getting those payments in on time.

So yes, we are hitting (or have we hit?) a recession - some say that the first signs of a recession is that people are slow to pay... we have certainly been experiencing a bit of that lately. The best way to deal with this delightful part of running a business is face the non payers head on.

1. Get those invoices out on time and more importantly make sure they are correct - dont give your customers any excuse to delay or not pay you
2. Make sure your book keeper or you are on the phone or sending out a reminder by email as soon as the deadline is up; just one phone call and you will know what is going on
3. Be prepared to keep your good customers happy and jetison those who are procrastinating with payments - there is no point keeping a customer and continuing with the service if they cannot pay... its the thin end of the wedge

Mmmm happy times - anyway, regardless of recession, this is how a good business needs to be run.

free ways to promote your business on line

Online networking can feel like a bit of a waste of time as it can take a good long while to get yourself out there but it can be an excellent way of building your profile, getting referrals, mentoring and achieving lots of publicity.

Its been a bit of a mission to get ourselves onto BT Tradespace... can you believe a huge organisation such as BT would launch a service, market it only not provide a proper customer support solution... amazing really. We actually tried to get ourselves on there nearly a year ago but eventually we gave up because of lack of customer support. With the new found skills of JoJo (our latest recruit!), her IT skills and tenaciousness has paid off and we are up there!


We have also joined up on free index - http://www.freeindex.co.uk/myfreeindex.htm which looks a bit like http://www.bestof.com/ in the way your customers can leave testimonials.

There are literally millions of sites out there that you can use to promote your business. We reckon that it is really worth spending time exploring the different sites available and working out which ones work well for you. Another thing to explore is online networking... and it can seem like a huge bottom less pit. Sarah has spent time exploring lots of them like http://www.ecademy.com/, http://www.linkedin.com/ and some of them are better than others. If you set out just to get business, it probably wont work...just like face to face networking. People switch off if you are always trying to sell them. The best thing to do is to connect with others and ask them what they do; never try to sell yourself first without establishing a relationship first. And most of all be patient, it takes time to build trust.

Musings over... back to work xx