Have you thought about taking a deposit from your clients when they book an appointment? Are you seeing ‘no-shows’ and looking for ways to reduce it? Or do just want to feel more secure that the clients will show up at the scheduled time?  Requiring payments before confirming appointment may just be the right thing for you.

We have added this feature just a couple of days ago.  With this, now you can require your clients to put a deposit before they can confirm their appointment.  The appointment booking process remains as simple as it was earlier: select a service, a staff, a date, a time-slot, and confirm.  However, when you turn-on the pre-payment option, your client will be asked to make a deposit (via Paypal or credit cards, if you have enabled them).  If they fail to make the deposit, the appointment will be saved in a pending state, so that you can contact them directly and follow-up.

You can also decide the pre-payment amount; it could either be a fixed amount or a percentage of service fee.  A successful payment will automatically be recorded in client’s account.  To enable this feature, go to ‘Settings’ and then ‘Appointment Preferences’.

As always, we believe you’ll find this useful.  Feel free to drop us a note if you have any suggestion.

Significant improvements in project billing in place now.  Well, we deployed these changes a few days ago. I just did not have a chance to write about them.

Let’s get straight to what these improvements mean and how you can use them.  First, now you can create projects with a fixed price  and bill your clients incrementally.  Simplifythis will track the invoiced amount and the remaining unbilled amount for these fixed price projects.  You can see the complete billing history for each of the projects -just select a project and click on ‘Summary’ to do so.

When you create a new project, you’ll notice 3 billing options: (i) Fixed price projects, (ii) Hourly billed projects, and (iii) Non-billable projects.  Select the billing option for the project.  For tracking purposes, we now have added a budget field for hourly projects also.  You can track the amount billed against the budget and see whether you would be able to stick to the budget or not.

I know  - it has been a long time since our last post in the ‘New Features’ category.  Not that we were twiddling our thumbs; we were busy updating the underlying architecture so that we can incorporate your feature requirements more easily.  In the process, we did release a key feature-ability to customize your SimplifyThis page, which may have gone unnoticed by many of you.

The re-architecture  effort is finally paying off.  We are happy to announce the first major feature : ability to keep notes on contacts.  In brief, this will allow you to:

• - Take multiple notes on a contact.  As usual, select the contact and click on ‘Add Notes’.  To view all notes for a contact, just click on view notes.
• - Make a note actionable.  This is good to remind your self of  particular task that you need to do for a contact.  While creating or editing a note, select ‘Actionable’  and due date.  Once the task is complete, you can easily mark it as complete.
• - If you do not wish to view a note again, you can delete it.  If you think you may need it later, you can also hide it.

I know we don’t have the capability to search on notes, or to alert you when an actionable note approaches its due date. Be rest assured, we are working on it and will make it available very soon.

The idea of notes came from Brian at Empire Computer Services.  We sounded it off with several other users and everyone felt that this would be very useful.

Well, the list of new features does not end here.  We have also refreshed the look and feel of client facing pages with a sprinkle of new design, and the capability to choose multiple color schemes.  In addition, we have simplified the appointment booking process as well.  I’ll be writing about these two features in more detail separately.

We’re about to roll out a new level of retention efforts - specifically for our free trial customers. That means we’re letting people know we are here:

• For support, questions, comments, concerns, training, tips, conversations and anything to make your stay with Simplifythis a pleasant experience
  (so you can come back for more…)
• To learn from you so we can make Simplifythis better for future generations

If you are extending a free trial with your business, you might as well do a good job of welcoming your customers. Anyone can satisfy the first bullet’s requirements with a few helpful e-mails and a blog post. It’s the business-practice equivalent of, say, having a Web site. That’s the base-line that any growing smbiz should meet.

Institutionalizing the second bullet point is tough but if done, can show you where you need to focus to meet your customers’ expectations. If I sign-up for a free trial of a computer program I’ve never used, I expect to have my hand held at the beginning and (depending on the program) I expect to be able to let go after some time. Two basic requirements that the business many opportunities to help their customers.

Know what your customer will expect. Then use that knowledge to make something awesome (a la Bobby McFerrin, who took the expectations of his “customers” and…well, see for yourself).

How do you do it? I was racking my brain trying to think of the perfect, targeted, most helpful and least annoying method…but then I though, “Why don’t I have the readers do my work for me?”

Well, I should ask this question in context.

We offer a free, 30-day trial for our Easy-Bill and Easy-Book products. This is standard procedure for many smbiz. Without big-name brand recognition, we want to try it before we buy it and a free trial is a great way to strut your stuff. But what happens after those 30 days? What happens during those 30 days?

A quick walk around the Internet reveals a 1 percent trial-to-purchase conversion rate - the arbitrary industry average for software. Unless the product is outrageously priced, 1 percent can be disheartening.

Some firms are pretty tactful. I signed up for a free trial at an e-mail marketing site and I received a non-automated phone call the next day (talk about one-on-one customer service)! Other smbiz send regular e-mail updates with “What other people are saying about our product” and “How to…” tips. The key seems to be beginning a conversation as a first step. But how much is too much?

For example, I signed up to receive some e-mail information about classes at the University of Phoenix. This company has certainly ramped up its advertising and moved closer to the front of our minds in general. I received the information, but for some reason, they call me at least three times a day. I haven’t answered my phone since the first time, just to see how long they’ll keep up their customer retention strategy

So how do you keep your customers from leaving after that trial period? E-mails? Surveys? Demos? Phone-calls? Those deceiving letters in the mail that looks like someone handwrote the address in beautiful cursive, but it’s really junk mail? Let us know!

Simplifythis has two online products:

1. Easy-Bill. Simple, easy-to-use and professional online invoicing for your smbiz
2. Easy-Book. User-friendly scheduling and booking app for your customers

These two tools are perfect for smbiz such as spas, body shops and independent contractors (don’t worry, this blog post isn’t just a shameless plug…I’ll make my point soon). As chief marketer, it’s obvious I need to reach out to ST’s potential customers. Social media is supposed to help businesses connect with their customers but there are thousands of these smbiz! If I want to reach a large audience, looks like I’ll have to send an e-mail to as many smbiz as I can. So here’s my to-do list:

• Build a massive, random list of potential smbiz
• Draft a concise e-mail that describes ST’s products
• Hire an e-mail marketing firm to make it look snazzy
• Click “send” and hope for the best

What do you think? After discussing, ST’s founder thought this strategy had a low ROI potential and a huge potential for wasting time.

Many firms and people get gung-ho about the to-do list without thinking about aligning actions with strategy. Each bullet point in the list above is easy to complete. Why, any brain-dead moron could do it (i.e. yours truly)! But taking a step back and thinking critically - that’s the hard part. Trial and error is useful but spending more time thinking can save time, money and a few trials. In our case, implementing - and tracking results of - an e-mail marketing campaign can be expensive and time-consuming.

So ST has a different to-do list. Rather than targeting a bunch of end users impersonally via mass e-mail, we compiled a small list of web designers whom we will approach for partnerships. As an ST partner, web designers include our products in their portfolio of services at no cost. In short, ST partners have more services to offer to their clients (and receive commission when they sell our products) and we get a multiplier effect since their clients can also become our clients.

Lesson? Get excited about strategy before getting excited about the easy stuff. And now for the plug

Do you know of any Web site designers who would be interested in becoming an ST partner? If so, let them know (http://tinyurl.com/STpartner)!

New to the Seattle Startup Index list this month, SimplifyThis.com ranks 90^th of 209 startups in the Seattle area. Be sure to check out all of the other great startups on the list.

Some of our favorites include: 43Things, Mpire, SmartSheet, Jackson Fish Market, and of course, Sampa!

Labels: SimplifyThis.com

Most businesses do it — they put off paying their vendors until they really, really have to pay them. Many put it off even later than that. It could be that they’re taking full advantage of their payment terms, have other payment priorities, or cash flow is just generally tight. Whatever the reason, the point is that if you do work with one of these businesses, then getting paid can be hard.

It’s not enough to only track who owes you money. In addition to tracking, you need to be the squeaky wheel. Don’t be shy about contacting them and letting them know what they owe and when you expect it. Many times, even this is not enough. Often, you need to also communicate what happens when the payment is late. Without communicating consequences of a late payment, your communications can be all but ignored.

With SimplifyThis.com, not only can you track who owes you money and who is late with payments, but you can also email reminder letter. The best part is that we’ve done the hard work and created the letter for you, so you don’t have to spend a bunch of time wondering if you are going to offend someone. It’s professional and to the point — all you need to do is send it.

If you get a response to your reminders, then great. If not, you may consider picking up the phone and trying to get a hold of them in person. For businesses that you have a regular relationship with, this approach can keep the relationship friendly, but still serve the purpose of nudging the payment along.

Beyond sending reminders and making phone calls, sometimes it’s necessary to up the stakes a bit for businesses that are basically stonewalling you. After two to three reminders, it’s not uncommon for some businesses to hand their unpaid accounts over to a collection agency. Even if you don’t intend to follow through with it, just mentioning a collection agency is sometimes all it takes.

* * *

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(Image courtesy of _gee_)

Labels: Business

When we went live back on June 23rd, I promised that we would be adding new things all the time — well, it’s true, many new features have been added in the past 4 weeks that we need to let you know about.

One of the biggest additions is our Affiliate Program, that lets you earn cold, hard cash, when you refer your friends and colleagues. Unlike many affiliate programs that “apply” your earnings to offset the cost of your own subscription, we give you real money. Even better, you don’t have to be a user of SimplifyThis.com to participate! Anyone can be an affiliate and start earning money right now by signing up to participate.

So how much cash will you earn? Well, when someone signs up for a paid account using your affiliate URL, you receive 30% of their paid subscription for 1 year! This and all the other details can be found on our Affiliate Program page.

So go ahead, help us spread the word about SimplifyThis.com!

Labels: SimplifyThis.com

New Trends in small businesses: An article by Anita Campbell based on U.S. census 2005 highlights the growth of Single Person Businesses at rates four to five times the population growth rate of USA during the three years beginning 2002. Looking at this data, the first and foremost question that comes to my mind is whether the new single person businesses are managed by people who earlier were employees or partners of larger units or are all of them fresh entrepreneurs. Since the growth percentage of small businesses heavily out numbers the overall population growth rate one would logically assume that a larger proportion of the new single person businesses are managed by people who were earlier attached to a larger business in one capacity or the other. Is it a sign of the larger businesses disintegrating due to desertion by skilled individuals?

What motivates people to go for self managed businesses? Obviously the freedom to work the way you like and expectations of higher returns for your skills may be the main incentives for preferring self managed business over working for or with others. Independence of working style, sole right on the returns, fewer constraints on self and familial conveniences and promises of shining are all incentives to run a self managed businesses. Despite all these lures, it is a huge decision for anyone to play solo. Of course you need to have enough confidence and skills to manage the show singly. Before you start, you should thoroughly look into the feasibility of sustaining single person businesses. Once you sport this endeavour, not only do you lose the economy of scale of a larger business, you also miss the complimentary skills that your co-workers have been providing in running a business. If you are currently part of a larger business, take a comprehensive note of every activity that goes on in running the business. You would need to run all these activities yourself. Evaluate your skills and identify areas that you may need help on. Once solo, you would be managing every aspect of the business from sales and marketing to accounting and customer support. At the risk of sounding apprehensive, I must that say that the risks are no less discouraging.

Notwithstanding the aforesaid apprehensions, entrepreneurship is on the rise which is great news. This substantiates the fact that people like to take the challenges of solo businesses head-on. Despite all the benefits of economy of scale and efficiencies of complimentary skills, larger businesses with several employees suffer from the unavoidable constraints of limited freedom and flexibility. These constraints inhibit the inherent capabilities from showing up and performing. This ultimately leads to under utilization and consequently suboptimal individual performance. Dissatisfaction and disappointment are the natural corollaries. Another human factor for the suboptimal performance of larger businesses is decidedly the growing lack of tolerance among the people working together.

The basic fabric of our economy is changing in a way that supports the survival and growth of solo businesses, and it is a symbiotic effect as these businesses support each other in a direct or indirect way. In a sense, while the freelancer community has grown multi-fold, so has the number of small projects and work items. Such small businesses cannot afford to (and do not need to) employ full time for various specialized work items that fall outside of their core competency. This is phenomenal change in the basic arrangement of workforce in our economy, giving rise to several thriving marketplaces for small slices of people’s time and equally small work items. This should also improve the business productivity of our workforce because inherently one’s productivity for one’s own business is much higher, and the marketplace for small projects and work items reduces the overall dead time.