You have created a service, made a sale and made a good margin, right? If the sale was made on credit, the sale is far from over. The opportunity cost of money is an expense that continues until the money is deposited in the bank. The “real" margin of that sale is not realized until that time. For that reason, the accounts receivable department should be a very active, rather than passive, part of the revenue cycle. As with most things, a successful accounts receivable department starts with a good credit and collection policy. Credit is used to make sales easier but should not be controlled by the sales employees. Upper management should determine what constitutes credit worthiness based on sound cost benefit evaluation. This policy should be conveyed to the sales group and accounts receivable department in written form. Because any variation of this policy changes the dynamics of the sale; exceptions to the review should be made only occassionally and by upper management. Proper evaluation of potential customers is the next area of importance. While credit reporting agencies are important, the clients trade history is more indicative of what you can expect. Another thing to consider is how valuable your product or service is to the customers revenue cycle and the ease of finding another source. Based on these and other evaluations, a credit limit and terms should be determined and provided to the customer up front. Now your client has your products or services and you have a bill. Here is where proper customer interaction starts. It is necessary to convey your expectations with your customer as soon as their account reaches its first mile stone... their due date. If the client is trying to conserve his cash, he might hold payment until you contact him. The contact is much more pleasant at 32 days than at 3 months. If he knows that he will receive a call from you, chances are that he will put someone else on hold. If a payment is promised within a certain time frame, a tickle file should be set up to make sure that the time does not pass unnoticed. If after all of the massaging the accounts a collection effort ensues, there are some things to remember. It is better to get a small amount often than to wait for them to be able to pay the whole amount. They should be able to send some amount if they are attempting to make a good faith effort; and every dollar received cuts your losses by that much. If the amount involved justifies it, inform the customer that you will have someone stop by and pick up the payment if they are local, or have a courier pick it up if not. That puts them up against a specific deadline to write the check. If possible, get the repayment plan in the form of a promissory note. This gives the debt a higher position in case of a bankruptcy. The old addage an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure definately applies to the accounts receivable departments. With the proper realization of the cost of outstanding invoices and a dedication to the constant vigil of your accounts, this department will contribute its part to the revenue cycle.
Working on improving your rank within the different search engines - especially Google - can feel like a very complicated puzzle sometimes. This maze can be extremely time consuming; especially when you just complete one effort and then find out that they've once again changed the rules on you - rules that you weren't even sure of to begin with!
It is very well known that when you try to better the rank you've achieved with search engines, the best techniques that you can use are:
Acquiring quality inbound links Acquiring any links to your site at all, including reciprocal links Continually adding new, relevant, and fresh information to your site Using a good density and placement of the right keywords Creating a website that is interesting and relevant enough that visitors who arrive spend time there.
However, what is not so well known is a major point that is missing from this list. Domain names are beginning to become extremely important with Google. It isn't the domain name itself - that is, the words in the domain - nor how long it is, but how long you've had it. Google is now valuing sites that have been registered for longer, and that prove their intention to stick around for a long time.
Google is starting to give lower priority to sites that have been registered for a year or less, since they may simply be spammers who are looking for a fast dollar and then disappear.
On the other hand, for sites registered for five years or more, Google considers them serious websites or businesses that intend to exist for a good long while.
Therefore, one of the strategies important to gaining a strong ranking is to pay a little bit more money for your domain name registration to register for a few extra years, so that Google can tell that you intend to stick around for a long time. This will give your site Google value and your ranking will go up.
The problem that many webmasters are finding with this is that they either don't have the budget for the additional years of registration, or they don't want to register a site for a long time when they haven't proven to themselves that the venture will be successful. They don't want to pay for an additional four or more years of registration for a project that may not get off the ground.
The decision that therefore needs to be made is how important Google ranking will be to your website. Will it be the primary part of your internet marketing effort? Will you be concentrating a good deal of your time gathering reciprocal and one-way links? Will you be working hard on search engine optimizing (SEO), possibly hiring a professional, so that your site contains the right keywords the right number of times and in the right places?
If you'll already be putting a lot of time, effort, and possibly money into your Google and search engine ranking, then you may find that registering your site's domain name is really a minor investment to get you started in the right direction.
It's all a matter of balance, and making sure that you do the search engine optimizing strategy completely, and not cheap out before you can even give yourself the chance to truly shine. In fact, simply shelling out a little bit more to reserve your domain name may be the easiest part of your search engine optimizing strategy. As long as you do your homework in advance and find an affordable, or even cheap domain name registry business, then you likely won't have to pay much more than fifty dollars to get going.
As you can see, if search engine optimizing is important to your website, it's vital that you don't miss the most commonly overlooked part of SEO and reserve your website for a good length of time, to prove to Google that you're serious about building a quality, successful web presence. You'll show that you indeed deserve to be among the top ranking websites out there. With that done, you'll be ready to move to the next step of your SEO and watch the traffic start rolling in.
Both James Aycock & are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
James Aycock has sinced written about articles on various topics from Sales and Negotiation. The author is James B. Acock of Dallas Business Builders - www.DallasBusinessBuilders.com. James is a business expert in Addison Texas specializing in assisting small business owners grow into medium and large corporations.. James Aycock's top article generates over 480 views. to your Favourites.
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