Has this ever happened to you? You’ve gone through a picture-perfect appointment and after everything’s said and done… having gone just as well as it possibly could, you give the home owner the bottom line price for the job. They then look at each other and, in unison, reply, “We love it! We want it! …but we just don’t have that much money available right now.” What, exactly, just happened?
I had originally qualified a couple just like them at a Home Show. I spent time with them on the phone and again in person. I showed them everything I could think of in the forty-five minutes I spent with them in their home, and they wound up telling me they didn’t have that kind of money available!!? Where’d I go wrong? Did I not read these people correctly? I had done everything I was supposed to do and I did read them right. They loved it and wanted it. But… I forgot to ask some of the right questions… and one of them is, “How do you intend on paying for the job?”
Too many times we take for granted the fact that just because we do what we’re supposed to do, the other folks are going to do their part as well. It’s a trust thing with me I guess, but that (obviously) doesn’t always pan out. Now let me share something with you that will help you in a situation like this, not because I did it (I never got around to it) but looking back I wish I had! I actually had people ask me if I took Visa or MasterCard and I had to tell them no. This has happened to me countless times and I know that if available to me at the time, I would have closed many more jobs.
OK, you see where I’m heading with this: Just because the home owners couldn’t shell out $4,500.00 from their checking accounts doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have been willing to make an easy payment every month for the job. Using Visa/MasterCard is a good investment for your business. Nowadays, the capability of obtaining a Visa/MasterCard account is as simple as going to sites such as Square Up (click here) or QuickBooks offers a card reader that interfaces with their accounting software (click here). We’re heading toward a cashless society and plastic rules. Customers expect to pay for goods and services with a credit card and banks will fight for your merchant business. Usually, a nominal fee for a small credit card machine and, typically, around 3% service charge will get you going. You can even get credit card machines that attach to your cell phone for instant access. If you think 3% is a lot to pay for maybe a 20% increase in business, you’re making the same mistake I made.
