Every Business’ Headache: Collecting money from clients
This post includes a paid review.
Last November I had to unload one of my largest businesses. Why? Because I was spending too much of my time tracking down and collecting money from hundreds of clients at a time. I was making money, but I was unhappy. And I’ve always promised myself that no matter what, I’d unload any responsibility that was consistently miserable.
Whenever you run a business, you’re going to encounter what I refer to as managing other people’s responsibilities. Whether it’s the phone company that screwed up your phone bill or the client who keeps forgetting to pay his bill. These are just facts that you need to prepare yourself for. The very essence of business involves interacting with others and becoming interdependent on them. Sometimes people are going to fail their end of the bargain. And that’s going to cost you time and productivity.
Rather than get discouraged about these facts, it can be beneficial to step back and think about how to minimize their occurrence. Below, I’ll give you a few suggestions:
1. Maximize your profit/client ratio.
The basic idea here is that rather than develop 20 websites per month at $150/website, you should aim to design one website for $3,000 or two websites for $1,500. For each client that you have, you have a list of management duties related to them. So with 20 clients, you’d have 20x as many client management duties as when you had 1 client.
Also note how much easier it is to increase your profits just by adding a few clients.
2. Shape your time
If you ever get to the end of the day and find yourself not having accomplished any of your goals for the day because you were busy putting out other people’s fires, they you need to take my advice. Carve out at least 3 hours per day where your planned work gets your undivided attention. If necessary, you might need to implement some rules during those 3 hours such as: No phone calls. No email. etc.
3. Get the right tools
Growing up, my father used to tell me time and time again how important it was to get the right tools for a job. For some tasks, having the right tool could be the difference between hours and days. While I didn’t realize it just a few months ago, there are a variety of tools that are available online that make collecting money from clients a much less painful task.
One such tool is a web app called Bill My Clients. Recently, I was asked to review their service (a review which you are reading now) and I can honestly say that I wish I had had such a simple and easy to use invoicing tool (PayPal’s invoicing tool just didn’t cut it for me) back when I was running the previously mentioned business that I sold in November 2006.
One of the things that makes Bill My Clients a great service is that they make it easy for you to accept a wide range of payments ranging including credit cards, PayPal or even ACH/eCheck. Along with each of these payment features comes a payment tracking system, that makes it easy for you to see who’s paid and who hasn’t. When you’re dealing with dozens of clients at a time, this feature becomes priceless.
Another useful feature that differentiates Bill My Clients from many other invoicing tools is the ability to have invoices sent via the USPS with a simple click of a button. So, if you have a client who isn’t tech savvy or still prefers doing things the old fashioned way, you can send them an invoice through the mail. But the great thing about the Bill My Clients web app is that you can initiate this from anywhere in the world. On a 1 month vacation in Thailand? Need to send an urgent invoice? You’re totally covered!
So in conclusion, if you’re looking for a full-service, time-saving invoicing system to help ease the burden of collecting money from your clients, I have to give Bill My Clients a thumbs up. It’s simple but powerful, and that’s what we’re looking for as entrepreneurs, isn’t it?
Related Articles:
- Why it’s okay to let go of some of your clients
- Warning signs that you’re getting the client from hell
- How do I get clients?
- No cashflow? Here’s what you can do
- How to Part With Your Clients
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