Rule One of Business: Get Paid
To get paid, just like you would realise is vitally important at your business because if you aren’t paid, what are you doing in business?
You may be laughing at the amount of business people who only have their customer base to simply pay when and if they get on with it. I know such a businessman who always gets bad debts like charms. How is that? Just because he cannot bring himself to demand the payment and lets people take advantage of him.
If you let somebody credit, do so only when they have proved consistency to you by paying cash on delivery (COD) for some period of time. Furthermore, you need to gauge whether they have the money to pay you - if not you should not do business with them. Don’t kid yourself into saying “I need the work” or “I need the sales”. It’s ultimately in doing the service or providing the goods for free if you don’t get paid.
If you are the kind of person who can’t demand the cash even after the job has been done, try these cheats:
Tell your customer that when all the work is done with, you will need cash or cheque. They will probably have it ready at completion and you will not need to demand your money.
When handing out your quote, be sure your payment terms are clear.
Do up an invoice with your terms of payment evidently printed and give the customer the invoice when the work is finished. They should take the invoice and simply know they have to pay the money now without you needing to say a word. Make up a “cruel boss” who may burn you alive if you can’t bring back the payment for the job.
Organise your branch to hook you up with Merchant facilities so you can use credit cards such as Mastercard and Visa. The majority of people own credit cards and it would stop the issue of the customer not holding a cheque account or not having the right amount of cash on hand.
Likewise, don’t be persuaded against to hold the goods until they have been paid for. Remember, until they have been paid for, the goods remain to be yours.
If you plan to allow a customer credit, be sure you have taken the following details of them at a time 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 detail, call the bank and make for certain that they have an account with them. Then, contact all of the trade reference and find out if they pay their bills consistently or if there are any difficulties 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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