Small Business Blog

The rationale behind setting up a merchant services account is pretty straight forward: accepting credit card payments generally helps you capture more customers and get paid faster. In theory, every business owner could stand to have a few more customers on the books and a few less dollars tied up in accounts receivable (AR).

But that’s theory. In practice, the decision to set up a merchant credit card processing service isn’t always a no-brainer. It’s important, first, to understand how you would use a merchant account. Do that analysis upfront and, if you decide to proceed, you will be better prepared to select the right service provider.

Questions to ask

What are your sales channels?

Analyze the accepted forms of payment in your current and prospective sales channels. For example:

1. Online retailing to any customer type generally requires some form of credit card processing service, either through a direct provider like North American Bancard or through a third-party provider like PayPal.
2. Door-to-door selling usually involves cash or check.
3. Direct mail sellers tend to accept check and credit card.
4. Storefront, consumer businesses vary in accepted forms of payment. The decision to accept credit cards should depend on the average sale and the composition of the store’s walk-in traffic.

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Entrepreneurs sometimes find failure in trying to do everything themselves. I’ve seen it happen. We start up our businesses, and we try to work the big picture and manage the details at the same time. Depending on the entrepreneur’s personality, one side of that equation gets neglected: the business owner gets stuck in the quagmire of details such that the business never moves forward, or the business owner becomes distracted with strategy, to the point that customer service drops off or work doesn’t get done.

An outside perspective can facilitate more balance in your business. And the more experienced that outside perspective is, the more effective it will be at helping you move your business forward. Unfortunately, an experienced perspective comes at a cost. Further, you may be unsure of what type of help you need: do you need to hire a strategy consultant, a marketing consultant, an assistant?

In these situations, a reputable business coach might be the right investment. An effective business coach can do more than address an immediate problem; he or she can help you achieve focus, make effective decisions, and communicate successfully with your customers and employees.

Finding a good business coach

Business coaches are everywhere; some are good at what they do, and some are not. To help you distinguish between the two, here’s a review of the site of an experienced coach, JM Perry.

JM Perry is not solely focused on business coaching, but specializes in the broader category of Life Strategies. Business is a sub-focus, however, as demonstrated by the testimonials on the site. They include praise from high-level executives from Amazon.com, Jaguar Land Rover, Accenture, Staples, and Charles Schwab & Co. If you click over to JM Perry’s Life Strategies Blog, you can get a taste for JM Perry’s philosophies. You will also see that these philosophies are as applicable to business success as they are to life success. (continue reading…)

Are you currently running your small business without barcoding and POS equipment? Certainly many small business owners do–I even know a few who are using the paper-and-pen method of inventory management. It’s true that advanced barcoding and POS equipment isn’t for everyone: it’s expensive to buy and it takes a bit of effort to deploy. To justify the investment of time and money, you need to have relatively stable sales volumes and medium-term visibility into your business’ future.

If your business is large enough and stable enough, the benefits of using technology to manage inventory are often substantial. A POS system improves efficiency by decreasing the man-hours necessary to take in and track your products. It improves customer service by expediting the checkout process and empowering your staff to answer customers’ questions regarding items in stock. It saves money by reducing inventory shrink. The businesses that get the maximum benefit out of their POS systems are those that have a relatively predictable product offering. Once products are set up in the system, your employees can quickly print out the barcode, tag the product and get it on the shelf.   (continue reading…)

Judging by the reactions I’ve gotten from telling people that I’m self-employed, there’s a common misconception that entrepreneurs have the freedom to work, or not work, whenever they feel like it. Here are a few of my favorites, and I didn’t make these up.

“Well, since you work at home, you can take a nap tomorrow.”
“Hey–you’ll be home tomorrow–can you run an errand for me?”
“Yeah, I work hard too. The other day I was ready to call it a day at 4:50, but I stuck it out ’til 5.”
“If I worked for myself, I’d go to the gym every morning.”
“You’re self-employed? Wow, that’s cool. I’d love to work at home–I’d sleep all day.”

More than once, I’ve found myself explaining that being self-employed is not the same thing as being unemployed (even though the pay is about the same). The truth is, having the ability to set your own hours means nothing when you have 23 hours of work to complete before tomorrow. (continue reading…)

What do you do when you have a business problem that can’t be easily solved? Say you need a new POS system or a Web site that you can update and manage yourself. Maybe you ask your friends and colleagues and you get conflicting advice, plus a few referrals to high-priced consultants. You try searching the Internet for your answer and come away with nothing but a massive headache. And still, after talking, searching and networking, you are without a solution that’s workable for you and your business.

Next time this happens, you might consider using Advicely.com to get the answers you need. Advicely.com brings business owners together with the experts who can solve problems. Unlike Yahoo! Questions and similar sites, Advicely.com is focused specifically on business-related problems–the same kind of stuff we talk about here at the Business Morgue blog.

Here’s how it works. You enter your question and the site searches its database for answers that might match your questions. You can then review those answers. The simplest ones are free to view, while more complex answers must be purchased via PayPal. You do get to see a partial view of the paid answers before you make the purchase. (continue reading…)

SmallBusinessNewz published a great video explaining the factors that must be included in any valid contract.

The contract documents an agreement between two parties, usually you and your customer or you and your vendor. Contracts serve the important function of defining who does what in the relationship. For example, you build a Web site for XYZ Company, and XYZ Company pays you for that Web site.

Your contracts should include these elements:

• Identification of the parties to the contract
• Mutual consent between or among the parties of the contract
• Definition of the actions being agreed upon
• Consideration (what you get for what you do)

See the video here.