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July 2010 Issue

Product Spotlight

Having an online presence!

In today's economy every business is trying to cut back on overhead without jeopardizing potential revenue.  It's a tricky situation because normally lowering overhead means laying off employees who have a direct impact on the total business production.  Managers are faced with trying to constantly measure the "value" of every cost for their company and the return they can create with it.

At the end of the day, for all businesses, profitability boils down to making sales.  A key component directly coinciding with sales is exposure of either your product or service; there must be an avenue for the company to "communicate" itself to the public.  The Internet has revolutionized the ability for businesses to not only communicate with the world but to do so within the most impossibly thought budgets.  Creating a website has become standard practice for most businesses, but there seems to be typical misunderstandings about doing business effectively online amongst those newest people trying to vie for an online presence.

There are two significant factors that need to be taken into consideration when contemplating expanding your business successfully online:  Location and appearance.  Have you ever heard the saying, "Location is everything?"  So first and foremost, you want to drive traffic to your website looking specifically for your product.  This means finding places to put (link) your website online to attract the most people who are interested in your services.  As a practical example, if you had a store that sold ice cream you wouldn't want to situate your store in a location that catered more to coffee "traffic".  Secondly, and equally important, is the "appearance of your online store".  You want to have the best possible conversion-landing page for the visiting traffic.  What this means is designing your website in a way that makes the customer feel comfortable and secure inquiring about your service or product as well as ease in navigating throughout your website.  Staying with the same icecream scenario, customers who are looking for ice cream see an ad or "link" and come to your store.  The first impression and appearance of your store and how you display the ice cream will have a direct impact on the spending habits of your customers.

A properly planned and executed online presence can have a positive impact on facilitating increased revenue for your company - - not to mention lower overhead due to lessening the dependency on a large sales team or marketing budget.  There are billions of people online everyday with a percentage of those looking for what your business provides; you just have to help them find you!

It is important to be familiar with your merchant account agreement, which should outline your exposure.

 Please feel free to give us today and learn more about this exciting opportunity!

GP or Specialist?

In the course of speaking with business owners lately, I have found that more are coming to a better understanding of how the rates and fees work - - but only in general terms.  It's my experience and opinion that the best of the information needed to make an intelligent decision is either missing or not completely understood.  If you knew you had a heart condition, would you consult a general practitioner (GP) or a "specialist"?  While visiting your GP is good for most that ails you there is specific knowledge that a specialist is privy to because that his / her dedicated field of study.

The Cost of Learning the Hard Way

It is my personal goal, while utilizing the payment processing services I provide, that none of my clients ever have to learn "the hard way" when facing common nuisances of the trade.  As an example, most owners do not know that they cannot tell their clientele that there is a minimum sale amount - - or that it's not the right of the business owner to add a percentage on a charge to cover their discount and authorization fee.  I ensure every client receives a Merchant Processing Guide that outlines do's and don'ts specifically mandated / outlined by the card type association such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover or American Express, etc.  I also make myself available to answer questions and relay other tidbits of information to help protect the client from potential issues that could arise and result in a fine or loss of credit card acceptance privileges.

 

 

Specialist

I have been consulting with businesses for over 20 years and have been a witness to many changes; some good and some not so good.  Those of us that have been fortunate to survive this long have learned one thing � most of what used to work back then doesn't work today.  The industry of sales and marketing changes from year to year - - sometimes from month to month.  As a primary example, most businesses don't rely on their own knowledge when it comes to keeping accurate and legal books.  More have learned it's wise and to their benefit to have a CPA or at least an accountant to advise them.  While most of us can accurately post debits & credits into accounting software, this doesn't qualify us to know tax laws that seem to change yearly.  This lack of information could conceivably result in the loss of profit in either revenue or fees & penalties over time.

 

Working with Employees

Do you remember the party game "telephone"?  One person begins by reading a simple sentence or in this example, instructions, and then whispers it to the person next to them.  This continues around a circle until ending with the last person telling the initiator the message.  It's usually hysterical to hear how the message had changed or had been altered.  In business, the game of "telephone" can have catastrophic effects.  For this reason, another important element in commitment to my clients is my roll in personally training any employees that handle transactions.  It is very important that those employees are trained by me or another specialist so that there are no steps left out which could cause issues down the road.  Part of that training includes ensuring full understanding of the operation of the POS system utilized for credit card acceptance - - or any of the many other services and products we offer.  Often, programs such as gift / loyalty cards or check programs are added on later; the installation / training is just as important on these "add-on" services.

As always I look forward to the opportunity to aid in the process of helping your business grow and become stronger.

 As always, please feel to contact JG Consulting Group with any questions you may have.

Phone:  (800) 797-0578  |   Email   |  Contact Form