Risk and Reward Getting paid 101

Produce, sell, invoice, collect. What a simple process business trading can be. Many businesses have excellent systems in place for the first three aspects of trading, but fall down badly when it comes to getting paid by their debtors. Here are some helpful hints for getting debtors’ money into your bank account.

Prior to making the sale:

•  Engage your customers and ensure they are familiar with and sign your terms of trade, which for larger transactions should include a personal guarantee and an authorisation for credit checking
•  Ensure your quotes are detailed and accurate and allow for any extras to be authorised. Develop quality control systems which prevent poor product or service delivery
• Clarify with customers how and when payment is expected

After delivery of your product or service:

• Send accurately detailed invoices promptly, restating the duedate for payment
• Promptly follow up any customer issues, avoiding the likelihood of a dispute
• Contact customers immediately if payment is not received on due date

What next if you have a satisfied customer who just refuses to pay?  We put this to an experienced fellow of the Credit Institute of New Zealand.  Here’s what he had to say:
1. If phone or email contact has been unsuccessful, write to the debtor advising that if the invoice is not paid within 7 days the account will be referred to a debt collector.
2. Be true to your word and don’t pussy foot around.  Take a strong stance and refer the debt for collection by a reputable agency.
3. The debt collector will take you through the process, which may include a number of legal remedies depending upon the debtor’s legal structure and the nature of the goods or services supplied.
Often the threat of legal action will frighten the debtor into paying up, so don’t be shy in demanding payment in this way.
Remember also that great debt collectors are very experienced at getting blood out of a stone.  Unless you or your staff have the experience and passion for collecting money, it’s unlikely you’ll get the same result.

DisclaimerThis post has been carefully prepared, but it has been written in general terms only. The publication should not be relied upon to provide specific information without also obtaining appropriate professional advice after detailed examination of your particular situation.

Article Source: Accounting North

Greg Longstaff
Business Development Consultant
Franchise Network Specialist
greg@salesmarket.co.nz
+64 9.307.7860

Marketing works better when you have the numbers to back it up

by Lisa Kember⁴,  Constant Contact Regional Development Director, Southern Ontario

As a marketer, small business owner, or nonprofit manager, you're likely obsessed with numbers. Usually those numbers have to do with sales, donations, event attendees, or operating costs. But there are other ways to gauge how successful (or not) a marketing program has been.
Email marketing and social media offer a wealth of options and success metrics. It's one reason why both have grown in popularity in recent years. After all, you can see how many people open an email, but you can't see how many people open an envelope.
Here are 5 ways to get data that will tell you how successful you are in your various marketing efforts, and how that data can contribute to your bottom-line results:
1. Email metrics Conventional email metrics, like open rate and click-through rate⁵, can instantly tell you whether your subscribers are opening and engaging with your message, so you can easily tell how effectively you've captured people's attention and prompted them to act. And you can compare your results to others too: Average open rates⁶ range from 17% to 28%, depending on industry and type of organization. So if you're a business-to-business organization and you're getting a 38% open rate, you know you're doing well.
2. Shares These days, knowing how far beyond subscribers' inboxes your email went is becoming a critical metric to measure. It's all well and good for one person to click on the links in an email, but if the content was so compelling that the person felt the need to share it on social media, then that extends the reach of your message even further. Constant Contact's email reports⁷ display the number of shares your emails get, and even say where your messages were shared (on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or someplace else). Of course, you won't get any sharing data if you don't enable your emails to be shared, so make sure to turn on the Social Share bar⁸ the next time you send a campaign.
3. Follower count While the number of Twitter followers you have is only half the equation⁹ (the other half being what you do with those followers), measuring your growth in audience¹⁰ is a significant metric to track over time. Follower count is not going to skyrocket overnight, but if you note the number of people who follow you each month, you'll likely see growth on a consistent basis.
4. Facebook Insights Yes, Facebook seems easy to measure because you can see how many fans, likes, and comments you get. But you can learn so much more about how well you're doing on Facebook by taking advantage of the site's free Page Insights analytics tool¹¹, which tells Page admins information such as demographics and how many people are visiting the Page during a selected time period. Facebook Insights can also tell you how many new "Likes" you got over a period of time, and where those new Likes came from, which can help you better spread the word about your Page to new fans.
5. Klout An increasingly important metric is your Klout score¹², which measures your online influence. The score is a quick, numerical rating of that influence, based on everything from comments to shares to number of Twitter followers. While there's debate about the validity of Klout scores¹³, some people look at the number to determine the credibility of a business or organization, especially when it comes to social media expertise. For you, a high Klout score could lead to more speaking opportunities. And having customers with high Klout scores opens the door to greater word of mouth marketing.
While sales or donations may be the final determination of how successful your business or organization is, these other metrics  can help you gauge how well you're doing in the meantime

Article Source: Constant Contact

Greg Longstaff
Business Development Consultant
Franchise Network Specialist
greg@salesmarket.co.nz
+64 9.307.7860

The best way to teach and learn

Many of us acquire our dominant learning habits through our experiences as students.  However, those experiences we had in the classroom do not mean that this is the best way to teach and learn topics now.

New studies in education contain key lessons that can be applied to the business environment.

You will probably be pleased to hear that the quantity of study is not important – it is the quality.  Interestingly, the amount of time students spend on homework has risen over the last 3 decades – but the level of educational attainment has not risen with the increased workload.  In fact, traditional homework assignments in science, English and history have been shown to have “little to no impact” on student test scores.  What a waste of time!

Fortunately, in recent years, brain research has uncovered better ways to absorb, retain and apply knowledge.  Applying these new techniques in the classroom has been shown to lift exam scores by 13-25%.

As a business leader, you need to be aware of this new research, and apply it to the way you teach your staff on the job skills.  Here is an overview:

Spaced repetition.

This technique has a proven positive impact on learning. Instead of studying a topic, then moving onto the next topic as most training modules do, it is far superior to review the same materials over and over in a series of brief sessions spread over a longer prior of time.

When we are re-exposed to the same information frequently, we are forced to use the same neural pathways over and over – and the content becomes burned into our brains and retained.

So while we might roll our eyes at having to do yet another training session on how to use our CRM program – brain science suggests that we do in fact benefit.

Retrieval practice.

Rather than one big exam, a series of smaller exams that force us to retrieve the same information over and over are far superior. Reading and making notes on a subject doesn’t impact learning very much, but every time we are forced to retrieve a memory in an exam situation we make it stronger and more lasting.  Hurray – more exams!

How can you continually test your staff to enhance their learning?

Make them work for it.

Interestingly, if we make the subject too easy, our brains discount the information as not being worth remembering.  We need to make people work for it.  The extra effort signals our brains that the knowledge is worth keeping.  This can be achieved by creating different scenarios that force people to revisit the topic from a variety of different angles.

Your homework assignment:

How can you apply this research to the way you train and induct new staff?  How can you use it to reinforce and upgrade the knowledge of your existing staff?

Article Source: Results.com


Greg Longstaff
Business Development Consultant
Franchise Network Specialist
greg@salesmarket.co.nz
+64 9.307.7860