Cash flow might be King but Getting Paid is the Prince!

Small Biz Matters – a half hour program each week where you can work ON your business rather than IN it.
with Alexi Boyd, broadcaster, advocate and small business owner.
Date: 4 February 2020

Cash flow is King, we all know that. But interestingly, the son of Cash Flow is Prince Invoice - the door to getting paid. But many owners can get this important part of business wrong and lose valuable time and money having to chase payments unnecessarily.

As the saying goes, ‘turnover is vanity, profit is sanity’.  Even if sales are brilliant, without the cash flowing back into the business,  the outcome can be disastrous.

So how can you make sure that your invoice IS paid on time AND, you don’t feel like the ‘bad guy’... you maintain your relationship with your clients at the same time?

Today we welcome Jan Reeves, author of an Amazon #1 best seller,  Get Paid!! ‘The 5 Steps to Getting Your Invoices Paid on Time, Every time. Jan is going to share with us her path that led her to run her own very profitable small business, write her book and some fantastic top tips on how to get paid faster.

Welcome to the show Jan.

Topics we’ll be covering:

• What’s your background and what led you to write the book and educate small businesses all about getting paid faster
  • 25 years working in credit control in corporate getting customers to pay as fast as possible - by the due date or before. First 10 years with a v successful organisation. Brilliant at customer service. Then I took that to other corporates struggling in the cash flow area.
  • I started my own business in recruitment specialising in accounts receivable personnel for corporate businesses
  • BUT I didn’t know about running a business myself - I almost went broke because I forgot to ‘mind the gap between invoicing and getting paid.
  • Why I wrote the book: After I sold my business, I realised that one of the reasons why it was so profitable was that we got paid on time, so I never had to worry about cash flow - I just got on with selling. We were like a sales/cash machine.
• You believe getting paid is all about customer service - what lessons did you learn from running your own business
  • How to get paid AND maintain great relationships - to do it well, recruitment is all about building relationships. With strong relationships there's lots of repeat business which makes the business more profitable
• Why don’t organisations pay on time?
  • The misconceptions. MYTHS
  • Over 50% don’t get paid because the invoice is actually incorrect, the client waits for you to call!
• 5-step process - practical tips
  • Setting up clients correctly through onboarding process - what the client wants to see on the invoice. CHECK your invoices - make it easy for your clients to pay you.
  • Choosing the right clients who will actually pay you! Ask for references. What’s the difference of who can pay and who won’t pay - how to recognise the difference?
    • Build a relationship with the accounts person. It’s not as simple as sending an invoice. Give them a call (easily disguised as customer service)
    • So the invoice goes out correctly. Half the battle.
    • Then use a customer service call to check that it’s fine - right place, right person.
    • If there’s a problem, your invoice won’t get paid until it’s fixed so own it. Doesn’t matter who made the error.
    • And then keep on top of it...

To find out more go to their website: https://janreeves.com/

Brief bio

Jan Reeves: Author, Business Builder and Cash Flow Coach

Jan is living proof that you can run a profitable small business. Jan owned and managed one of the most profitable small businesses in Australia. Most of her competitors had profits of under 10%, many with just 3 or 4%. Jan’s recruitment company achieved 24%!

Strong cash-flow and high profitability can make a MASSIVE difference to the value of any small business. Having sold her business for a record sum, Jan now shares her proven GET PAID! systems and strategies with other business owners via her Amazon #1 best-selling book ‘GET PAID! and Self Study Masterclass.

 Now all small business owners can see how easy it really is to get paid on time, increase their cash flow, profit and business value.