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Should I pay a bit extra for a professional solution or should I pinch pennies and hope that a free solution will do? This is a fair and legitimate question for all online businesses especially those that are new and financially constrained. We all want to save money. The question can be restated and better answered as Is it worth it to pay more to have branded payment pages, customized thank you notes and receipts, a level of automation in post-sales processing, and ease in reporting? The answer, I believe, is yes it is definitely worth the extra expense because of the time and effort that you will save by not having to perform the non-revenue generating tasks that managing and dealing with a merchant account or a generic payment processor entails. How much time does it take to answer calls from clients that are unsure what to do when they get to your free generic payment page, or track down payments from clients that didnt pay because they couldnt understand the generic payment page instructions (enter your account name etc.)? How much time does it take to manually cut and paste email addresses or send thank you notes and receipts to clients? How much time does it take to change pricing or the language on your do it yourself payment page? The non-revenue generating tasks required to manage a business are necessary but should not become the main activities of the business. If you are a service professional, i.e., a coach or consultant, your time should be spent in line with the 80-20 rule. That is; 80% of your time should be spent on revenue generating activities and 20% on other activities such as the administration of the business. Think about it in terms of how much your time is worth. For every hour that you spend dealing with non-revenue generating activities, multiply it by the value of an hour of your time. The answer to this math problem is how much money you are losing by performing these tasks yourself. If the number of hours you spend on administrative tasks exceeds 20% of your work week you are cheating yourself out of revenue. And, aside from the lost revenue potential, you will soon find that administrative busy work is a drain on your motivation, energy and ultimately the success of your business. If paying an extra $10 a month for a professional, managed online payment processing solution helps you to; * reduce the time youll spend searching for client payment information, * automate post sales follow up and receipt delivery to clients, * quickly get new payment pages up and receiving payments, * reduce calls from clients making payments, * look more professional and trustworthy, * not have to pay a web developer for a secure site and * save money by not paying gateway fees, statement fees and other variable merchant account fees then using a premium online payment processor isnt just worth the extra 33 cents a day, its a necessary cost of doing business right. Article Source: http://www.BharatBhasha.com Article Url: http://www.bharatbhasha.com/ecommerce.php/37366 Article Added on Tuesday, February 7, 2006 |
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