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To Get Paid When YOU Want

To make an obvious point, the news is filled with the latest reports of an economy in trouble and financial crisis. As business owners, we feel the pinch like everyone else.

But all this bad news does not mean that you can’t get new clients or customers for your business.

It does mean that you have to be a bit creative with how you plan on getting paid.

Payment Processing & Marketing

So how does accepting payment for services link to marketing?

Well, for starters make it easy for your potential customers to use your products and/or services.

Let me share a recent example with you:

One of my customer billing clients in the professional services sector called because they were tired of invoicing for services and chasing checks. Who wants to keep hearing “it’s in the mail.”

The solution was really a two part plan.  Start accepting credit cards by using a “virtual terminal” or gateway.

And then, offer payment plans to break up larger payments into smaller ones.

The idea?

Reduce price as an objection by being flexible… and by making the cost appear smaller.

In the above example, the cost for using my client’s service was $1200.  Using my suggestion, he offered 1 pay, 3 pay and 6 pay options.

So why offer payment plans?

1. Removes price as a potential objection
2. Levels out your cash flows
3. Generates more profit for your business

Now, to do payment plans properly, don’t simply divide your cost for service by 3 or 6 (in this example).  It’s perfectly OK to charge more for being flexible.

To expand on our real life example, the 1 pay option is the lowest possible payment choice.

For 3 pay, you could make 3 even payments of $425.  This would come to a total fee of $1275.

For a 6 pay option, you could offer 6 payments of $275.  That would come out to $1650 total.

The rule of thumb?

The longer the payment option, the more you should make from extending this option. Think of it as adding a risk premium to the overall cost.

And trust me on this, very few (if anybody) will actually bust out a calculator to figure out how much they pay you over the long-haul by selecting the payment plan.

It just doesn’t happen.

Not to mention, by accepting credit cards you don’t waste time sending invoices and waiting for checks to arrive.

Bottom line, you want to get paid for your services. And in my opinion, there’s no better way to do that than by accepting credit cards and using payment plans when needed to

• grow your business,
• level out cash flows,
• and in the end make more money from the sale

That’s one way to recession proof your business.

To learn how we might be able to help you set up payment plans or with setting up recurring billing systems follow the link and search through our directory for merchant account providers who can help you with that.

You can also request a free merchant account quote and have providers contact you directly.