How To Handle Sales Call Successfully?

I must admit, I am not a natural salesperson. When I had my first sales job in Espirit @ Crown Prince Hotel several years back, I resigned after a week vowing never to be a retail salesperson again.

And needless to say, I don't enjoy sales call too. It should be the fear of rejection that is holding me back and seeing it as a dread whenever I have to do sales call. And being your own boss means that you have to overcome the fear and even handle sales calls successfully to sell your business and yourself!

Here's a few tips that i find useful:

• Prepare yourself mentally by being positive and knowing what to say when you make the call. Smile and the person over the phone will "see" it and you won't want to receive a call from a bored, unsure or negative sounding person yourself.

• Introduce yourself. It irks me when people rattle off without me knowing who they are.

• State the purpose of your call and check whether it is a good time to speak with them. Once again, it can be irritating to be interrupted by a sales call when you're busy. I rather have the person call me back when I am in a more relaxed  mode. If not, no sales will be made anyway.

• Do not take rejection personally. Find out the reason if you can by listening well. Remember that people are busy and there may well be many reasons why the person is turning down the sales or proposal.

• Review what went well and what can be improved and call again. Move on with improvements!

Now, I have one more important sales call to make. The lady has rejected us several times and she has been real busy with her new shop opening. It's time to practise what I've mentioned above!

Read more tips here: Successful Sales Calls Tips!

Bad Debts Costly to Small Businesses

Did you know that from a survey done in UK, 47% of SMEs have no provision in place for bad debts or unpaid invoices? 34% will rely on legal action should they find themselves in such a situation, 27% would use their bank overdraft facility and 15% even plan to cover their shortfall with their own savings!

Unfortunately, even with good working relationship with suppliers and customers,  every businesses will still experience bad debts. For the rare few that don't, they should count themselves very lucky. And for the rest of us, you can either seek solace that you can claim deductible expense when you file for tax or you can TAKE ACTION against your debtors.

Bad debts usually mean that small businesses would be hit with cash flow problems and face immediate pressure on the business. And cash flow problems is one of the main reasons for failure of small businesses.

Also, chasing bad debts can be a very mentally exhausting process. It is frustrating and time consuming. When faced with our first case of bad debt collection, our normal work process was put on a slow down mode as we tried to contact our debtor every few days to follow up. It was totally time wasting! Moreover, it can be demoralizing and draining, affecting your performance at work.

There's a few option for bad debt collection. Before you proceed with the best course of action, you got to assess the situation and weigh your options carefully as every case is different.

Do keep in mind to start recovering your bad debts within 6 years or you chance of recovering the bad debts will be close to zero.

I'll touch on the few options in my upcoming posts:

Legal Action through Small Claims Tribunal

Debt Collector/Debt Collection Agencies

Handling it on your own

More Warning Signs of Bad Debts

• The debtor does not return phone calls, letters or emails

• Letters sent to debtor returned undelivered

• The debtor's family says he has moved but refuses to disclose his whereabouts

• The debtor denies responsibility

• The debtor asks you to sue him

• The debtor says, "If you press me, I'll go bankrupt."

• Another creditor has initiated claims against the debtor

• The debtor is a shell company whereby the directors say that they are not personally liable
  
  • This is totally untrue! As a director of a company, the person is liable for its debts etc.

• Change of ownership of company

• There's rumors in industry about debtor experiencing financial difficulties
  
  • If you can, do maintain a good relationship with other customers and working partners in your industry so that you'll be in the grapevine

• Debtor's sector is adversely affected by economic trends
  
  • For eg. You can observe from a retail business that business is slowing down and whether they have enough customers to sustain their business
  
  

Useful Websites & Contacts

ACRA Bizfile - to purchase company's & people's profile

• You'll need to know whether the company is Pte Ltd because if so, they may be liable only up to a certain amount of  the debt and debt collectors may not be able to get much from them after they declare bankrupt
• Reports cost only $5 each

Insolvency & Public Office Trustee - to find out if the company is already bankrupt

• Contacts can be found on their website

Small Claims Tribunal - to hear claims not more than $10,000 or $20,000 is the Claimant and Respondent consent in writing

• It's much faster if you can go straight to the subordinate court if there's a need to
• For matters relating to writ of seizure, you'll be directed to the Baliff which is right next to the Small Claim Tribunal

QuestNet SG - for companies' credit and litigation searches and reports

hello@TheEntrepreneurBusiness.com - if you want recommendation of the effective debt collection agency I've engaged ;)

I Got MY Money Back!

Yeah, finally! I just checked my account online and it's good news! Although it's not the full amount (it's the full 2009 amount), it is already about 75% of the debt! The debt collector will be chasing them again now that this first cheque has just cleared.

I feel so happy about this. It's no longer about the money but more of showing my debtor that I will not be pushed around anymore.

I was right about the hiring the debt collector. These people must have thought that we were pushovers and when we hired debt collectors, they simply handed the money over real quick. Money that was owed 4 months was simply paid up over 1 weekend!

This bad debt was money deemed as lost initially but the situation has turned around! It's victory in my opinion.

I rather pay a the debt collector who are so much more deserving of the money than these unscrupulous businesses who take advantages of small businesses.

I've started a category on 'Debt Collection' on this site to share more about my experiences and the steps you can take to increase your odds of collecting back your bad debts. You can also view the category on the right side of this page. I hope this will be of help to businesses in the same situation.

Signs and Symptoms of Bad Debts

First few signs of impending bad debts:

• A sudden increase in order
  
  • It may mean that the customer has lost credit with another supplier and is ordering more from you to fill the gap

• Payment become increasingly slow
  
  • The customer may have cash flow problem

• Groundless complaints about shipped orders or excuses about invoice misplacements etc.
  
  • The customer may be stalling time to delay payment

• Makes partial payment instead of the agreed full payment

• You receive numerous excuses on non-payment
  
  • For e.g. change of accountant, management, busy festive period. misplaced invoices etc.

• Makes payment for smaller amount even though earlier outstanding invoices are not cleared according to date
  
  • The customer gives excuses about mixed up invoices such that they can pay off the smaller amounts instead

So, if you see any of these bad debt warning signs, do exercise extra caution in extending additional credit to your customers.

And I'd like to hear from others too who have experienced bad debts. Do share your comments so that we can all learn and avoid getting ourselves into bad debts situations.

Of Books and Apple

It has taken me a few days to find the perfect wordpress template to use for this new site and I am very satisfied with this current one that is easy for a beginner like me to tweak and customize.

Do go to this site for free wordpress themes download. They have several nice ones which can be easily customizable.

This red and brown coloured wordpress template rightly convey my passion in running my own business. I like the warm feel it exudes and I also wanted to put in my own picture in the header.

Why so? Becuase the books represents my interest in reading and the apple, my appetite for knowledge.

As any entrepreneurs will know, this is a path of contant learnings and challenges.

Now that the basic setup is done, let my sharing begins.