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Sales process management is a key component of small business success. By attracting new customers and providing repeat products or services to existing customers, businesses grow organically. Today’s businesses can leverage technology for every activity, from streamlining operations to managing marketing endeavors, but embracing modern efficiencies does not mean abandoning traditional time-tested techniques. To be sure, creating and replicating a sales management process that captures customers is difficult and time-consuming. But, the effort you invest in both modern and traditional sales management techniques can pay dividends for the life of your business.

While there are many ways to optimize the sales process, we’ve picked seven areas where businesses can hone-in on prospects, devote resources, automate processes, and communicate value. Here are our seven tips:

Learn your prospect’s needs

Let’s start with a basic step that can be overlooked in the noise of technology and needs to fill sales funnels with prospects: find out what your prospect needs and seek to be the solution. Success in this area comes from communication and honesty. Before preparing a sales presentation, ask the potential customer a simple question: “What would be the optimal result from any solution.” The question might lead you in a different direction, as sometimes we assume that a prospect has done tons of research. Sometimes they have not, and often, they are looking for you to put them on the right path.

Know the decision-making process

In the process of learning a prospect’s needs, you may learn other details so you can make a sale, you need to convince a decision maker. Depending on the organization, you could be dealing with an individual, an organized committee, or something in between. However your prospect makes its decision, you’ll have a better shot at landing a sale if you know who you need to be speaking to. This is not to say that you should hop over your contact to try to market to a decision-maker, but rather you should ensure that your message is tailored to the individual or committee that has the power to say yes.

Manage your sales process with a timeline

An understanding of a potential customer’s decision-making process helps inform your sales process. A simple but customizable timeline is key to managing multiple sales efforts. When you know how long a prospect needs to evaluate your proposal, and the number of decision-makers, you will know when to follow up. Equally as important, you’ll know when to move on. You’ll never convert every prospect, so a successful sales process requires knowing

Provide clear information to your prospects

From a website FAQ to crystal clear sales collateral, effective prospect communication extends far beyond the sales pitch. Make sure that those shopping for products and services know the benefits your business can provide. This can be tricky, especially if you provide highly specialized or technical products or services. The key is to focus on results, rather than details that might threaten customer engagement. Fill your website, social media, and other online presence with testimonials and case studies. If you don’t have any, speak to a handful of recent satisfied customers and ask for their help. If you highlight their success after working with you, then they may get some free advertising out of the process.

Stand out from the crowd

You likely have several competitors. How can you best differentiate your services from those available from others? Why would someone buy from you, if your competitor down the street has a lower price? The answer is found in your unique story. Find your voice. Tell your story — your “why.” Why did you start your business? What values drive you every day? Share your passion, and explain how your story can help others, and you’ll be able to pop out from a field of those without.

Focus on value

Any product or service is likely to help a business save money in one way or another. Return on investment (ROI) is a common benefit. Be prepared to show how investing in you will pay off for the customer in the future. This is key to establishing a clear reason for choosing, and once the value is plain to see and easy to understand, it can control your sales process. Instead of asking if the customer wants to buy a product or engage your services, you can rephrase the question into, “are you ready to start earning that ROI now?”

Ask for the sale

And, make sure that you are actually asking for the sale. Again, this is a traditional sales technique, but it can get lost in the chaos of modern business life. Once you’ve identified a prospect’s needs, shown a clear value in your product or service, and determined the decision-making process, go ahead and ask for their business. If the prospect is not ready to proceed, find out why. If they prefer a competitor’s offering, of course, take another shot at converting them to your side, but also know when to move on.

Sales is the lifeblood of any business. These tips are a solid foundation for any sales process and can help any business manage and control today and the future.

If your customers have not been paying you on time and you are looking for a Collection Agency to recover money from these past due accounts: Contact us

If you run a business today, you’ve likely used the services of an independent contractor at one point or another. Maybe your business had a temporary need for a specialized skill, so rather than committing to a full or part-time employment relationship, you paid an individual under a contract for services. This arrangement has been commonplace for many years, especially when it comes to engaging services for technology projects or financial work, such as coders or bookkeepers.

The ever-growing gig economy, however, has opened the floodgates. Now, businesses of any size have their pick of qualified individuals to handle almost every conceivable project or task. The popularity of apps and platforms such as Fiverr, Upwork, Wonolo, SpareHire, Freelancer, and others makes the process of finding temporary workers easy. But, that is not to say that using independent contractors and gig economy apps is completely hands-free. From the proper structure of the independent contractor relationship, to taxes and regulations on the horizon, here is everything your business needs to know about using independent contractors and gig workers.

Legal overview of independent contractors

Employment is a legal relationship. So, too, is the relationship between your business and any of its vendors, from computer repair techs to office supply companies. The relationship between a company and an independent contractor is legal in nature, as in the legal contract between the parties. A quick search will reveal countless independent contractor agreements. In fact, many smaller businesses get their independent contractor agreements through this means.

However, the contract you use for an independent contractor relationship is crucial for several reasons, and therefore should be given more attention than a mere Google search. A contractor agreement provides clarity and legal protection in the following areas:

• Scope of the relationship. What tasks do you need the contractor to handle? Payment procedures. Your contractor will want to be paid, so the rate should be clear as well as when and how payment will occur.
• Status as an independent contractor. Possibly the most important component of an independent contractor agreement is to explicitly state that the parties are not entering an employment agreement.
• What’s not part of the deal. An agreement should clearly define what is not included in the relationship, such as benefits, insurance, and tax withholding.
• Providing an out. Will the agreement go on forever? This is not likely, so separation terms should be clearly spelled out.
• Are there privacy or non-disclosure concerns? Do you want to restrict the independent contract from poaching your customers? This can all be addressed in the agreement.

Tax matters

To some, the most important distinction between being an employee and an independent contractor is how income taxes are handled. Employers are required to withhold taxes from employees and pay their portion of social security taxes. Independent contractors get paid per the terms of the agreement and handle their taxes on their own, just like a business pays other vendors for services without concern about tax withholding.

From an overview perspective, this is fairly straightforward. But, a closer look can complicate how the relationship is viewed, especially when it comes to workers’ compensation insurance. Although workers’ compensation insurance is not a tax, it is similar in that it is a liability that employers and employees share. State laws do not require employers to purchase workers’ comp coverage for independent contractors. The premiums are not insignificant, so some businesses misclassify employees as independent contractors to avoid this expense. This misclassification is also part of an overall discussion about the future of independent contractor and gig economy workers.

Legal and regulatory trends

Status as an independent contractor is not determined by a label or name. You cannot simply call your executive assistant and independent contractor and avoid the tax and other obligations related to employment. The key considerations are direction and control, the character of work and training, and such matters as whether or not equipment is provided. In other words, if someone works for you with set hours, an hourly rate, and you control their work like you would any normal employee, then no matter what you call the person, they may be your legal employee.

This situation has also given rise to current and proposed protections for gig economy workers and independent contractors. In 2019, California enacted a law that reclassified many app-based workers as full-time employees. The goal of this law is to protect app-based workers such as those who drive for Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, and other services, but the protections can extend to gig-based workers such as freelance writers, coders, graphic designers, and other professionals. New York is also proposing a similar statute that aims to protect workers in the gig economy.

The takeaway? Tread lightly and carefully when classifying workers as independent contractors. Make sure you have a strong and well-thought-out independent contract agreement and consider investing in the services of a business law attorney to ensure that you are complying with all laws and regulations.

Debt is often an inevitable part of doing business. Business loans are a useful way to raise cash quickly for large purchases and rapid expansion. Some amount of debt is fine, as long as your business can support it. But you can get yourself into trouble if your debt level becomes unmanageable. In this case, moving to pay off business debt quickly is important, to avoid negative consequences.

Here are ten steps you can take to pay off debt fast and get yourself back on more solid financial footing.

Step 1: Pay Off Business Debt Quickly By Negotiating With Your Creditors

The first step toward paying down your debt is to talk with your creditors about revising your payment terms. Particularly if you’re having a hard time servicing your debt, your creditors may be willing to reduce your interest rates or work out more affordable payment terms.

The last thing creditors want is for a business to go into bankruptcy, go out of business, or otherwise default on their debts. If they can work with you to assure that they get what’s owed them, even if it’s at a reduced rate, they frequently will.

Step 2: Consolidate Your Business Debt

If your creditors aren’t willing to work with you, or if their accommodations aren’t enough, you can look at debt consolidation. Depending on how many creditors you owe, and what the interest rates are on each of these accounts, consolidating them all into one new loan, at a lower overall interest rate, can be an excellent way to pay down debt quickly.

This can work well if, for example, you have balances on multiple credit cards, each carrying interest rates in the 15% to 22% range. Getting a new business loan at 10% interest that pays off these balances will drastically reduce your required monthly payments. If you can then continue to pay close to what you were paying before, more money will go toward your loan’s principal, and you’ll pay off your debt more rapidly.

Step 3: “Stack” Your Payments and Target One at a Time

If you still owe multiple parties even after you’ve negotiated better payment terms and/or consolidated your debts you’ll want to “stack” them, from highest interest rate to lowest, and target them for repayment in that order.

Each month, you’ll put any extra income you have toward paying off the debt at the top of the stack. This helps you pay business debt quickly by eliminating the debts that cost you the most in interest first. In the long run this will save your business more money than trying to pay off all of your debts simultaneously.

Step 4: Renegotiate With Your Vendors or Find New Ones

In the first three steps, you reduced your overall debt load and targeted payments in the proper order. This alone will help you pay off business debt quickly. Next, you want to talk with your vendors about new terms that could save you money when making purchases.

See if they’re willing to reduce your overall pricing, or give you a bulk discount. For any open invoices, ask if they’ll extend your payment terms to reduce your monthly payment.

Your vendors know that they aren’t the only companies you could purchase from. They may be willing to work with you, lest they lose your business to a lower-priced competitor.

Step 5: Create a Business Budget

In order to pay debt quickly you need to have a comprehensive understanding of your income and your expenses. Work with your accountant or accounting department to see where your money is coming from, and where it’s going.

Once you can see your full financial picture, create a realistic budget that covers all of your necessary expenditures. Then categorize all of your other expenditures and allot realistic but affordable amounts for each one.

Step 6: Cut Unnecessary Spending

Look at your monthly expenses and weed out any payments that aren’t required to support your business.

For example, if you’re paying for a coffee service for your employees, temporarily suspend it. Coffee certainly helps with morale, but it isn’t a necessary expense. Comb through all of your expenses and eliminate any of them that don’t directly contribute to profitability.

Just make certain that you communicate with your employees. If they understand that the reason certain luxuries are going away in the short term is to guarantee that the company is viable in the future, they’ll likely get on board with the cuts.

Step 7: Reduce Other Expenses to Align With Your Budget

To pay off business debt quickly you need to live inside of the budget you created in step 5. Eliminating unnecessary spending gets you operating lean. Next, you need to pare down necessary expenses so that you aren’t spending more per category than you’ve allocated in your budget.

This might mean using company resources more efficiently so that you can limit overall purchases. It might also require consolidating overlapping job functions to reduce labor costs. This step can be difficult, both procedurally and emotionally, but if short term cuts can help guarantee your company’s long term health, It’s better for most of your employees in the long run.

Step 8: Increase Existing Revenues

Reducing expenses will save you money, allowing extra funds for debt repayment. You can accelerate this process on the other side of the equation by increasing revenues.

Your existing revenue sources are the first places to look for potential gains. Examine the viability of increasing your prices. If you can institute modest increases without unduly upsetting your customers you’ll see immediate gains on the income side of your balance sheet, helping you to pay off debt quickly.

Step 9: Find New Revenue Sources

Finding new revenue sources can be more difficult than simply raising your prices, but it’s definitely worth pursuing, as new income sources can make a big difference in your financial situation and help you pay off business debt quickly.

You might try adding new products or services to those you currently offer. Getting your salespeople to work on upselling new customers can add extra income on a regular basis.

Examine the markets you’re servicing to see if there are untapped niches you hadn’t considered before. You might also look at the viability of expanding into related markets.

If your sales structure is such that adding new salespeople will, on the whole, mean more sales and higher profits, then expending your sales team can make good business sense, as well.

Step 10: Make Debt Service a Priority

You’ve gotten your debt load prioritized and under control. You’ve simultaneously reduced expenses while increasing your revenue. Now you need to put as much money as you can each month toward paying off your debt. After all, this is the reason you engaged in steps 1 through 9. This process freed up as much extra money as possible to help you pay off business debt quickly. The more you can put toward debt service, the faster this process will go!

When your business customer/vendor/partner files Chapter 11 bankruptcy: What are your rights and things to do to cut your loss?

When a customer owes you money for goods or services provided, you expect that eventually, you will be paid. When you hear that a customer who owes you money has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, those expectations may change. Whether it is a small customer that just owes a little or a big customer who owes a lot, here is what you need to know about Chapter 11 bankruptcy, what your rights are and what you can do to minimize your loss.

What is Chapter 11 Bankruptcy?

There are 3 main types of bankruptcy you will hear about, Chapter 7, Chapter 11, and Chapter 13. Chapter 7 is a straight bankruptcy or a liquidation. In this case, the debtor has assets to cover all debts and they are liquidated to do so. Chapter 13 is a repayment plan that will pay back creditors over 3-5 years by making payments to a trustee.

Chapter 11 is the most common bankruptcy used by businesses. This allows a person or business to reorganize their debt and pay it back over time. They can do this while still operating their business. If the bankruptcy court decides a business will not make enough profit over a short enough time to pay back its creditors, this will revert to Chapter 7.  

What Are Your Rights and What Can You Do to Cut your Loss? 

When a customer files Chapter 11, there are certain procedures to follow and rights to know so that you can get back what you owe. Here is what you need to do.

• Stop trying to collect the past due amount immediately. Chapter 11 allows for protections for the debtor which means creditors must cease collection efforts. If you keep going after the debt, you could end up in legal trouble.

• Stop any shipment that is on its way to the customer and get them back to your business as soon as you learn of the bankruptcy. If they reach the customer, they will become part of the bankruptcy proceedings and you may not see payment for them for a long time.

• There is a “reclamation period” associated with goods received by the debtor in the period right before they filed Chapter 11. If a customer revived good from you within 45 days prior to a bankruptcy filing, you can send a Reclamation Notice and try to get the goods back from the customer.

Look to receive a Bankruptcy Court Notice to Creditors. Being listed on this notice is a hugely important piece of the bankruptcy process and if you do not receive this, you may not be “in line” to be paid back. If you didn’t receive the notice, contact the debtor and ask them for the bankruptcy case number and the court in where they filed.   

• Once you have the notice, either right away or after contacting the appropriate court, make sure all your information is correct and all outstanding debts owed to you are listed. You also want to make sure they are not listed as“disputed, unliquidated or contingent”. These three statuses are all bad in their own way and will delay or prevent you from retrieving your money.

• If you are dealing with a long-term customer or a big customer, you may want to consider still doing business with them, even as they go through hard financial times. If you do this, you have to require either COD or cash in advance. It may not be the best feeling thing to ask a trusted client for but is the only way to protect yourself if you keep doing business during a bankruptcy. 

• Roughly 30 days after filing, the court will have a First Meeting of Creditors, also known as a 341 Meeting. You will be able to hear the debtor’s schedule for paying creditors back and make sure your claims are on the list and properly dealt with. If you feel you are being defrauded in some way by the debtor, you can ask them questions under oath at this meeting.  

• If you have large, unsecured debts as part of the bankruptcy, you can join the Unsecured Creditors’ Committee. This will help you be a part of the decision-making process and have a say in the reorganization of the debts. You can even be part of the decision to liquidate the debtor to pay the debts if you see that as the only way. While you can help guide the process here, the trustee will have the final say.

Conclusion

It is never a good situation to have a customer go into Chapter 11. However, if you know your rights and take a few steps to keep your interests protected, you will hopefully get your money back and maybe even keep a customer if/when they recover.

Need a Collection Agency?

If you need to recover money from your past due accounts, hire a collection agency. Contact us.

Communicating with customers is a crucial part of doing business. That sounds straightforward, but businesses can become overwhelmed by surges in customer contact that can tax resources.

Large enterprises with customer-focused business lines have understood the importance of clear and consistent communication, and have traditionally invested in call center systems. These enterprise-grade solutions are robust, with the ability to not only facilitate incoming customer calls but also analyze performance and use metrics to gauge customer experience. While in-house call centers provide a solid link to customers, many smaller businesses cannot afford the cost of maintaining and training personnel. This is where outsourcing call center services and solutions enters the picture.

Enterprise-grade call center solutions for small to mid-sized businesses

Thanks to the availability of outsourced call center services and an ever-increasing array of cloud solutions, today’s businesses can ensure optimal customer service regardless of their size. Two solutions available to businesses looking to operate their call systems like a large enterprise without the expense and management hassle are to outsource their call center or to use a call center as a service (CCaaS) solution.

Both options provide businesses with the ability to connect with customers, provide support, and respond to the ebb and flow of business in an efficient and cost-effective way.

Outsourcing your call center

The first option is to contract with an outsourced call center provider to handle all or some of your customer calls. This option is commonly employed by businesses of all sizes. Since businesses plug into an existing multi-channel contact center infrastructure, costs can be contained. The cost of an outsourced call center varies depending on several factors. The geographic location of call center agents is a major determinant, with US-based agents generally costing more than those that are located outside of the country.

Outsourced call centers provide flexibility and scalability. If a business has seasonal surges of call volume, such as during a holiday retail season, it can dial in the right number of agents. This benefit relates closely to costs, as businesses pay for the number of agents and call volume, but it also can make an organization more efficient and responsive. With an outsourced call center, high call volumes are less likely to result in long waiting times.

In addition, an outsourced model can provide 24/7 service for businesses that may not have the structure or resources to handle “always-on” responsiveness. Call centers often provide specific skill sets and specialized industry, too, so there is less concern about the loss of continuity in customer experience. Properly designed, an outsourced call center can be essentially invisible to the customer. Also, businesses can have access to a broad range of tools, such as cost management, data collection and analysis, and quality monitoring and control. With these tools, businesses are kept completely in the loop of their customers’ journeys.

Outsourcing technology with CCaaS

In a similar way, businesses can optimize customer experience by outsourcing the technology relating to how they communicate with customers. Call center as a service, or contact center as a service (CCaaS), is a solution that gives businesses of any size the technological tools and resources to efficiently communicate with customers, without necessarily outsourcing the call handling. CCaaS creates seamless and effortless customer experiences that respond to customers’ wants and needs.

Today’s customers want options. Sometimes, they do not want to speak to a representative, but rather are happy to obtain automated support or direction in finding the answers themselves. Some business contact centers can become bogged down with customer support requests that can be easily resolved without human interaction. CCaaS helps businesses dole out automated responses when they are all that is needed, with additional support and human connection being provided when necessary.

CCaaS provides the cost savings, scalability, flexibility, and the ability to tap into analytics, just like outsourced call center solutions. With CCaaS, businesses can align their processes, people, and applications for better collaboration and more effective information sharing. The result is a customer-first experience that helps businesses turn customer support into a vital component of customer relations. And with access to analytics, businesses can have real-time insights into customer and employee behavior. For example, if there are numerous calls about the same concern, quality control initiatives can be better targeted with the goal of reducing these calls or anticipating them through the use of automated or self-service support options. In addition, customer wait times, call duration, and employee call agent performance can be monitored — even as the call is in progress.

Technology allows today’s businesses to be responsive to their customers’ needs. Customer communication, support, and experience can all be optimized through outsourced call centers and CCaaS solutions. No matter how small your business is, or how vast your enterprise may grow, these solutions enable successful customer journeys.

Benefits of outsourcing your call center services include

• Its turns out to be a lot cheaper. Having own call center has huge equipment, infrastructure, facilities, staffing and training costs. You can better utilize those funds for other improvements and growth.
• Professional call center services offer lot more flexibility and variety of communication solutions for your customers. You can conveniently add or reduce the headcount as your business expands or if the demand picks up during certain months only. 
• They provide accurate breakup of each call made including the call duration, time zone of the customer, type of customer and a lot more. This data can help you to reinvent your business strategy for higher success, better customer service and improving sales.
• Since call center services is their primary business, they make the whole process extremely streamlined, protect your brand image, legally complaint and employ latest technologies such as Automatic Callback for maximum efficiency. 

References:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasdichter/2019/03/30/call-centers-return-to-the-u-s-more-companies-get-the-link-between-customer-service-and-profit/#6e81c68a14ff
https://searchcustomerexperience.techtarget.com/definition/contact-center-as-a-service-CCaS