without chasing cash.

Ask for the Money Up Front

This is simply the best way to do it. However, you can’t blame them if they are suspicious and wonder if they will get what they have paid for. Nevertheless, that’s not for you to worry about, IF they came to you.

If you go to them, then this method may or may not work. Imagine you ask someone to support your business then give you the money before you do the work, that’s kind of an insult, and it looks like you are desperate for money. Treat each situation accordingly

Offer a SMALL Discount if they Pay Up Front

I would not give them more than a 10% discount. Keep in mind whatever you offer them is what they are going to expect each time

Tell them New Clients Have to Pay up Front

This is a good rule, but only if they come to you. If you go to them or if it’s a corporation, you should not expect to be paid upfront. You can offer independents a “new client discount” if they pay upfront.

Ask them if they use Paypal, Cashapp or Zelle

Technology is changing the face of business

(Thank God) now you don’t have to pay outrageous fees to have someone pay you with a credit card. You can just use a small device on PayPal called the PayPal Card Reader and charge them over your cell phone.

There is a small fee, but PayPal also offers pay by email and more features, and they don’t have to be a PayPal client. Did I mention I LOVE PayPal, Cashapp and Zelle?

If They are New Clients, they come to you, and they Can’t Pay upfront…

Don’t walk… RUN. And run as fast as you can. This is a sure sign you are about to get ripped off and you will be chasing money. That will disrupt the flow of your business. Avoid this at all costs.

They Come Back After Being a Slow Pay the Last Time?

Tell them you have to collect upfront. Remember, have esteem in your business. Your bill collectors do not want to wait to be paid after they provide a service, so why should you. You have obviously made a good impression on them if they come back. Now it’s their turn to show good faith for their mistakes. If they can’t pay upfront, at least get half or walk.

Avoid Small Talk Get Straight to Business

If someone comes to you for business, MAKE IT BUSINESS avoid small talk at all costs, you are a busy entrepreneur.

The small talk is a setup to ask for a MASSIVE discount or some kind of deal that’s gonna work more in THEIR favor. Don’t fall for it. If they can give you small talk to get the business, they will BS you when it comes time to pay too.

April 18, 2023
When we Stop Learning, We Stop Growing

I have always been very adamant about the direction, goals and focus of my business, never letting anyone or anything change that. I realize now that’s a mistake. If you notice, most older business owners think they have their formulas patented when it comes to the success of their business and we don’t. Trends change and we have to be willing to keep up with them and to keep learning or we stop growing. EBONY magazine is struggling and I remember I stopped reading that magazine in the 80s because it never moved past that period. The stories were boring and predictable and the owner John H. Johnson thought the formula that he had been using for decades would continue to work forever and it didn’t. The magazine didn’t hone in early on technology and quickly fell from grace. They have been struggling for years finally making the changes when it was WAY too late. Readers had moved on long before. They want to stick to the tried and true from 65 years ago and do business the way they had always done it. That’s an immediate recipe for failure and disaster.

We get older and we are out of touch if we don’t surround ourselves with education. I passed a music store the other day while walking down the street and the owners where well into their 60s and they had a dirty beige carpet on the floor and paneling on the walls from the 70s (remember that fake wood paneling). There was not one sole customer in the store. Next door was a Mac repair store that was very state of the art, they were packed. As business owners we realize how important our businesses are to us, we are married to them and they are our children. When someone insults your children by saying they are misbehaving you are apt to stand up in defense of your child but what if they really ARE misbehaving?

A man who has rarely been supportive of my businesses and I had a long conversation yesterday and he insulted my business, so I thought when he compared me to other urban industry sites that I don’t consider to be competition for me. Long ago, I surmised he was an arrogant bastard who wanted to see me fail instead of someone who was willing to take the time to tell me the truth. Clients who pay us are certainly valuable but so are the clients who don’t do business with us… especially when we can find out WHY. Yesterday I did something different, I shut up and listened to this man. I took the emotion out and heard what he said for the first time and when he was done, I realized there were at least two or three things that he was right about when it came to my business. Things that I had never explored and needed to in order to grow.

The one thing that older people do which often makes us unemployable is we are indeed set in our ways and not willing to learn or listen to anyone younger. Just about EVERY person that I know who is over 45 is like that and they wonder why they can’t get any work. This man is actually older than me but he works in another part of the industry that is one of my targets. He comes face to face with this side of the industry everyday whereas it much more rare for me. Today I’m working on implementing those changes to grow my business and at the end of the day, I greatly appreciate what he had to say. Sometimes you have to just shut up and listen and realize value is not always monetary.

April 3, 2015
Maintain Customer Trust: The Power of Listening

One of my greatest pet peeves is telling someone who I am paying what I want and them telling me that’s not what I want. A couple of years ago, an industry contact got me a great audition with a huge Voiceover agency in NYC. I submitted my first audition and they loved it but they stated the quality was not there and for me to record it again. They even went out of their way to send me scripts. Truth be told, I did not have a professional recording studio in my home and I called one of my old stations to ask if I could use their studios and they were hard up for money and wanted to charge me to use the studio. I was insulted since I had worked there for several years but down the line I realized, I SHOULD have done it. I went to a voiceover “Professional” who had her own cheap studio and when I started to do the reads, she would not give me headphones and she told me I didn’t need them but I KNEW I did. My professional training as a radio announcer and voice actor requires that I hear my delivery. It’s the same as a singer in the studio who has to hear themselves sing so they can make sure they are on pitch and their tones and modulation are on point. At any rate, I needed to get this second tape to the agency ASAP. So I did it in a few reads. I was absolutely not confident that the reads were good and the woman told me I was wrong and that my reads were so good that she wanted to use me for some other projects. This is another one of those situations where I should have used my gut and went to the station instead where I would have had to pay but I would have been in control of my audition and could have stayed there all night if necessary. This woman was in a rush to get me out of there and to just get my money.

I submitted the audition to the agency and they had a meeting and listened to is and declined me. They stated the reads were not good and to try out again in 2 years, that’s friendly language for “don’t call us, we’ll NEVER call you.” I was furious. More upset with myself for not following my gut and leaving that woman’s studio. Needless to say, she never called me for the extra work either, she just wanted my money. I’m about to audition again for another major agency and I’m going to make sure i’m on point this time and I do it myself.

The message in this story is when you are paying for something you have the right to expect what YOU ask for. The same goes for your customers. Never ASSUME you know what they want or take anything for granted. The customer is indeed always right, even when they are wrong in your eyes. I make a concerted effort to reach out to my clients and double-check certain things with them all the time like do they want their personal cell numbers on ads for Radio Facts email blasts or do they want their email address written out. They ALWAYS thank me for double checking. It’s better to get this done BEFORE I send out the information than to have them be upset when it’s too late. Make sure you listen, write down and confirm when someone is paying you to do something.

My best in business

Kevin

September 21, 2014
5 Things You Can Do to Jump Start Your Small Business Income

As always, here are some quick tips to build your business. These are things that we often overlook but could generate more revenue, of course this is on top of providing great service.

1. Hire a young Social Media Whiz

Kids are becoming marketing machines and they are better at it than expensive ad agencies because they don’t rely on flawed research…. .THEY LIVE THE LIFE. Advertisers are now going directly to kids with huge youtube followers to push their brands and this may signal a problem for marketing agencies who have controlled how we think for far too long. Social media marketing is less biased and more factual and you should jump on this trend NOW. Grab a high school or college kid that’s always online to help promote your business. Truth be told you may also not want to skimp on what you pay them either (after they have proven themselves) because they can be extremely valuable. (click NEXT above or below)

2. Stop Chasing Dead Clients

There are some clients who will never support you, no matter what you say or do. Move on and pursue clients who are not familiar with your brand (click NEXT above or below)

3. Create an App for your Business

I suggest Wiziapp if you have a website. This can be somewhat cumbersome but the push notifications are the benefit. So if you have a new product out and you want clients around the world to know about it and they opt to have a push notification, this could generate great revenue. (click NEXT above or below)

4. Ask Satisfied Clients to Promote you on Yelp

MANY people use Yelp as a way to determine if they will support your business. Make it easy for your clients by emailing them a direct link and asking them to recommend you. (click NEXT above or below)

5. Take Potential Clients out to Lunch

This is one of the oldest methods in the books that still works today. Clients like to see who they are dealing with. Make the effort and meet them for lunch. Don’t talk about competitors, even if they do and eat before you come so that you can hear everything they are saying to you.

September 14, 2014
Entrepreneur Burnout: Most Important Things to Avoid it

Yep, first and foremost we KNOW it takes a GREAT deal of effort to hire someone in the first place, you are concerned about paying them and you have to take the time to train them. You wonder if it##Q##s worth it. The answer my friends is YES it is. You will KILL yourself working 14 hour days, the years will fly by and you will not have a life. I know MANY entrepreneurs who endure this on a day to day and it##Q##s not smart. You CAN hire someone and you DON##Q##T have to do the work yourself, you just have to find ways to pay them like hiring them a month at a time or part time. When we make money that is NOT the time to go out and treat yourself to a new car or some extravagant gift (though you should treat yourself) but this is the time to ease the tension and to fork over some of the day to day to someone else to free you up to focus on the things you probably have been ignoring like sales or billing. You will certainly hire the wrong people from time to time as I have and here are some suggestions to avoid costly mistakes in hiring… (click “NEXT” after each segment above or below)

June 14, 2013
Reasons Small Business Owners Fear Hiring Help

Running a legitimate business is no piece of cake. We go in it to satisfy a passion but we don’t count on the many elements that go with that passion. Deadlines, orders, payroll, hiring, vendors, bills, personal life etc. These can all be managed initially by us but as time goes on we have to come to the decision to start hiring people who have the ability to either duplicate us to have strengths where we are weak. Here are some tips to help you along the way. These are the reasons we often DON‘T hire someone and the reasons that we SHOULD.(click “Next” above or below)

No Budget

Let’s face it, it’s oftentimes hard enough to keep our own heads above water and to pay our own bills after all is taken care of with the business but hiring someone else puts us in even more debt. Or does it? Believe it or not NOT hiring someone will often hurt us more in the long run. Entrepreneurs must learn… WE CANNOT DO IT ALL not matter how hard we try and we may be able to pull it off for a long time but the downside is WE NEVER GROW. So if you want to be in the same place that you were 4 years ago in your business and you want to age 8 years… keep doing it all yourself. If you don’t have the budget, hire someone part time or on a temp basis. This is a great way to check out a future prospect for full time. (click “Next” above or below)

Afraid of hiring the wrong person

This is entirely legitimate and I have made this mistake several times. People will always be on their best behavior when you are about to hire them then they can flip the script once you do. My suggestion is to put everyone on 90 days of probation like large corporations do. This is an excellent tactic because few people can wear a mask that long and this is a long enough period for you to not only gauge their effectiveness but also their reliability and dedication. I would also suggest giving them very little slack. There are times when employees will be late but if it happens twice within that period or they have excuses for not completing their work, they are out. (click “Next” above or below)

Wasting time training

This is another legitimate concern. You take the time from your already busy schedule to train someone who ends up leaving or not working out. That’s time you could have been working. Well all is well that ends well or not so well. At least you tried. However, this is NOT the time to give up and hold off for a few months because of this bad experience, you simply have to do it again or if you are lucky you have an employee who thinks like you who can show them. (click “Next” above or below)

Not able to keep an eye on the person and run the business

If you make one of the qualifications that the person has to be a self starter you can give them some autonomy and if you can’t keep an eye on them get one of your employees to for you by asking them to help them out if they need it and then have a talk with them to get an assessment.

Ultimately, as your business grows, you want to have the time to focus on expanding. Who wants to remain in the same position forever? The best advice I can give once again is to find one main employee who can do what you do to help you hire and train. They know what you are looking for and can often be a great asset when it comes to hiring employees. Best in business…

Kevin Ross

April 14, 2013
Beware of the False Potential Customer…

We have all seen and dealt with potential customers who truly waste our time. Truth be told, they usually catch us with our guard down when times are hard for us. What is a False Potential Customer? Here are some clues:

1. They want to talk to you but their questions are above and beyond information that you should be providing.

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They ask you questions like, how many people are in your database or can you provide them with numbers of previous clients. This may not seem like a huge request but it depends on how established your business is. See if they ask you these questions as well… The best way to eliminate this is to always be on the run. When they call, tell them you are about to go into a meeting but you have a minute so that they can get to the point.

2. They ask you to evaluate or review their product..

BIG NO, this is the BIGGEST sign of a false customer. If you are a consultant then they need to pay for your expert opinion. Who has time to do this? This could be a trick for these people to take your advice and leave you in the dust while they use the information that you gave them to do the work themselves. They may even be smart enough to brag about how much they love what you do first. I call this “Dangling the Carrot.” It’s an effort for you to think you are may get their business if you help them. Don’t fall for it. Tell them you will be glad to evaluate their product once the account is established.

3. They ask you for references on competitors.

Do you see this train coming? Most people will tell you never say anything bad about your competition but in this case it may bite you in the ass. This person is letting you know they are not loyal to your services. This is a great warning. If you say good things about your competitor, it may give them the deal. I play coy in these situations. I act like I just don’t know. Why are you asking me about my competition anyway? Don’t fall for this.

4. They tell you they have to get back to you after they meet with the other partners..

You can eliminate this problem IMMEDIATELY by letting your first question be “Do you have budget available now?” If you are not talking to the person who has control of the purse strings you are wasting your time. If they tell you they don’t have their budget ready yet.. kindly tell them to call you when they do. “Why don’t we talk when you’re ready to do a campaign so that I can advise you better?”

5. They string you along

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If you have an established business and your customers are aware of it, when they call you, they should be ready to do business. Not waste your time. When they say things like, “I will get back to you” chances are they won’t but even if they do (which is rare) don’t wait for the call or pursue it. If they are serious and they have budget they will reach out to you.

Wishing you the best in business

Kevin Ross

February 24, 2012
Entrepreneur: Knowing When to Close Shop

I just saw a longtime friend be forced out of his business. He basically lost everything and had to even move back to his hometown to live with his parents. He told me that he is humiliated.

At one time he was very successful but a change in the economy and for what he was doing brought a whole new set of challenges before him. Could he have saved the business? Sure he could have but his ego wouldn’t let him. He considered himself an expert in his field and refused to listen to others. In addition, he failed to pay attention to changing trends, the fact that he was getting older in a youthful business and that he was losing touch as he failed to surround himself with the right people in his business. He went from a hugely successful business to barely keeping his head above water to drowning and watching the eminent death of the business he had built from the ground up. He literally broke down in tears.

As entrepreneurs, we can only do so much and we don’t have all the answers. We have our strengths and we have our weaknesses but we are not Supermen/women, fortune tellers or money trees. The first sign of a failing business (yes, even in this economy) is a cash flow problem. People will say, isn’t that EVERYONE’S problem? No, it’s actually not and we need to stop comparing our businesses to everyone else and limiting ourselves to what we assume is the norm. Why can’t we have a business that does NOT have a cash flow problem? There are several businesses that don’t worry about paying bills and/or making payroll. There are owners who take extravagant vacations and there are owners who are not begging for business. You would be amazed at how they are often very frugal (that’s another post) but it’s certainly very possible. While this can’t be all of us it’s certainly achievable (depending on what you do and how valuable customers perceive you and/or your product). The first and most important step is we must always think BIGGER and understand we don’t always just have 1 passion. That’s what makes us “Entrepreneurs” and the very reason that we don’t work for others. We have the ability to create our own destinies. Notice I said “Destinies” as in the plural form.

I have to admit, It was very difficult to see a man so broken. He is depressed and he feels like a failure. I can sympathize with him because I have been there too. Many of us look at our business like a relationship. We nurture it and watch it grow and if it dies on us it’s no different than losing a valuable relationship with someone. It goes back to the “train-on-the-tracks-and-paralyzed” theory I was talking about in another post. There are those times when business has its ups and downs. Of course we want the ups to remain for the longest period of time but unfortunately, outside factors beyond our control can take precedent often preventing that from happening. What do you do when the down periods last TOO long or appear to be lasting longer than usual? You have to evaluate the business, how you feel about it, the economy of the business, trends and where you are as far as your passion to do it.

An entrepreneur certainly can experience wonderful highs but those lows can also make quite an impression on us. We are MARRIED to what we do as entrepreneurs and if your relationship with your business has soured it’s time to do one of two things: Morph it or Divorce it. Sometimes we are behind the trends and so busy with the day to day that we are missing something. Perhaps our business has lost its appeal to us and it has now become a “job.” One that, like most people who work for someone else, we don’t look forward to doing everyday. For an entrprenuer that’s a double whammy because we can change our situation. To run a business that we don’t like doing is a recipe for disaster.

I can tell you I have experienced that true passion in my business or rolling out of bed with a huge smile on my face and I’ve also experienced that low of sleeping an extra hour or more to AVOID running my business. It’s the greatest of feelings to do what you love doing, getting paid for it and you own it. The old saying is true: Do what you LOVE and the money will come.” I have never heard anyone say “Do what you HATE and the money will come” (laugh). I read a very interesting story of a man in black enterprise who was an attorney, mostly because his parents wanted him to be one. He was successful but he hated doing it. He wanted to bake cakes. When he told friends about this some laughed but people who sampled the cakes he made thought it was a great idea. He left his attorney job and has one of the most successful cake businesses on the east coast. Another attorney, I was reading about in the LA Times left his corporate job to use an old beat up church as a place to create counseling and to show interest in at-risk youth bound for gangs. He went from cushy corporate job to mopping smelly urinals and sweeping up huge dead rats to build and achieve the business for his passion and he LOVES it. What is your passion…. NOW? Is it the same as it was a few years ago. Do you look forward to running your business? Is it taking it’s toll on you? Just know that if you started and succeeded at one business, you already have the tools to do it again. Don’t wait until you are completely discouraged because you are so burnt out on what you are doing, save that energy to light the flame under your next venture. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Use your down/free time to make the necessary moves to start your new business and look forward to the day when you can (for the first time or once again) leap out of bed with the greatest smile on your face ready to face a great business day with customers coming to YOU for your services in droves. it IS possible!
Wishing you the best in Business

February 24, 2012