As a small business owner you have or will need to do your own debt collections. I think you can avoid a lot of the hassle by following the steps below. How do I know these tips work? This is how we have handled collections for the last several years. In that time I have only turned over 2 debts. Which is very good according to my debt collector and I'm ecstatic considering the economy. 

• Know your customers - If someone is slow in paying or seems to always have a problem getting you the money. Such as one customer we have who seems to always find a way to write the check and forgets to mail it or has the excuse it got buried under a pile of paper. Make sure they know alternative payments methods such as credit cards, echecks, PayPal, direct deposit and even COD. This may cost you a little in fees but well worth it if you consider the time you'll have to devote to collecting this.
• Don't handle phone calls yourself -  If you are the primary sales contact. Get someone else in the organization to handle the call. This takes you out of being the "bad" guy and sometimes all it takes is just a gentle reminder the bill is overdue. I once had a collection agent tell me that it is standard business practice in some companies that they don't pay unless you call. 
• Send out statements -  Not to everyone but to those customers that you know are not the best organized. This helps them keep on track.
• Have a series of letters and/or envelope labels that you can send along with a copy of the invoice. There are a lot of good sources on line for label ideas. One we use is www.Rentons.com. This is for Renton's Stationary. All kinds of business oriented labels and stickers. 
• Get Free Advice - One such site is http://www.debtcollectionsteps.com/. Great information and tips. A lot of Google ads but that's how they pay for the site. And who knows, you may decide to outsource collections anyway.

I have been a loyal UPS customer for almost 36 years. Last week I switched all my package delivery to Fed Ex. UPS has made it very clear that if you are not shipping thousands of packages a year you are not important to their business (except for the drivers, they are great!).

• One, they apologized for not contacting me back about a rate quote the first time I called. 
• Two, they have been consistent in following up with me since then. 
• Three, they gave me a very competitive rate with incentives to do more business with them. 
• Four, FREE software for my desktop and a FREE label printer.
• Five, Monthly Billing!

I love free software! The site I use is called Giveaway of the Day - free. Most of the time it is completely free with very few strings attached. If you are doing a lot of your own work like we do here you will usually find something that will make the job easier. Of course they want you to buy the product or bundle of several products but the choice is yours. The only drawback is that if you get a new computer you will not be able to transfer the program to the new computer. Just be aware of that. I have added the feed to my blog so if you check back here you'll see what is free for that day.

I had a nice conversation yesterday with an unemployed person who was functioning as the primary caregiver in the home. I had to do that once for about 8 weeks and I was restless. I want to work! This man had a real desire to start a home business raising Discus.

My advice was to start slow and do some very thorough research because breeding this fish from what I know takes special skill. But if you can make it happen there is a market and a very loyal hobby base.

However, even if you have success in raising and breeding your Discus, it is still very difficult to be successful unless you have a way of advertising and promoting your product or service. So posted below is a link to what I consider the best system for doing this, Site Sell. We use this for our Planet Rena web site and have learned so much about developing an interest in our products and providing support. Follow the link below to check it out.

http://www.sitesell.com/William97.html

We do receive a small payment if you purchase which helps us maintain our blog  But you will benefit much more as we have in last 5 years if you sign up with them.

P.S. Signing up between now and the first of the year will allow you to start using the new site builder they are working on. From the sneak preview I saw it will eliminate any issues with Site Sell that I had when I first started working with them.

Also for those folks just getting started in their own business I just read today a great article over at Practical Ecommerce. BTW - Once of the best free resources on the web.

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3110-10-Online-Legal-Form-Providers

Thanks for listening
Bill
bbrown@ renapump.com 

About 3-4 months ago Amazon (they said they were from Amazon) started calling me and inviting me to start listing my aquatic equipment and supplies on Amazon. They were expanding their H&G offerings and wouldn't this be a great way for me to expand my business!

What they didn't know was that we had tried Amazon several years ago to get rid of some outdated and discontinued product. I didn't even use my primary business name because I feared it would hurt my business rather than help it if things went wrong... I never called Amazon back.

Boy did they go wrong. First Amazon does not let you have bundles or special promo packages for an item. So for us we got lumped with every other seller of a similar item. We wanted our product offerings to be a better value than others by making our own promo packages. Secondly, you had no control how you were ranked. Thirdly, the commissions and cost for the "priveledge" of listing with Amazon left no profit for us.

Fast forward to yesterday. I had a customer tell me they could find an item on Amazon for much less than what we offer it on our web site for. This is an item that is supposed to have an MAP. But the manufacturer is desperate and seems to no longer enforce the MAP.

As I started looking at other items on the Amazon site it was clear to me that there was no way a small store could carry these items and make enough profit to cover the costs of  providing the valuable services that a good full-service aquatics dealer provides. This manufacturer has clearly given up. It is too bad because I have sold these products for almost 20 years.

Fast forward to today. My first call was from a consumer that had bought a new canister filter on Amazon for a very cheap price, almost half what the manufacturer says is list price. He has a problem with his new filter and could I help him. I asked him if he had contacted the seller or the manfacturer. Oh yes but they don't answer the phone or respond to emails very quickly.

Folks, It Costs Money to Provide Support!  I don't think this guy was very happy with his "good deal" So now the manufacturer is losing an end customer and a bunch of dealers that can't provide support for the product because the manfuacturer has allowed Amazon to violate the MAP policy. The MAP was supposed to provide the profit needed so small dealers can offer the support and service for a manfuacturers line.

Guess what, this is one small distributor that will never use Amazon for anything and I will continue to look for manufacturers that want to work with small businesses that provide the support necessary for consumers to have success using the products recommended. I hope other manufacturers won't sell their soul for the short term boost in sales.

UPS is our main commerical shipping service. I tried to get Fed Ex Ground to contact me about using their service and never heard back from them. So, this new home delivery option is a nice addition to their tools. Consumers can sign up for free here.

 UPS MyChoice Signup

With this service consumers will be able to redirect packages or schedule delivery during a window of time and even get the package delivered to a UPS store for pickup.

This is all good. What I didn't like was during the setup process for my own account, UPS asks you to verify who you are and it was very scary to see that they had access to addresses I had lived at over 30 years ago. They need this so that someone can't have your $2000.00 flat screen redirected to their home in another state. But, if you really don't like this much intrusion don't sign up for the service.

They also offer a premium service with some service additions  but I wish they would just tell you the cost instead of making you click on another link to find out. 

We don't do much with Google Adwords around here. And since I rarely click on ads myself I always believed in spending time on getting better organic search results. I still think most folks rely on these results when searching the web. However, today I got a very nice email from Google Adwords outlining how I could improve the ad that we run for aquatic equipment and supplies. I've never gotten any kind of email like that before and the improvement suggestions were good. Best of all it was free advice.

Ad Text Below

Aquatic Pumps & Supplies
We stock water pumps 55-8000 gph
Ponds/Fountains/Aquariums WHOLESALE
www.right-pump.com

1. Add relevant keywords to your header and ad text.
2. Make sure there's a clear call to action (i.e. "Buy now to save 10%").
3. Link directly to the landing page for the product/service you're advertising.

We are going to try it and we'll keep you posted on the results
Best Regards
Bill

Hi Folks, I have been traveling this week and trying to sneak in a short vacation. I am back and on Fridays I like to offer some economic news and how it might affect our businesses. Several times this week I heard the talking heads and other news outlets refer to governments and businesses as "de-leveraging".

Basically it means that we all bought stuff we didn't need or invested with someone else's money and now we have to pay it all back. This takes time and I really do think this will be a 10-12 year process.

In our own business we expanded our inventory two years ago with not only a wider variety but also more stock. We have spend the last two years looking very hard at what we really sell and where we buy it. We have changed some vendors and eliminated some items that just don't move for us. This is how we are "de-leveraging" our inventory.

We also looked at all of our operational costs last year and found plenty of waste which we have addressed throughout this year. In addition, we are working hard to pay down credit card debt which we used to finance growth.

This is exactly what is going on in all levels of government and the private sector as well. While this is happening, growth will be very anemic, probably for some years to com. My only frustration is that we can never learn from our mistakes. I blame two sectors primarily. One, government officials that try and run counties ties, cities, states, etc like they actually produced a product that has to be sold. Or that they need to provide a service themselves that should be provided by an outside company that has to compete to stay in business.

Secondly, I blame big businesses that insist on shuffling paperwork to grow a business instead of investing in growth opportunities that might pay off in future with new jobs and new consumers that might spend money! Good examples of this short-term thinking have abounded in the banking industry but really the bankers were just doing what they are supposed to do, provide capital.

Now we are left with the task of de-leveraging everything. The consumer has to do it, business and government has to do it. But once this is accomplished our economy will be stronger and set for another 30 year run. Unfortunately we'll repeat this all again (assuming we're here past December 2012 ) for another generation.

As always I welcome your comments.
Bill

P.S. If you need basic business marketing and operations help on a personal basis we do take on private clients. We only work with one company at a time. We have no openings now but we are happy to do a free opportunity analysis over the phone to see if you are leveraging your hidden business assets to increase sales and profit. Contact us anytime.

Bill Brown, GM Rena OEM Sales

Economic News & Opinion
Gas prices are dropping in our area and we have already noticed a nice up tick in dealer sales. Normally, this time of the year is marked by a slow down in both consumer and OEM business due to vacations and projects on hold until fall. We read a lot of business trending info around here and regularly talk with both our UPS and USPS drivers. Everything tells us that we should have a nice up tick in business over the next 6 months and we are preparing for it by making sure we have product.

Even though overall business growth nationwide is down there is a definite pent up demand in our industry (decorative aquatics). People are going on 5 years of cutting back and they are sick of it. So we expect people will spend some money this year on improving their personal space at home and the office.

Quick Hits
Crude Oil - Trending down barring hurricanes or other disruptions in supply.
Inflation - Prices are going up no doubt.
Unemployment - Jobs will come back slowly until we get back to making things instead of shuffling money back and forth and lining the pockets of lawyers business executives.
GDP - I think it will be difficult to get above 3% for the year

As always we value your input and appreciated your comments.
Best Regards
Bill