Month: May 2013

Categories
Legal

3 Positive Reasons to Do the Right Thing in Business

pho_do_the_right_thing

Article Contributed by Dr. Joey Faucette

ABC’s “Good Morning America” ran a story recently about 7-year-old Ransom Duel who noticed his classmate choking after eating a bite of a Nutella sandwich. Ransom picked up the jar, read “hazelnuts,” and knowing that his friend has an allergy to nuts, ran to get his teacher who brought an epi-pen and saved the friend’s life.

When asked about it afterwards, Ransom said, “I just did the right thing. I didn’t think, ‘Oh I’m gonna be a hero.’”

What can we learn from Ransom about business ethics?

First, do the right thing regardless.

At first, you might think, “What else would Ransom do?”

Nothing.

He could have done nothing as his friend grew sicker by the second.

The opposite of doing the right thing isn’t necessarily doing the wrong thing. Doing nothing is just as damaging to your business operations. Apathy drains profits. Lack of engagement lessens productivity. The more employees there are, the easier it is for you to say, “Somebody else will do it.”

Take personal responsibility for acting. Make it your business to do the right thing regardless.

Second, depend on someone always watching you.

Ransom didn’t realize his right-thing action would be so public.

At work, when you face an ethical decision, assume someone is watching you. Odds are good they are regardless of whether you see them or not.

If you catch yourself saying, “No one will ever know,” you’re headed down a slippery ethical slope that leads away from doing the right thing. Be assured—someone will know. At the least, you will know. Knowledge of deliberate, unethical behavior erodes your core values, maliciously rearranges your priorities, and removes power from your unique contribution to a profitable business.

Depend on someone always watching you.

Third, deal with consequences either way.

When you do the right thing regardless while fully aware that someone is watching you, you create consequences that are far easier to deal with later. Ransom’s greatest challenge is dealing with all of the attention that comes with being dubbed a “hero.”

When you do nothing or the wrong thing and hope no one sees you, your consequences are extremely difficult to explain away when they come to light. The business you work for eventually displays your unethical choices either through loss of customers, key employees, or critical supplier relationships—all of which lead to lower profits.

You deal with consequences from every decision. Choose easier outcomes to live with.

Work Positive with Ransom Duel today. Do the right thing regardless. Depend on someone always watching you. Deal with consequences either way.

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), Work Positive coach, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they leave the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

Categories
Finance & Capital

Factoring Can Help Ease Start-ups Cash Crunch

Invoice-factoring

Article Contributed by Andrew Cravenho

Start-ups may be large or small, members of the service industry or manufacturers; however, there are common elements in all types of businesses.

First of all, there have to be sales. For service industries such as the medical field, it would be the number of patients seen over the course of the day. For manufacturers it could be the number of widgets ordered and produced.

Also common to all start-ups is the decision to grant or to not grant credit to those purchasing products or services. For example, most doctors and hospitals bill you for services if it is a major bill, such as surgery. Yet the same doctor may have an office policy requiring payment at the end of a regular visit. Sub-contractors, such as roofers and carpenters, generally bill the contractor and wait to be paid.

Start-ups must budget and calculate whether they have enough funds to pay their own bills and debts. New businesses that cannot wait to collect their accounts receivable often turn to banks for help. When you’re trying to keep a company afloat, cash is king.

What is factoring?

“Factoring” is the purchasing of outstanding receivables (debts owed to businesses). The term factoring often has negative connotations for bankers. Not because it is bad, but because of the way factoring has been used. Factoring usually is not offered through banks, but by outside companies seeking higher profits.

Some industries routinely turn to factoring: for example, your department store credit card bill probably isn’t generated at the department store’s home office. It’s likely processed by a third party, such as Household Finance Corp. or GE Money Bank. The retailer saves the cost of hiring people to collect the accounts and gets its cash quickly.

Factoring companies profit in two basic ways. First, they discount the amount of receivables by a certain percentage. For example, if $10,000 is owed to the company then that amount might be discounted to $9,000. So for the $10,000 in money owed to your business, the factoring company will only give you $9,000.Then the same company will charge your firm interest until that amount is paid.

Accounts Receivable Financing vs. Factoring

A few banks have started a new type of accounts receivable financing to help start-ups manage their accounts receivable and provide for more efficient billing. Receivables financing is traditional debt financing using a company’s receivables to secure the debt. In receivables financing, the receivables are a source of collateral for obtaining financing on typically a short-term basis.

Factoring and receivables financing differ in that factoring involves transferring the ownership of the receivables, while in financing, receivables are simply pledged as collateral. In the latter, the business is still responsible for collecting from its customers. However, if receivables are factored with recourse, the business still has full responsibility for collection.

What kind of terms are available when factoring?

In both factoring and receivables financing, certain receivables carry greater value for financing. The age of the receivable and creditworthiness of the customer are considerations. For example, a bank may accept only receivables less than 90 days past due.

Usually, lenders will not lend 100 percent of the receivables; instead they discount them for possible bad debts. Discount fees are applied based on these considerations. Discount fees of 2 percent to 5 percent on lower risk and 8 percent or more for higher risk are typical. Discount fees vary, so it is important to shop for the best deal and check out the organization and the contract closely.

About Author:

Andrew Cravenho is the CEO of CBAC LLC, an innovative invoice financing exchange. As a serial entrepreneur, Andrew focuses on helping both small and medium sized businesses take control of their cash flow. Prior to CBAC, Andrew founded an annuity financing company relieving tort victims of financial hardship.

Categories
Online Business

Convenience: Just One Reason Your Company Should Accept Online Payments

online_payment

Article Contributed by Erin Steiner 

Even if you conduct most (or even all) of your business offline, accepting online payments is the most convenient form of accepting money for your products or services. Here are just some of the conveniences offered by this method of processing credit cards.

Setup

Online payment processing is incredibly easy to set up. This is true both on your website and in “real” life. It usually involves little more than setting up an account (which only takes a couple of minutes) and then inserting some code into your business’s website. Viola! You’re done!

Going Offline is Easy

If your business takes place almost entirely offline, you simply use the card reader that the payment processor will send to you—these card readers plug easily into the headphone jack of a smart phone or a tablet computer and turn the machine into a register system! Many of them will even provide you with receipt printers if your customers prefer tangible receipts to their emailed counterparts.

Take All Forms of Payments

Whereas you used to have to have a set up for each form of payment you wanted to process—credit card, check, and cash—online payment processors can help you accept and track all three and through one account. You can key in cash sales (and mark them as such). You can use the camera on your phone or tablet computer to take a picture of (aka “scan”) the check, which inputs the banking info into your system and processes the payment accordingly.

For a web-based business, this translates into your payment processing choice accepting ACH payments (payments directly from your bank account) as well as credit accounts. If the customer has an account with the same processor, they can simply log in with their own account information and send the money that way.

Accept Payments 24/7

Instead of forcing people to conform to your business hours, people can buy from you 24/7 via your website. It’s convenient for them and helps you increase your revenue all at the same time. They say money makes the world go round…

Accept Payments in All Currencies

With a traditional merchant service, you are typically limited to accepting payments in your native currency. If you do want to accept other forms of currency, you’ll need to find a way to get it exchanged from whatever it is to whatever you deal in where you live.

Most online payment processors, on the other hand, have the ability to accept all of the major currencies and have a built-in currency converter that will convert their currency to yours automatically. Easy!

Record Tracking

Instead of having to import payment information from your cash ledger, your credit card processor and your bank processor, it’s all tracked via a single account which is almost certainly compatible with your accounting software. This is a major time-saver (and reduces your chances of being the victim of your own human errors).

There are lots of different online payment processors to choose from. Currently the most popular is PayPal, with Square coming in at a very close second. These aren’t your only choices, though. With some research, you’ll turn up plenty of other viable options.

The point is, if you want to save yourself work and increase your profit margin, accepting online payments is the best way to accomplish those goals simultaneously. Good luck!

About the Author

Erin Steiner is a freelance writer from Portland, Oregon, who covers a variety of topics.

Categories
Branding

Make Sure Your Brand Is Memorable

brand-identity

Long before you launch an ad campaign or develop your marketing strategy, you must first have a solid brand identity. To keep it simple, your brand identity is your personality. This will be the way in which consumers identify your business. This is important in separating you from your competitors. Although it’s a popular word, it is still a hard concept for many to grasp what it really means.

Branding is creating an identity that will make your company more appealing than your competition. It will aid in convincing your consumers that your business is the only one out there that can satisfy their needs and desires. Many people identify a brand with their logo and name, but it goes beyond the surface. Branding is an overall experience.

If you have ever watched the Apprentice, or Celebrity Apprentice, branding is a big part of most of the projects and can be the sole reason for a team’s loss.

When developing your brand, you must assess what it is you promise to deliver. This includes the overall style of your business. Are you catering to type A personalities or to people who are more laid back and edgy?

It is important to define your own brand; if you don’t, then the reality is that someone else will define you. This causes a loss of control that many companies never return from. If you aren’t interested in fading behind the shadows of your competitors, it is important to take your branding strategy seriously. By raising your value from commodity to brand you are likely to get customers who are willing to pay more for your services.

The most important aspect of branding is what it does to the memory of your consumers. A brand that is fully developed will push your company to the front of your consumers’ minds and make you infinitely more identifiable. If they remember you, it is more likely that they become return customers. A loyal customer is a good customer and these are the customers that are going to be responsible for the bulk of your revenue over the long term. These customers not only come back for more, they take on the evangelist role and begin to attempt to convert their friends.

There are brands that we recognize instantly as household names. Pepsi and Coca Cola are major players in the soft drink industry, and we recognize them due to brilliant ad campaigns and recognizable logos and branding materials. These are two companies that have been around forever, and aren’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future because of the solid marketing strategies and brand building techniques they’ve employed over the years.

Apple is another big player when it comes to the branding world. They are currently one of the most popular and profitable companies in the world because they did what nobody else could; they made computing “cool” through their brilliant use of design and minimalism. Even their former CEO Steve Jobs was branded as a bit of a brilliant eccentric who wore the same outfit to work everyday – his trademark jeans and black turtleneck.

When you hear the words “Eat Fresh,” I am sure that Subway comes to mind. That is because they have successfully been the number one brand in the U.S. amongst sandwich chains. When you think sub, your mind instantly imagines Subway. That’s not to say that it’s the best sub in the world, but they’re certainly in the position they are because of their branding efforts.

When it comes to branding it starts and ends with your strategy. A cool logo or a catchy tagline gets you nowhere without the proper strategy to put it in front of the masses. Clever companies put their logo or tagline on anything and everything but utilizing companies like US Imprints to deliver their message on anything from beach balls to t-shirts.

Before you go crazy printing thousands of pieces of corporate schwag, just make sure that your logo and branding identity are closely related to the core values of your company and that they preach the message that you want heard. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go “Think Outside the Bun.”

Article contributed by Jenna Smith