Working While Traveling and Receivables Best Practices

Business Brain, the Show for entrepreneurs episode 434 for Friday, March 24, 2023. Greetings folks and welcome back to Business Brain, the show where we take our business brains and apply them to all kinds of problems in life, be they business issues. Maybe not even problems, just scenarios. Business scenari, personal scenarios, home scenarios, work scenarios, whatever it is to get a different perspective and hopefully get a path towards leading that charmed life. Talk about leading that charmed life. Our sponsor, Thinkific plus, is this powerful training platform that lets you create courses to educate your customers and you get a month free by visiting thinkific.com businessbrain today. We will talk more in depth about that in a little bit. But for now here in Durham, New Hampshire, still happy to be back here in Durham, New Hampshire.

I'm Dave Hamilton and coming to you from the Bay Area, California, soggy and wet, thankfully. This is Shannon Jean. How you doing?

I'm good. I'm, you know, it. I've been back a few days here and after my 12 days of travel and I went into these 12 days of travel knowing that I couldn't blow off like work, I had to stay on top of things because otherwise it would be.

I would kill you. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it would not only would it have made getting a nightmare, but it also would have made even just traveling. Like I would have lost track of things. Somebody else would have had to pick up the slack for me if I wasn't going to be picking up the slack. But I was able to, you know, set up a little work desk in each of my hotel rooms. I was in three different hotels, two in Vegas and then one in one in Austin when I was there for south by Southwest. And it worked out fine. I brought that extra screen with me. So I had a nice 15 inch 4K screen next to my laptop that really let me I'm used to using multiple screens here in the office in the studio, and so having a way of sort of replicating my natural workflow, it really made a huge difference. But what I find and I've been applying this here in the office too, now that I've been back and I actually learned this a little bit earlier, I just hadn't yet shared it on the show because I've been traveling a bunch. I was in what I was in Vegas and then Italy in January and then Mexico in February and then, you know, Vegas again and Austin here in March and March isn't even over. I learned that by limiting the amount of time I had to do My work, I was more efficient with the work that I was doing.

I like it. How do you limit it?

Well, I will set appointments where I need to leave the office for something. I haven't figured out how to artificially limit myself yet. Right. Like that's the next step of this is, is saying, okay, well, I'm only going to give myself, you know, four hours today to work. So. But then I'm just going to sit around for the other four. No, like I need to be productive. I need to feel like I'm doing things. So I set appointments, I do different things. I'll meet a friend for lunch or something. But you know, or even just meetings, because meetings, it's nice to interact with people. Don't get me wrong. However, they are massive wastes of time from a productivity standpoint. But. But like really valuable from a let's remind each other that we're humans and why we do business together standpoint. Right.

So I think it helps collaboration a lot. Correct that. Yeah. But it is a time suck.

It's a time suck. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, you know, putting building my schedule such that I have limits on the amount of time I have work to do and then, and then being really, as I always am, intentional about my to do list as well and saying, okay, this is what I need to get done. It is realistic to do this in the amount of time that I've given myself. And I'll usually give myself a little more time than I think I need just because I know there will be interruptions. Right. Like that's just how life goes and, and it's worked out really well. So I like that, that whole idea. And really, you know, a couple of years ago we talked about this. I changed my vocabulary. I'm no longer striving to be busy. I no longer talk about when I'm busy. I strive to be productive and I talk about when I'm productive and that's it. I do not worry about being busy anymore because busy is an easy thing to do to kill time and not be productive.

So yeah, you look back on your to did list when you're wrapping up your day that busy work can. Can really be a time waster.

Can be a time waster. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I carve things out and like today I had to shift some things around. I had an electrician coming at the ungodly hour of 7am on Thursday morning to. To finally put some Ethernet cable in and get my house the way I've always wanted it. I don't Know why I've waited this long. But anyway, I have a reason now change things around. It was like, okay, now I'm gonna do it. And we record on Tuesdays. And on Tuesday morning at about 10am he texted me and said, hey, somebody else wasn't ready for us. Can we do you today? And I was like, well yeah, that's actually way better than me having to get up at the, you know, in the middle of the night for you to get here at 7am and so that changed my day. I, I didn't have to be there and, and hold their hand all day. But it did change some of the things I was going to do today. And like I didn't want to go dark for extended periods where I didn't have to so that I could be available for them. So I just changed some things around. But it's still been a super productive day. And then here we are doing the show. So, so yeah, just being intentional about that and doing things, putting things in my schedule to stop, to give me a hard stop point really makes a difference for me.

Yeah, I, I, yeah, yeah. And I, I've used that. I also like just setting the timer. It's like, okay, I know when I'm planning out my days, like, okay, look, it's, you know, it's eight o', clock, I'm gonna work on this project. I need to focus for the next two hours and then I have to be done then setting a timer really helps me. And having that timer go off at that two hour mark and it's like, just stop, you gotta stop. You know you're gonna come back that you know and continue to work on especially for the longer term project. But something that reminds me to, okay, it's time to shift gears into this next thing.

Yeah, yeah. Because appointments do is it shifts my gears. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah. And, and I think that laying it out in your day, you know, visually is very helpful for, for me, when you look at that, it's like doing your calendar. But I like to open it up in a broader. Whatever you use, whether it's your quartet, your whiteboard. If you don't know what the quartet is, just search on Amazon.

No, I put it in the show notes. It's all good.

Life changing device that'll sit right.

Quartet is a glass, a glass whiteboard. But in great form. Factors that really can work well for you.

The one I use, and I think Dave uses it sits between your keyboard and your monitor, your computer screen. And so you're constantly roving your eye over it and it helps you kind of keep things on track. I love. It's great.

Yeah. I use it literally, but I'm not.

Dragging it with me.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

But I'm not dragging it with me on, on, on travel.

So. Yeah, screw that. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah. Always good to figure out ways to help keep, keep your focus and also planning time to just let your brain wander and to think whether you're taking a walk, getting outside. Really important to help break those things up. I think that's, that's crucial.

Ooh, hey. That means I get to tell you about our sponsor. Look, when you're looking to drive growth in your business, it's not just about acquisition. You need to think about educating and engaging your customers at every point of the funnel and doing so at scale. And Thinkific plus, our sponsor, can help you do just that. This is a powerful learning platform that's so easy to use for your team and for your customers. Thinkific plus believes that customer education is a viable solution to combat the common challenges of recurring revenue like churn. It's best if we keep our customers educated. We keep our customers engaged. That mitigates attrition. Right. It means customers won't leave if they feel like they understand why they are using your business and your services and where that value comes from. And a great way to do that is, is to teach them. Right. Education shouldn't be considered a nice to have. It's an essential growth tool for your business. So Thinkific plus has created a purpose built platform for your team that allows you to create impactful educational experiences for your customers. This way you're training them and you create the materials and then all of your customers can take advantage of them. So this scales very, very easily. You can find new ways to engage with your customers and then drive adoption, renewals and expansion growth. It's time to reimagine education for your customer success with Thinkific Plus. Right now, Thinkific plus is offering listeners to Business Brain a limited time offer. You get one month free but it's only available by going to our special URL. That's thinkific.com businessbrain that's thinkif I c.com businessbrain and our thanks to Thinkific for sponsoring this episode. All right. Listener Robert wrote in to feedback at BusinessBrain show and said, over the years I've had a handful of customers who have never paid me. Some outstanding invoices are as small as $100. Some are as much as 5,000. As a web developer with keys to their sites, I have been known to throw a wrench in the system and then they usually call me to fix things. Of course, I'll be happy to fix things once they settle their balance and pay in advance for the repair. I call this interest. But I don't always have this leverage. I currently have a client who is constantly leaving anywhere between 500 and $2,000 in outstanding invoices. He only pays them when he needs a new project completed. What do you suggest for collecting outstanding invoices with problem clients? I've been through a lot of this, especially as a solopreneur.

Yeah. Yep, us too.

With, with Backbeat Media. When we expanded in 2001 to allow credit cards to be used for payments, that was a lifesaver for our business. This was right after the Internet bubble burst. Our. Our ad rates literally dropped to 10% of what they had been previously. And we really needed to make sure that when people said they were going to pay us that we got the money. By adding credit cards, it allowed us to set a default to prepay, which for the most part we still maintain today, although not with our ad agencies. But that's very different. The good news is that today it's way easier for you to get a to take credit cards at your business than it was back then. Trying to convince someone in 2001 to give credit card merchant account to an Internet business was a disaster. And with my consulting business, I started doing the same thing. I would put a customer's credit card on file or I would get payment for services as they were rendered. You know, I was doing a lot of on site stuff and so I would go to their home or their office and fix whatever it was. And then I would say, okay, here's your bill. Like, do not we as consultants, one of our worst things is invoicing our customers because we just don't do it. We didn't get into business to be professional invoicers. We got into business to be professional. In Robert's case, a web designer. In my case, I wanted to help people with their computers, so I would do that. And then it's like, oh yeah, I'll send you a bill later or whatever. It's like, no, no, take the four minutes at most, write it up there, give it to them and wait for a check. That's the key. Timely invoices is number one on my list.

Yeah, I think you have to let them know the expectation of about payment before you start the work, 100%.

Yes. Right. This needs to be upfront, like, yep, I'm gonna give you a bill and I'd love to get a check from.

You or just like the plumber or like the whatever you pay as you go. Or of course, if you have a company that you're giving terms to, especially larger companies, you guys, you need to agree on those terms before you start that work. I think that's just really, really important. I agree with you on the credit card thing. And the online billing is like night and day now.

Yeah. You could just do it online. They can pay it. Yep. It's great.

Send an invoice, do follow ups, all that stuff.

Well, and that's one nice thing about the online billing is it can be the thing to do follow ups for you. I call it polite persistence. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. And just reminding them that they owe you is great. Somebody at Podcast Movement, I think it was, maybe it was south by Southwest. It was south by Southwest was saying they. It was a different context, but this works perfectly. They made up a name and an email address of their assistant, and their assistant is the one that in this, in this scenario we're talking about here, sends the collection notices. That way it's not your favorite web designer or favorite consultant. It's, oh, yeah, my assistant handles that for me. And yeah, if they're on you about that, you should get that taken care of because they're not going to. They're going to tell me to put a black mark on your, you know, on your thing and not show up. So that's great. Yeah, that can work. A magic phrase that I learned from a former business partner. Brilliant. He would say, if I can't get this paid by Friday, it's going to leave my desk. That's it. He would stop with that. Like, that's super nebulous, but, yeah, vague.

But a little, A little ominous.

A little bit ominous, right? Yeah, yeah. And, and sort of the other general thing that I would do is, is try somebody else at the company. If you're, you know, if you were interacting with the owner, call one of their employees. If you weren't interacting with the owner, call the owner. And this works both ways. An employee doesn't want their boss to know they are shirking responsibility on paying a bill. Similarly, the owner of the company doesn't want their employees to know they are shirking on paying the bill because that sends a really dangerous message to their employees. And it's a good way to get Things paid. Yep. Yeah.

And I think that, that if you have a, even maybe it's just, maybe it's a document also that they fill out in, in person or online that says, okay, here's the payment process. Who do we contact and who do we follow up with if there's issues or you, you know, here's who you follow up if you have questions about the bill. This is our accounting department, yada, yada, yada. But spelling all that stuff out, the, the worst thing you can do, especially if you're a solopreneur, a contractor by yourself, you know, whatever consultant, is to go do work and leave and not talk about the bill.

Yes.

Talk about the bill you can do.

Right.

And, and I, I have got people come do stuff at our house and that, that never send me an invoice that I have to track down to go, hey, you know, you came and put new screen doors in our house and you never sent me an invoice, you know, because I understand they're not doing. But I would have paid him just with a credit card right then.

Right then and there. Yeah. It's way easier to get somebody to pay you right after you've done the work for them when they're happy with the work that you've done. So we're curious.

And if you're worried, yeah. If you're worried about fees, last, you know, word for me is lots of online payment service you can set up for ach payments and you won't pay any fees like you would for a credit card. So there's, the options are unbelievable.

But the fees, the credit card fees are worth it, man. Like, it's worth 3% just to know that you don't have to do any of that stuff we just talked about. Yep. Yeah. Feedback at BusinessBrain show. I want to know what your tips are, how you help have dealt with collections. That's really important. I, I think we can, we can all help each other. Feedback at BusinessBrain Show. We want to hear from you. And what did I do here? Oh, I hit the wrong button. Look at that, man. I, I, I goosed the volume. I'm not going to do that again. That's all good. And that way, if your email is featured like Robert's was this episode, you get entered into our contest to win a MacBook Air this year. Keep living that charm life, huh? We'll see you next week.