Speed matters, so get paid quickly

#SmallBusiness60: Episode 3

Every year over 600,000 businesses in the UK experience problems with late payments. On average, small businesses spend an extra four hours per week managing them and chasing them.

In Xero's December 2018 small business insights report, just half of UK small businesses were cash-flow positive, and it took on average 38 days for a 30-day term invoice to be paid.

And yet, you and I know that speed matters in small business:

• Time to respond to an enquiry;
• How long it takes us to book time with a prospect in our diary;
• How quickly we turn around a quote, or a summary of that meeting for our prospect;
• And the time it takes us to get paid and then implement what the client wants.

But the average client services business spends way more time doing administrative tasks and follow-up activities than they'd prefer to do so. Wouldn't we rather be serving clients, or spending more time away from our desks with our families?

Speed matters. Is it time to take a look at how quickly you're completing those four key steps, and the impact that's having on your business' cash flow?

Getting paid is core to Connectably. In this week's 'Connectables' Live Training (Friday 15th February at 10am), I walked through how to create simple order forms for your services.