Have you ever read the book ""The Four Hour Workweek"" by Tim Ferris. It's, without a doubt, one of my favorite business books of all times, and I recommend it to nearly everyone I talk business with. But the reason I bring it up today is that this book is creating a phenomenon of lifestyle changes across the country. People are working in offices less, and working from other areas on Earth more. Actually, families are now taking year-long sabbaticals from their normal daily grinds in order to live the life of a digital nomads.
What does that have to do with getting paid, you might wonder. Simple. This is a trend that is growing just as fast as Atkins or the South Beach Diet. Soon, it will be something everyone considers at least once, and possibly even tries (...including this author. Come August, I plan to take my own family on a year-long sabbatical around the world). It is a trend that you can hop on early by catering to these people before they move out of your market area. Here's what I mean...
A common mistake a lot of associations make is not accepting every form of payment they can possibly accept. Obviously, everyone takes cash, although not everyone wants it. Money orders and checks are common in industries like the property management and rental industries, but not much else. Cash and credit card are common in the restaurant industry, but not checks or money orders. Checks, money orders and ""creative financing"" are used in the automotive industry, but again, it's rare that they accept anything else. But none of these payment methods are really feasible for someone who lives on the other side of the world. These are all payment options that often require being in a location in person, or having someone sign a slip of paper. To cater to people you never physically see - like virtual bookkeepers and their business colleagues - you require to initialize accepting fees in other forms. Because if you are the only person or company accepting the ""other forms of payment"" while your competition does not, you will dominate your industry in your area.
Now think about what payment types your industry accepts. What don't you accept for payment, and why not?
An Example of Why Not Accepting ""Other Forms of Payment"" is Just Downright Stupid
As stated previously, Property Management associations rarely take anything but cash, checks, money orders or cashier's checks. On the other side of the equation, are their clients - homeowners. Due to layoffs, job changes, or an upside down housing market, homeowners can easily fall behind on their payments. The fact that it may indeed not be the ""industry standard"" to take a credit card is a ridiculous reason for a property management company not to get paid. If they took credit cards, homeowners can catch up immediately, and sometimes get miles. Instead, they fall behind, and the property management has to send the account to collections or place a lien against the property. This is a long messy process that can easily be avoided, but instead encourages a homeowner to ""just let the property get foreclosed on."" Then, the payment will become the next homeowner's problem, and the property management company may have to write off a portion of the money owed to them as ""bad debt."'' This all could have been avoided if the property management company just made it easy for a homeowner to pay another way - i.e., from a credit card.
The truth is, the more varieties of fees you take, the more useful you'll be to your business partners.
Now that I've got you thinking, check out these other genres of payment you require to think about.
PayPal: PayPal is promptly becoming one of the fastest, easiest, and least costly ways to pay money for something. With it, you can immediately wire cash to anyone anywhere in our time, for a tiny fee that the receiver pays. You can also receive credit card payments or bank debit transactions, and you would pay as little as 1.9% of the transaction if you chose to allow your business friends to pay via PayPal. This is utterly an Internet-based payment option, and all you would have to do is put a link on your web page that allows your customer to pay you. But, there are lots of other benefits to accepting PayPal. For one thing, the account is free to setup, and any payments received can be transferred straight to your preset bank account. For another thing, you can get a debit card that accesses this account, and thus use PayPal as your second bank account. Honestly, there is no real reason not to use this payment option.
Credit Card: there's a saying in Mary Kay that I've always found to be true. If a business partner can use a credit card, they will tend to purchase 25% more than if they had to pay cash. Why? Because a credit card can be paid back as time passes, and thus doesn't feel like real money when a business colleague uses it. Thus, credit cards create more impulsive purchases. Yet many associations don't accept this form of payment because often they have to pay a fee of 4-6% of a transaction. But think about it: Would you rather spend 4 to 6% to increase your sales by 25%, or would you rather not make that money at all? In my opinion, not taking credit cards is foolish. Not only can you increase your profits promptly, but you can also expand your local market area to a global market area. Therefore, If you aren't taking credit cards, you should be. I don't care if your industry's standard is not to take credit cards. Credit cards are basically ""Creative Financing"" for the average business. And since PayPal enables you to take credit cards and pay as little as 1.9% of the transaction, there's no reason not to take credit cards.
Creative Financing / 3 Monthly payments: One of the ""effective tricks"" that I've also seen Mary Kay consultants use is to accept postdated checks - an superb type of creative financing. They would take one check for a portion of the total that they could cash promptly, and then another check that they would cash at a later date, thus allowing the business colleague time to earn the money or get it in the bank. By doing this, they are offering their customers credit without actually giving them credit. They have the check in hand, and they can call the bank at any time to verify the funds are available and thus get paid. And oddly enough, I never heard even one tale of a business colleague calling the bank to cancel he check ahead of time, particularly because a cancelled check fee runs $18 to $30. Even if they close the account and try to run with the product, they would still have to pay the bank the bounced check fee if you went to cash that check.
Legally, anyone can take up to three post dated payments at once for any services or goods rendered - which is why as you settle with creditors, they will experiment with to get you to make three monthly payments. You can have someone postdate those checks to when they would like to have them cashed and then not worry about trying to collect later...you have the money in hand. While I would not always recommend this as the ""standard"" for a payment, it is an great way to make absolutely sure you get the money for a product without dealing with credit cards.
Cashing a Check like a Debit Card: did you ever gone to a business, written a check, watched the check get validated, and then been handed back the check with the word ""Void"" written all over it. If you have, then you would already be familiar with this payment method. You see, similarly to a credit card is sometimes run through a machine to access the client's funds, a similar machine exists that allows a client's checking account to be accessed and a payment taken quickly and digitally. The check is validated and cashed right there at the time of the transaction, and the voided check is handed back to the client as a valid receipt. The money is immediately deposited into your account, and there's no longer any need to worry that that check will bounce.
Check Cashing by Phone: One of the web portals Tim Ferris suggested in his book for processing payments is http://visitwebpages.info/paypalchecks/. This site enables one to process checks over the phone and only pay a $5 transaction fee. While this may not seem like something you need to utilize, think about this. If you accept a payment for $100, then your transaction fee is 5% - less than many merchant services often charge. For $two hundred, you are paying 2.5% of the transaction. For $1,000, that is only 0.5%. And all you have to do is call in or go on the internet to process that check promptly. No longer will you should hope that a check is valid or has enough funds. And this means that you can take a check from anyone on the planet and promptly receive payment for goods or services. Why not use this service. It makes accepting checks a more secure transaction.
To review these tools visit:
http://visitwebpages.info/paypalchecks/
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