Keeping the Faith

I seldom have clients complain to me about work that I have done for them. Either they are genuinely pleased (and I think most are) or they are apprehensive about angering 220 lbs of fully grown adult male Zimbabwean (I hope not)! But every now and then I get clients who very nicely, ask me to tinker with the work I have done for them; they are not getting the results they expected and understandably want to put this right.

Now forgive me for sounding arrogant - I do not mean to - but it usually turns out that the work I have done does work if it is allowed to. A common misapprehension clients have is that an ad or a website is all they need to get instant business rolling in. Wrong! Your website is just one of numerous links in a chain between your customer's wallet and your bank account.

When I create a brochure or a website for you, I see them as tools that enhance the prospects of engaging with a new customer. They cannot work in isolation and they cannot be expected to deliver a sudden and immediate rise in business. Sorry.

To see an increase in business, dramatic or gradual, two things are required: Firstly, you have to drive people to your website or business by letting them know that its there by any and all means possible. Secondly, you have to be patient. In most cases, marketing activity delivers a gradual ramping-up of new business. It is also logical that the more marketing activity you do, the more people will engage with you.

Marketing is like hammering in a nail: If you want a sudden and dramatic impact, you need to be able to afford a nail gun. Small businesses seldom have nail gun-size budgets and so have to make do with a hammer that gradually drives their "nail" into the market.

Successful marketing is not difficult and it need not be expensive. In fact, it can largely be free! I generate a lot of business by placing just four ads a day on a free classifieds website, Gumtree.com. It takes me just 10 minutes every day to update the ads (I could choose to pay for them to be automatically updated, or even featured on the site, but I'm happy to spend the ten minutes rather than the money). I also advertise on as many free directories as possible - and the results are both on my web stats and trickling into my bank account.

Its taken me a long time to generate the levels of business that I have. To be honest, I have not done nearly enough (which is why I don't own a Porsche). I should be networking. I don't. I should be attending trade shows. Have I? No! I should be writing articles for my trade press. Not a word. And I should have set this blog up ages ago. Lazy bastard. But as I imagine my bank manager says, something is better than nothing.

The other thing to do is to become a forensic marketing detective. Try to discover where, how and why your customers are being lost. There is a lot to consider on this subject, so I will write more about it another time.

So summing up: Tinker with your marketing by all means, but give it a chance to work. If no one's visiting your website, its not because your website is at fault. Its because they do not know that its there. You need to do something about that.

Getting Paid

As a small business specialist and more particularly as someone who has had his fingers severely burnt in the past, I thought I would air my thoughts on the getting paid side of my business.

I have a simple policy: No credit. Generally, this works fine - many of my clients pay their up-front deposits without arguing and then pay the balance on completion. I like that. And I like them for paying so promptly. Its clean and simple and it allows me to cost less - because believe me, if you wanted to pay on 30 days you'd be paying significantly more for the privilege. Its a trade-off for both me and my client.

So why am I such a hard-nosed bastard? First off, I may seem hard-nosed but I'm not. People who are purchasing my services are not buying them as "stock" to sell on for an eventual profit. They are not waiting for someone to pay them for the service they just bought. Sure, my services are there to help generate business, but lets be honest, they are just part of a whole range of things one must do to attract customers.

Secondly, I have very few clients with a track record long enough - or more importantly, big enough - to qualify for a 30 day account. When a business can demonstrate a continuing habit of spending about 5k a month with me, (and they do not make up a major percentage of my overall income) then I will be astute enough to offer to ease their path with a 30 day account. I will also do other things to earn their love and loyalty: A (genuinely free) lunch or two, perhaps drinks after work on a regular basis... But I will also watch them like a hawk. I do not tolerate 30 days slipping into 60 days...

Thirdly, and I've already touched on this, my clients get to benefit from my many years of experience and my hard-won skills, not to mention talent, for a very reasonable rate. Working as I do with start-ups and small businesses, I have to compete on price with others. If my quote is not attractive in the first place, it is unlikely that prospective clients will hang around to discover my talents.

My cash system seems to be working quite well. I do have the odd hiccup with the occasional client who pays the balance late, but at least I'm still in possession of their work. Also, the balance due is seldom a back-breaking amount. I make sure that it isn't by offering clients a staggered payment arrangement over the course of a big-spend project. But most importantly, I believe that my clients are glad to pay for the work because I deliver beyond their expectations.

I have been using Google Checkout for client payments, but recently I have been getting them to pay directly into my account by bank transfer. Why? Because these days the transfer amount is generally reflected instantly rather than in the past when the banks required four working days for 'clearance'. Google Checkout, I suspect, sits on the cash and earns interest for a few days before crediting it to my account. Not good enough!