Why Your Clients Won’t Pay Up On Time, And What To Do About It

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One of the most frustrating things in business are clients who won’t pay on time. Your accounts receivable might be making your balance sheet look healthy, but if the money doesn’t actually arrive in your account, it’s no use to you whatsoever.

How Slow And Non Paying Clients Put Your Business At Risk

Slow paying clients aren’t just a nuisance. They can cause your business serious financial harm. First, customers who pay late can cause serious cash flow problems. You may have made decisions in advance, such as taking on a new employee or signing a new contract, banking on the fact that you would get paid by a specified date. But when clients don’t pay up, you can experience a cash flow shortfall, even if your underlying business is healthy. Not having cash on hand in the present can lead to serious relationship problems with your staff and suppliers, especially when they go unpaid.

The second issue is the extra administrative burden non-paying clients place on your business. Not only do you not have the money you’re owed in your account, but you also have to pay out extra administrative costs to chase people up. What’s more, the repercussions of non-payment can affect people at the senior level – the very people who should be focusing on moving the business forward. Wondering whether you might get paid takes your mind off other tasks, reducing your creativity and causing additional stress.

If you find that late invoice payments are a perennial problem for your business, then it might be time to revamp your payment collection process. The good news is that there is a lot you can do to remedy the problem of late-paying clients. Here’s what to do.

Make Invoicing More Convenient

One of the reasons why your clients might not be paying you on time is that your invoicing process is complicated or antiquated. In a world of instant gratification like ours, people don’t want to have to jump through hurdles to do something as simple as making a payment. What they want is to be able to quickly and easily pay you the money you’re owed and move on. Thus, friction in the payment process can be a real problem.

The good news is that technology has made it easier than ever to pay. Paying for your business services needn’t be any more difficult than ordering a new pair of shoes online. So long as your business has a merchant account, many accounting software packages now come with the option of sending a card payment option along with digital invoices, meaning that your customers don’t even have to do a bank transfer. If you use a cloud solution, you can make the process even easier by allowing people to pay using mobile devices.

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Use Spot Factoring

Small and medium-sized businesses regularly find themselves in the following situation. They’ve just completed a large order and used a significant amount of their capital in the process. They get another large order in from a different client, but they’re unable to fulfill it because they still haven’t been paid for the first. In short, they have nothing in the bank to pay their suppliers and vendors.

In situations like this, companies need advice on slow paying clients. One of the best pieces of advice out there is to use spot factoring, a process where a third party company buys up the invoice and immediately pays out a cash value for it. This process provides your company with immediate funding and passes on the hassle of chasing up late payments from a client onto somebody else.

Create A Better Relationship With Your Client

Another reason why clients don’t pay up on time could be to do with your relationship with them. They might not be conscious of your existence, or worse, they might not like you. Customers will find all sorts of reasons not to pay on time, or at all, including what they think about you personally.

To really get clients on your side, you need to create personal relationships with them. Ideally, you’d generate a creating great business partnerships tips, empathy, and understanding which would make it uncomfortable for the client to make a late payment. Having a close relationship with a client also makes it easier to broach the issue, should they fail to pay on time. Being able to call them up and discuss it over is often a lot more productive than simply sending them a threatening letter in the post.

Ask For Money Up Front

In some industries, the sellers of a new product or service have the luxury of asking for payment up front. But even if that isn’t how your industry typically operates, there are still options open to you.

One idea is to break up a project into chunks. Get clients to pay for small chunks of the project as you go along. This way, you have the security of getting regularly paid before spending resources to carry out work, and your client can test the waters, rather than paying for everything up front before knowing whether you’re going to do a good job or not.

Some clients might actually prefer to pay up front. By paying up front, they know that they’re not going to get smacked with a big bill later on.

Settle Payments Terms In Writing Before Carrying Out Work

Late payments or non-payments can sometimes arise out of confusion. Often, clients simply don’t know when they’re supposed to pay, and so they wait and wait until something happens. If your company is relying on good cash flow to pay staff and suppliers, then you want to avoid this situation at all costs.

When you get down to the matter of payment, establish a payment timetable with your client in writing. Although formal relationships like this might seem a little extreme, they can actually be very effective at building trust. Your customers will take the arrangement more seriously if it is in writing and will get the impression that you’re not messing around. You run a tight ship, and you expect them to pay on time.

Streamlining Your Business To Save Time And Money

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Running your own business is no walk in the park. There are a lot of things to think about, and if you have sole responsibility for many business areas, things can start to get messy. Having too many tasks and processes can start to make things complicated, and could be costing you valuable time and money. If you think that your business could do with some efficiency, read on for tips on how to streamline your business.

Cut down your paperwork

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Paperwork is the bane of many office environments, whether it’s a home office or an actual office. It builds up quickly, has to be filed and quite often it’s unnecessary. Having a lot of paper around means that it’s likely that important documents get lost, while also slowing down your ability to carry out tasks while hunting around through various bits of paperwork. Assess the paperwork that you have and ask how much of it is really necessary and how long it needs to be kept. If you can combine some forms and do away with others entirely, you might find that you can reduce your paperwork (and workload) easily without having to sacrifice on the quality or output of your work.

Use software to simplify

There is a lot of great software out there that can help make your processes simpler and automate many tasks, saving you time and money. Some good examples include contract management software from this website, accounting software and people management portals. Investing in software may have some initial cost to your business, but having it can free up your time to do other tasks as well as limiting the room for error and inconsistencies between documents.

Join the Cloud

Everyone is moving to the cloud. There are many advantages for those who embrace cloud computing, including more flexible working and overall cheaper running costs for your technology. Cloud computing enables people to work seamlessly on documents, which can save a lot of the time spent going back and forth amongst other benefits. Cloud computing is also better for the environment and reduces how much energy and paper you use around the office and can make your company run more efficiently. It’s also a secure system with backs up your data constantly to prevent any loss of data which could come from a regular server.

Improve your digital offering

If you find that your website is looking a bit lacklustre or isn’t fulfilling its purpose, it might be time for an update. Improving your website of boosting your social media activities could help you to engage better with more customers and give them more of what they want. Think of digital as not only a marketing tool but a listening tool that can help you understand your customers better and build a better relationship with them.

Streamlining your business is easier than you might think. You’ll find many simple changes can reduce workload and costs to make your business easier to run so that you can focus your energies on the more important parts of your business.

Young Business Owners: Gain Respect From Older Employees

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When you’re working with a team of people who are older than you, it can be difficult to get them to take you seriously. It doesn’t matter how qualified you are or how much experience you’ve gained in a short amount of time; an older generation will always believe that life experience is more valuable. It’s a tough situation to be in, but you won’t be able to achieve your goals if your team can’t view you as their boss. The fact that youth doesn’t necessarily equal inexperience is something your employees will need to learn. Here’s how you can prove it to them.

Show Your Knowledge

There’s no point walking into a room full of older people with plenty of knowledge and only knowing bits and pieces. You need to demonstrate that your knowledge of the industry is second to none. Make sure you’re doing thorough research and staying abreast of innovative ideas. Subscribe to reading material with the latest trends and make connections with people of influence. Most importantly, focus on doing your job well, instead of showing off. If you’re dedicated to your job and willing to go above and beyond, you’ll gain more respect than if you were to spend your time competing against employees.

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Lead by Example

There’s no doubt that every business owner has to be a leader. If you’re managing a team of employees who are older than you, you need to be the best leader you can be. Perhaps you could benefit on a leadership MBA online to brush up on your skills.  When you want to set a good example, you have to be the first one to arrive at the office and the last one to leave. You have to do your fair share of work, but you also have to have others on your mind. The point of being a leader is guiding people in achieving their goals.

Allow Suggestions

No matter what your age is, no-one likes a boss who thinks they’re better than everyone else. If you’re working with a team of older people, you’re in a prime position to gather valuable advice. Don’t get so preoccupied with proving yourself, that you forget to take advantage of the expertise of your team. No-one knows it all, and trying to demonstrate that you do just because you’re young is a fool’s errand. If you want to be taken seriously, learn to listen. People are far more likely to want to work with you if their suggestions are used.

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Be Determined

One of the barriers to working with an older generation is that they may be used to using different methods in their work. As a young boss, you may have more insight into how to move the business forward. You’ll have a fresh perspective that some of your workers may not agree with. This is when you’ll need to put your foot down and demonstrate the benefits of your ideas and overrule anyone who disagrees with you. However, if there are instances when your ideas prove to be wrong, it’s important that you admit your mistake instead of making excuses. Your staff will respect you more, even if you feel embarrassed.

Stay Calm

There are many times when business doesn’t go to plan. You’ll be faced with difficult decisions and stressful times. You may be under a lot of pressure, but it’s important you remain calm and don’t let the pressure effect your mood or your relationships. As a boss, your staff will be judging you on your behaviour during the most testing times. So, show them you can handle stress as well as they can and you can come up with solutions when they’re needed. Your calm attitude will reassure them in times of high stress.

Dress Appropriately

If your staff members are turning up to work in a suit and tie, well-groomed and ready for anything, and you’re turning up in a t-shirt and jeans, you’ll inadvertently be making the gap between you and your staff even larger. If the older members of your team are putting a huge effort into the way they present themselves, you need to do the same. You won’t necessarily have to wear a suit every day, but it’s important you show up looking smart. You can also try introducing a more relaxed dress code for work so you and your team meet somewhere in the middle.

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Your Business Persona

The way you behave in work may be very different to the way you are outside of work. As a boss to older people, you may not have the luxury of being their best friends. You need to present yourself in the way you want people to see you. So, if you want to be respected leader, you need to act like one. Ask yourself how you want to be viewed in your job role and create a business persona accordingly. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with your natural personality. If you have to act your way through to getting the respect you desire, don’t be afraid to do it.

Expectations

Lastly, start off your new team with an open mind. It isn’t safe to make assumptions because you may have one older person on the team who is determined to find fault in your leadership and one older person who’s determined to help you reach your goals. It’s important that your employees know what you expect of them and you listen to them when they tell you what they expect of a good leader. Always keep the lines of communication open and never forget how much an older person can bring to a team.

At the end of it all, the best way to show your team, no matter what age they are, is to achieve your desired results. It’s only when the business reaches desired outcomes that your employees will see the benefit of working hard and working together. So, as a leader, be patient and let your work speak for itself.

Job Hunters: Here’s What Employers REALLY Want To See on Your CV!

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The job market is fierce, for every vacancy out there there’s usually a massive amount of interest. What this means for employers is they have to trawl through CVs- and a lot of them at that, so if yours doesn’t stand out in any way it’s not going to get a second glance. While everyone’s work history and experience is different, you can find that most people’s are shockingly similar with the same bland information and phrases swirling around. Here are a couple of ways you can set yourself ahead of the competition and catch an employer’s eye.

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Speaking Another Language

Being able to speak another language is incredibly impressive and is something that will wow an employer- even if it’s not linked to the job you’re applying for. On the other hand, some careers may require you to be multilingual, so it’s something well worth learning especially if there’s a particular kind of job you want. You could do evening classes and be fluent within a year which really isn’t much time at all if you consider what a complex skill it is. If English isn’t your mother tongue, getting a good grasp of it from a company like EffortlessEnglishClub could boost your chances of a job massively. Since this is one of the world’s most commonly spoken languages, it’s something employers will put a lot of value on.

A Unique Hobby

Employers have seen time and time again how people like ‘going to the gym’ ‘seeing movies’ and ‘socialising with friends’. Most people do these things, it gives very little away about your character. And your hobbies are a chance to show what you’re really like! If you partake in anything fun, quirky or unusual be sure to add this to your CV. It will help to set you apart from the crowd and give more of an insight to what makes you tick. If you’re in search of a fun new hobby, this could be the motivation you need to get out there and find something. You will enjoy yourself, and it will give your cv that bit of an edge.

Voluntary Work

Everyone should aim to do voluntary work if possible. Not only does it give something back to those less fortunate and make you feel good, but from a purely selfish perspective, it looks good on your CV too! This shows employers that you’re in touch with the world aren’t purely driven by money and have a compassionate nature. You could spend a summer abroad helping in a third world country, or you could do an hour a week somewhere local. Elderly care homes, children’s hospitals, animal rescue centres and homeless shelters are usually crying out for extra help. Other things you could do for charity too is fundraising. How about coming up with a unique idea to raise money and getting your friends and colleagues involved? It’s for a good cause and an excellent addition to your CV.

What do you have on your CV which sets it apart from the rest?

Brand Marketing Campaigns That Expose You To New Markets

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All businesses want to take territory, either by being first or taking customers away from their competition. The world of business is kind of like a contact sport because you’re aggressively trying to outsell your competition and prove to the world why you’re just plain better than they are. The contact, however, is done with the consumers when you’re trying to convince them that your products and services would make their life more enjoyable and or easy. The battle that is fought in the trenches is the marketing campaign. Exposing your brand to new markets should be treated like a well-orchestrated battle plan. Companies spend a significant amount of time and money on advertising both online and in the real world. Although the world has advanced to a stage that many think only the online presence of a business is important, meeting people face to face, shaking their hand, introducing yourself will never be replaced. Conducting a campaign of brand exposure requires research and assembling of your team.

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Calling the troops

First and foremost you need a call to action. Whether you’re trying to expose your brand to a new market, releasing a new product or service or expanding to another country, you want to give cause to your actions. Every single advertising campaign contact a clear and compelling selling point that moves consumers further down the funnel and closer to the closer. This is called the point of conversion, but it is solely driven by a business that has clearly defined where it is coming from, why the customer should buy their product and how this would improve their life.

It starts off in the boardroom, where all the heads of departments from your business assemble. Here you will stand your troops to attention. Outline clearly your goal for a new product or marketing campaign and spell out your expectations of each member. Each department must have their own section in the call to action brief. In the documents, you must outline how they will work together, what their roles are and the deadlines for everyone to aim for.

Tactile online consumers

It’s crucial you have a compelling message to put across to the audience. This means you need to identify the right fighting grounds, such as online and marketing face to face. In the online world, you should focus and study on how your competition conducts their advertising campaigns. Their motives, target audience, unique selling point, and methodology should be worded in the documents you give to your own marketing team. Take inspiration from a successful brand, but don’t copy and paste their ethos onto yours.

With any digital platform, messaging is critical as it’s the key component when communicating with potential customers. You don’t need a lot of copy space and even a lot of funds to create a campaign that catches the attention of most browsing consumers. You need a compelling, short, sharp message, but at the same time, doesn’t seem rushed or underhanded. Clickbait is dying out, but emotional marketing is rising faster than anything else. Connect your product or service with something meaningful to the majority of consumers.

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Real world imagery

The image of your business will nowhere be most tested than in the real world, because you’ll be out in the open, interacting with all kinds of consumers. You can hire a third party marketing team to go out far and wide for your company, but using your own marketing employees is the best option because they know the business from the inside. Apart from having employees distribute and conduct questionnaires on the streets, you could also use high traffic events to reach and expose your brand to new customers.

With a modern screen printing exposure unit, this technology can print off intricate t-shirt designs that are one-of-a-kind. By taking your business to a festival or musical event, you can give these t-shirts away as prizes at your stall. For the testing and feedback of new products and services at these festivals done by customers, these t-shirts can be the reward. People will be wearing your brand logo with perhaps your website or social media accounts on the t-shirt. Essentially, it’s free and long lasting marketing done by consumers themselves. Each staff member should have these t-shirts on while they conduct interviews, introduce themselves, selling products and generally mingle with the crowd.

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Test, understand, test again

When testing your marketing strategy on consumers, it can be a very nerve wracking time. Sometimes arbitrary factors have an adverse impact on your campaign, even though the idea and implementation are sound. Don’t let this discourage you and know that this is the exact reason why you should test and test again. Advertisements may look good on paper, they may even look good when finalized, but it all depends on how they’re taken by the consumer. This is why it’s important to test your marketing strategy before it goes live. It’s critical you pay attention to the fluctuations of negative and positive responses to digital advertisements.

A great way to keep ahead of the curve is to monitor your social media accounts, and see how users are responding to your campaign. You should be using a unique hashtag, so whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or any other large community-based news sharing website, you’re accurately tracking the criticisms you receive. A key factor in not wasting resources and time is to make sure that through the correct algorithm, your advertisements aren’t popping up on consumers that are more than likely not to be interested, especially if you’re in a very specific industry. Marketing campaigns that outright, inadvertently target the wrong type of person, purely eat away at your bandwidth and funds.

Brand marketing campaigns should be treated as a battle plan. You’re going to be contacting consumers from around the world, and first impressions count. The world moves fast, and it’s unfortunate to admit, but you only have one chance to get it right. Assemble your team, make sure they’re notified and informed by a well-written and clear, call to action. Monitor and test your campaign strategy and never think that real world marketing is dead. Present yourself and the brand in public, and show your competition you’re taking them head on by communicating with all consumers in high traffic locations.