Now a few words from guest blogger Doug Campbell

As a CEO Coach and Business Owner, I am constantly looking for ways to make businesses more efficient and easier to operate. About 9 years we began accepting credit cards for our tutoring business (Sylvan Learning Center in Darien CT). It seemed like a big step at the time, and it was also potentially costly because our average charge is $100+. Nevertheless, it has been widely successful. Within 6 months 70% of our clients were using credit cards, and it is now close to 85%. The time spent preparing bills and mailing each month has been cut by 6 hours. The money is in the account almost immediately each month. Cash flow is less of a worry, and the rent check can go out on the 3rd of the month.

If you are a small business and still not using credit, reconsider the benefits in time, administration, and cash flow when you think through your strategies. If you are using credit, you should also periodically review your vendor – we lowered our fees substantially after 3 years with the first vendor and now receive better service. There are also incredible new tools to help you with cash flow and profitability in your business that are constantly being developed. Don’t let your competitors get a leg up on you. Make the time to talk to a credit expert – you will be surprised on the upside.

All the best.

Douglas Campbell III "The Success Coach"
203-975-0320 cell 203-952-1161
www.thesuccesscoach.com

Speaker * Author * Entrepreneur * Executive & Career Coach

Coaching Top-Performing Executives & Business Owners to Achieve Even Higher Levels of Success

The Success Coach on Networking (7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boKH8yfYFNk

Business Conference Speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b61rV19JAk

The Success Coach, Business Expert, for Wells Fargo Bank on Onboarding New Employees

https://wellsfargo.imaginationdigitalmedia.com/business-insights/?episode=C7 (5)

Author Where To Go From Here: Reinventing Your Career, Your Business, Your Working Life (2009). It is available through Amazon, at Barrett Bookstore (Darien), Elm Street Books (New Canaan), and through the author as a book or ebook.

Demystifying Plastic Payments

Plastic Cards: credit cards, debit cards, ATM cards, EBT (aka food stamp) cards, gift cards, loyalty cards and others.


Is your business already accepting plastic cards? If not, have you been tempted to accept cards but was told it's too confusing and expensive?

Mastering cards (no pun intended) is easy when you know the basics. The program needs to be tailored to your specific needs. Believe me, if landlords in NYC are accepting cards for rent payments and fast food stores are accepting cards for a $3 sandwich, there's a program out there that you can fit into! The card payments industry is amazingly resourceful when it comes to accommodating a business's need to accept plastic. Not a surprise.

The major card brands advertise like crazy to entice a consumer to use one card brand vs. another. Merchants accept them all, typically, so differentiation isn't the issue to the merchant. It's price. No surprise.

Today it is not uncommon for me to see a merchant have a MasterCard transaction priced differently than Visa. Close to each other but nonetheless differently. American Express has its own pricing model, and Discover prices based on the previous month's average ticket. Confused? Again, no surprise.

Basically, the pricing model is something along these lines: for a single credit card transaction, the merchant is charged

1. a certain percentage of the face amount of the transaction
2. plus a few cents per transaction.
3. There are other fees such as statements, monthly minimums, batch fees, address verification, additional fees for certain types of cards, etc. and it's not the time to get into these right now. We will.

The merchant receives the cash proceeds from the card sale in about 2 or 3 business days from the date the authorized transactions are batched together and transmitted electronically to the processor. The fees are either deducted upfront and the proceeds paid net of fees to the merchant, or accumulated and charged at the end of the month. Confusing? It can be.

The good news is that like many new things, eventually we all get used to the rhythm and timing of how credit cards work even if you have never accepted cards in your business before.

Next time, swiped vs nonswiped. "Swiped" is not a police term for larceny. Some might disagree..I'll tell you why in another blog posting soon.