Small Business Stresses and How to Deal With Them

In today’s economy, running a business is stressful enough.  Combine that with the added stress of running a small business with limited resources, and you can be assured that there will be difficult times while on the path to becoming a successful entrepreneur.  The good news is this: if your business is stressful, it most often means that you are suffering growing pains with increased work and not enough time to get the work completed.  This is not a bad thing. 

If you find that you are particularly stressed in your business, one of the first things you can do to alleviate some of that stress is to identify the real problem causing it.  If you are dealing with a lack of business or a decrease in revenue, those dwindling figures aren’t your real problem – something else is.  Maybe you’re managing your marketing wrong or you aren’t managing your finances right.  These problems can be easily fixed by bringing someone on board who has more expertise, or speaking with trusted mentors in the business world who can give you suggestions for how to handle the situation in both the short and long terms.

Next, take a moment to learn the difference between fear and anxiety.  The fears you have concerning your business are often rational, healthy emotions that are necessary and can help you find better ways of doing things.  Look at these fears closely and determine a way to actively do something to prevent them from becoming a reality.  However, anxiety is the unhealthy version of this, and is often based on irrational emotions and worrying over things that are out of your control.  It would be best if you could completely rid your mind of anxiety, and find ways to relieve some of the worst of it when you face it.  This can be done through exercise, joining a club, pursuing your hobby, or simply getting out of the office more and getting your mind off of work.

What are some advantages to accepting ACH payments?

Why Dial-Only Collection No Longer Works

If you are using a dial-only collections strategy, then the method you are using is becoming less effective to collect payment from today’s typical consumer.  There are several reasons for this, and they all boil down to one fact: today’s consumer uses technology in different ways and all of that technology allows for more advanced ways of ensuring privacy.  

Not only do over 20% of people not even have landlines, an increasing number of people are using their mobile phones as their only means of telephone communication.  Federal and state regulations governing cell phone use is presenting itself to be a major barrier from the collections industry point of view.  What’s more is that cell phones offer caller ID and call blocking, with some new apps that completely block any calls from even registering on the phone.  These privacy options play a significant role in hampering access to debtors for the purposes of discussing debt resolution.

Additionally, both the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act have placed severe limitations on the use of automatic telephone dialing systems (or robocalling) and pre-recorded calls.  These restrictions have made it even more difficult for collection agencies to reach consumers by phone to discuss an outstanding debt.  

What this means for the collection industry is that new, multi-channeled ways of reaching consumers about their debt are necessary if successful negotiations are to be made.  Since technology is changing, the collections industry must change as well, and learn to use technological advances like online payment gateways allowing debtors 24/7 access to an account.  Giving debtors more ways to pay their debt, and alleviating the intrusion of phone calls, often has a greater impact on the actual repayment of that debt.  

In increasingly difficult economic times, more people are going to stop paying their debts.  It’s simply the harsh truth that the industry is facing.  However, adjusting debt collection practices to fit the needs and lifestyles of the consumers is a way to assure that debt collection takes place, rather than just a stream of unanswered, unreturned phone calls that wastes time and money. 

Why are dial-only collection practices being phased out?

The Advantages to Accepting ACH Payments

When a business determines how it will accept payment, Automated Clearing House (ACH) is often a popular choice due to its low cost (compared with credit card payments), the ease at which a business can get approved for it, and the overall security this type of payment offers for both the business and the client.  Expanding the ways that customers can pay for products or services provides the business with greater revenue, making the convenience of ACH payments highly attractive for businesses, as well as their customers. 

 

Since most ACH payments are processed for a flat fee (usually between 25 to 75 cents, per transaction), they end up costing the business far less than many credit card payments.  This is because in order to process credit cards, the business is generally charged a percentage of the total amount of sale as a credit card processing fee. 

Also, although customers might initially feel hesitant to give out their bank account and routing number to a business, the fact is that their information is more secure with ACH payment than with giving a paper check to someone.  With a paper check, your bank account and routing numbers are printed in plain sight at the bottom of the document.  This means that there is always the possibility that the information can be stolen by unscrupulous employees or simply due to the loss of the actual check document in the process of transferring it from bank account owner, to merchant, to the merchant’s bank. 

ACH payments, on the other hand, are handled through a secure, encrypted network, and record of the transaction is kept to make it traceable.  If a business chooses to accept ACH payments, the checking account numbers are entered into a secure system and then encrypted during the ACH processing.  Since the ACH payments are handled by computers, the risk of someone using your bank account information fraudulently is actually lowered.  

Debit Orders Can Increase Your Payment Collections

Payment collections are never easy but technology has certainly made the process less time-consuming and less costly.  In fact, the use of bulk payment collections through debit order payments has helped thousands of companies collect monthly payments from customers in a more organized way, allowing for greater certainty that payment will be made and that it will be made on time.

 

A debit order is a payment that is typically made once a month for the purposes of paying for a debt or on-going service.  It allows a business or creditor to collect money from a person’s bank account or credit card on a certain date of the month, with the permission of the account holder, and this payment is processed electronically.  The third party who initiates the debit order controls the amount that is debited each time but the bank account’s owner can still stop the debit order at any point with his or her bank.

   

One of the major differences between a debit order and a stop order is that when processing a debit order, the owner of the bank account gives the third party permission to take money out of the account.  The third party is the one who sets the amount to be withdrawn in a debit order, but in a stop order, the account holder sets the amount to be withdrawn.  Essentially, a debit order is a negotiation between the third party and the debtor (or customer) and is initiated by that third party, while a stop order is initiated by the holder of the bank account. 

Using debit orders for your businesses payment collections will not only help your business increase its revenue – it will also give you more control over the payments that come in, helping your bottom line and overall debt recovery. This is often as simple as incorporating web-based software in your debt recovery efforts to control and secure debit orders, EFT payments, and bad debt management solutions.

When does my business absolutely need a collection agency?