As a Christian business owner do you have people constantly expecting you to give away your services for free? Do people give you a sob story about why they can’t pay and expect you to give them a break? Do they call you a passive aggressive Christian hypocrite if you send out a late payment reminder? It can be hard balancing wanting to help people and not giving away your services for free. Remember, as a business owner you are in business to make a profit. You must protect your personal and business credit score.Most business owners, service providers, and professionals have business expenses, as well as living expenses to include a mortgage, utilities, and possibly student loans. Creditors want to be paid. Creditors will charge a late fee if you don’t pay them on time. They may possibly report you to a credit bureau and this can adversely affect your credit score. So, how do you balance helping others and being a Christian business owner? My tips below will help you to operate as a business owner while honoring your Christian values.1. Contracts – Use very detailed contracts. Do not trust handshake deals or word of mouth agreements. Put the agreement or terms of service in writing. Be very specific on due dates, amounts owed, late fees, etc. This includes barter contracts. Do not be afraid or intimidated to not hold the other party accountable for honoring their part of the contract.2. Invoicing Procedures – Establish procedures and follow them. If you do not want to deal with this task then out source it to a Virtual Assistant or bookkeeper. This includes sending out late payment reminders. I recommend you work with a collection agent so that when needed the agency can go after the late payer. Using a collection agent will save you headaches and heartaches. Plus, you know they are following the law and you won’t get in trouble for accidentally violating a debt collection law or rule.3. Choose your words carefully – I have learned when someone asks me if I can help or they say “so and so said you can help me” and I reply “yes, I can help” they are expecting the service for free. I have had to learn to respond with something that states this is a business service that I provide. Also, I have found when someone asks if they can skip a payment at holiday time I have a script ready to address that late fees will be assessed. Again, this task of communicating with individuals may be best left to your gatekeeper or a Customer Care Manager. Listen very carefully to what is being said by the person asking for your services. I also do not recommend giving away free strategy sessions. When you charge a small fee for an introductory session and charge for missed appointments you will eliminate the tire kickers and snatchers and grabbers. Watch out for the people that hit you up on social media via Messenger pretending to be your friend and then immediately they want free advice or services.4. Know How Much You Can Give Away or Discount – Set clear boundaries. I don’t mind helping people. But it does get old helping the same people over and over again. You have to know your walk away point. Watch the person on social media. If they are out having fun while you sit home eating ramen noodles don’t get mad. Use it as a lesson. You just let that person skip a payment so they could have fun. The person does not respect or value you and your services. I recommend you know how many scholarships you are going to be able to give away each year and when you have exhausted that amount you know you cannot help anyone else for free. Also, know what discount you will give friends and family.5. Know Your Value – Do not forget that you provide a valuable service. Just because someone else does not see the value does not mean you have none. Do not let the snatchers and grabbers wear you down. Learn to identify who is not your ideal client and learn to identify where they lurk and then go find a new fishing pond.Those that are attempting to steal your products, intellectual property, and services will always have something negative to say when you ask for payment. In our digital age they will be as bold as to post nasty comments on social media platforms blasting you and your Christian values. They will probably “unfriend” you too. Remember, do not open a door that God as has closed. Count your blessings you were unfriended and saw the person show his/her true colors.Don’t be made to feel guilty or shamed into giving away your products or services for free. The funny thing is these people would not work for free or give away their products or service for free, so they should not expect you to do it either. Everyone won’t love you. Rejection is God’s protection.
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Darkroom Background – Digital Future
Photographers of my generation (40 or older) remember photography as a two-sided coin. There was the taking of the picture; be it sports, nature, or whatever. But there was also the developing of the picture; be it B/W, slides, or color. Cameras, light meters, and flash units were expensive, but that was still only half the cost of a true photographer. Many photographers, myself included; had almost as much invested in their darkroom as they did in camera gear.It was a sad day; when in college, they announced it would be their last year of having a darkroom. It felt like they had ripped one of my arms out. It felt like half of everything I knew suddenly was irrelevant and unimportant. It made me question the rest of my photography experience as well. I mean; if they got rid of darkrooms, could traditional photography be that far behind? At that point; I asked myself, “Have I wasted 20 years of my life?”The answer to that question for me and several million others out there is a resounding, “NO!” We have not reached the end of the road. We have entered a new chapter in the book of life and for many of us this is where the story gets really exciting. The mechanics of good photography involve knowing the mechanics of good art. Regardless if you use 35mm, digital, or even video you still need to know things like: the rule of thirds, framing, and depth of field. Light, lines, and balance have much more to do with “how” you see verses “what” you see with.The same is true of the digital darkroom that we call the computer. Photography is still a two- sided coin. There is taking the picture and there is enhancing the picture. Before we used enlargers, timers, and chemicals; now we use, computers, software, and media card readers. It may all be overwhelming at first (I know it was for me.) But look at it this way; after two or three hours at your computer, have you ever been told you smell like chemicals?Skills like cropping, dodging and burning are still used in all major photo-editing software. In fact, the things that would have taken hours in the darkroom can often be done in seconds. When it comes to dodging (making a certain area lighter) things have become incredibly easier. How many of you still have half a dozen specialized dodging tools laying in a closet somewhere? If you wanted to combine images in a darkroom it took hours to produce and years of experience to make it look real. Now a days, two or three images can be combined in just minutes and still look VERY realistic!If you remember back to how long it took you to master your darkroom skills, it probably won’t take you as long to learn new computer skills. For those of you who are hesitating because of cost; I can remember spending $1500.00 to set up a darkroom and thinking that was a good deal. At today’s prices, you can get a really good computer and excellent photo-editing software for less money than that.We who have documented the past must embrace the future. Photography is NOT a dead and buried art form. Every advertiser still uses photography. Every high school student still wants senior portraits. Every Mother still wants a photo of her new born baby. The need for good photography has not disappeared, it has simply evolved. If every mechanic quit; every time a new car was introduced, the world would be in big trouble. Do not fear the future, be the future. Show the world that creativity never dies, and join us in the digital age.
Boost Your Sales Force Productivity With CRM Technology
Increase Your Sales Force Productivity with CRM TechnologyIn today’s business environments, CRM implementations have a broad range in both their acceptance and also the reach of their deployments. Some organizations have yet to discover CRM Software, while others could never imagine how they could operate their business without it. CRM Software, at its core, is the technology that brings sales, marketing and customer service departments together to make sure that everyone knows what is transpiring inside of an organization. Let’s examine how this technology can be a huge factor in making your sales force is more productive and connected.Different Roles, Different NeedsWhen we look inside of a typical company’s sales department, one sees three major resource groups at play. First, often there is an inside sales department responsible for tasks that range from field sales support to appointment setting or just straight up sales. Next, outside sales professionals are often calling on the largest customers to build relationships and “protect their turf.” In addition, while all of this is going on, sales management is trying to monitor this activity and assist the entire department to ensure that sales are coming in the door and that the whole team is functioning as a cohesive unit.So, how can CRM Software assist a sales department in increasing productivity and building relationships while providing management with a bird’s eye view of the whole operation? To answer this, we need to look inside the CRM Software capabilities and how it functions in each role.Inside Sales RepWe will start with the inside sales department which has a broad range of tasks and is clearly in need of organization. For this article, we will focus on one of the core functions of any CRM solution – the activity scheduler. It is here where the users will organize activities, record follow-up calls and schedule appointments. All interactions between your sales department and their customers and prospects should be recorded in the system’s activities scheduler. Sales representatives should be using this tool to not only record notes and actions, but also to schedule tasks for other members of the team. In this way, everything is in one place and everyone can see what is occurring. Also, by deploying this functionality, one is putting themselves in a position to look educated and prepared when the customer reaches out.These benefits are endless for an inside sales department and we have just touched on one capability of the software. It is also important that the CRM Software provide features like, account profiles, email management, query building and document management when looking for tools that will provide productivity gains for the inside sales representative.Outside Sales RepNext, consider the outside sales professional. Here, we need a CRM technology that allows one to keep in touch with all activities at the home office while being very portable. This is where web based CRM solutions provide a wealth of knowledge for this environment. As mentioned above, a proper deployment of any activity scheduler will keep everyone in sync. However, the outside sales representative needs access to this data in a mobile, easy to use interface. Web based CRM solutions are easily accessible just by being online. A sales representative can be anywhere they have internet access and not only enter activity data, but also populate sales pipeline information, contact relationship hierarchy, and social CRM roles, just to name a few. Couple all of this into a wireless technology that can be rolled out on a phone or tabular device, and it is easy to see how the outside sales representative can stay connected, informed, and most importantly, productive.Sales ManagementFinally, we move on to the sales management point of view and what can be more useful to management then data. Data is crucial in making sure that tasks are being followed, opportunities are being managed and sales objectives are being achieved. This is where a quality CRM tool should have interactive dashboards. Dashboards need to be more than just reports. A manager needs to be able to work inside of the dashboard so that they can easily move to records and opportunities and see firsthand what is transpiring, what assistance is needed and how likely the opportunity is to close. CRM interactive dashboards are really a necessity for any productive sales management team.CRMSo, after reviewing this technology and how it can be implemented, it is easy to see how effective CRM Software can be in assisting today’s sales departments. Productivity gains are quickly seen when the proper CRM tool is implemented. Everyone is connected, in touch and focused on their customers and prospects. The need is clearly there, and it is crucial that the CRM Software you rely on can accomplish these tasks with an intuitive and easy to use interface.