“Oh, it’s Saturday night

  and I ain’t got nobody. 

I got some money cause

I just got paid…” 

You know that song? Are you singing it right now? Then you know what? Too bad you “ain’t got nobody,” but you’re a lucky boss because it’s not everyone these days who can say they’re getting paid.

If you’re not getting what’s owed you and you own or manage a business, there are other options besides law suits, bankruptcy, or hiring a couple of thugs from you-know-which-State.

This screwed-up economy being what it is, if you haven’t stepped back to re-visit your Accounts Receiveable policies and practices recently, maybe this coming week is a good time to jam an up-dated A/R assessment into your schedule.

You might start with an up-to-the-minute cash flow analysis so you have a sense of the shifting sands.

Next, take a good hard look at what your customer payment and credit arrangements are. Have you adjusted terms to both encourage sales and account for customer needs to avoid major lump-sum payments? Have you done this is a way that also allows you some breathing room? Take some deep breaths

HOW you explore this issue is influenced by the type of business you’re in.

Retail and wholesale operations do not have the same dynamics as manufacturing or B to B. (i.e., what works for a car dealership won’t work for a mattress manufacturer or an IT consultant.) 

Every business, though, has key customers.

And special allowances must be made for theses entities whether you’re drilling their teeth, constructing their townhomes, providing their office supplies or maintaining their insurance coverage.

Will your key customers fold or migrate to lower-priced competitors if you don’t extend them better terms? This need not mean lowering your prices, but it might mean extending payment time terms, or offering special incentives for timely payments. Can you go to a “baker’s dozen” with product sell offers, or with service hours? Take a lesson from construction guys.

Can you put more of a burden for collections on third party negotiators — your bank, finance company, credit and collection firms?  It may be less expensive to bite the bullet and pay for outsourcing help than to drag your staff people, who are inexperienced with the finesse needed to succeed at this task, away from the work they do best.

Careful if you opt in this direction . . . 

Insist that contracted people who actually connect by phone or letter or email treat your customers respectfully and courteously. Be sure you are in control of all interface scripts and personnel. Plant a “secret-shopper” or two on the list to gain a firsthand accounting of how your hired guns perform, and make sure they are honoring your sensitivities. They are contacting YOUR customers, not theirs. 

In their zealousness to earn their percentages, many collection organizations “rough-house” targeted debtors or unleash a barrage of annoying calls from (too often) non-English-speaking callers to the point of prompting backlash, instead of gaining cooperation. 

Okay, okay, I know. It IS Saturday night, after all. So go enjoy. But make a mental note for Monday to check out if the policies and practices you’ve been following are working for you or against you. The same can be said, by the way, for evaluating candidates, so:

HELP SAVE THE ECONOMY November 6th, 2012.

Vote to move small business forward… Support 

those who endorse free market competition and 

 job creation tax incentives for entrepreneurs! 

____________________________________ 

302.933.0116    Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

America runs on small business!

Small business runs on

competition.

Competition runs on sales.

     It’s beyond me why no one in government has yet to figure out this relationship, or be able to translate it into the two following, near-unanimous, conclusions by leading national and global experts:

Free market price competition, state-by-state, is the only workable answer to healthcare reform.

Small business sales success is the ticket to job creation, and job creation is the only workable answer to economic recovery.

     I can understand that most politicians have little or no experience in business, but I cannot understand why they so adamantly refuse to acknowledge the truth of the two statements cited above … why they simply cannot deal with the simplicity of each. 

     They have political agendas. Who cares about their political agendas? Do you know anyone who cares about their political agendas? Our economy and our healthcare reform plans are sitting deep in the bottom of the toilet because our elected officials have agendas for self-aggrandizement, self-promotion, and self-preservation.

     Last time I looked, these people lugging around their agendas were supposed to be representing the taxpayers who have hired them. Hmmm, now there’s a unique thought! Just imagine how much would be possible to achieve if elected officials were not preoccupied with protecting their own butts.

     Imagine if politicians actually served those who elected them, instead of pandering to the government agencies, big business entities, and union constituencies who trip over themselves clinging to elected (and bought) coattails, seeking stimulus money to bail out of the holes they’ve dug for themselves.  

     In fact, ask any group of small business owners, and they’ll tell you that that federal and state government leaders are misguided, ill-informed, inexperienced, and completely unrealistic. They are trying to appease small businesses with a ridiculous, unnecessarily and overly-complicated loan program that no small business owner has time to deal with. And who needs a loan now anyway? Why do tax-incentives have to be Rubix Cubes?

     Government is trying to ramrod an unwanted, unworkable, astronomically expensive healthcare reform program down the throats of small business owners, and simultaneously smokescreen the public into thinking it’s in every one’s best interest when it clearly is not.

     Maybe America’s government and corporate giants and unions do run on donuts and promises and paybacks, but America’s small businesses are fueled by genuine competition, authentic innovation and accountable sales. 

• Small business owners know how to reform healthcare with free market enterprise price competition.
• Small business owners know how to fix the broken industrial manufacturing and financial communities with value-adding and innovation instead of cash handouts.
• Small business owners know how to turn the economy around by creating jobs that big business cannot. And frankly, it sucks that the government flat out refuses to give small businesspeople the chance to do these things that government is incapable of achieving.

     Competition makes life work. Sales are both the heart and the fuel of business. And small business is the engine of our economy. Small business owners don’t talk about “downsizing” and “cashing in political chips” and “taking loans to pay loans.”

     Small business ownerstalk about “opportunity costs” and “cashflow” and “innovation” and “asking and listening to their customers.” They equate sports with their businesses and use competitive terms like: Slamdunk! Goal! Hole-in-one! Gamepoint! TKO! Touchdown! Grandslam! to describe their sales efforts!

     Which sounds healthier to you?

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