Make It Easy To Pay You

Holy moly.

Last week I tried to buy two high-end gifts for friends, and TWICE I was shut down by the business owners I was trying to pay.

If you were to talk to them, I’m sure they’d say they need the money and that they’d love these big ticket sales.  And yet, when faced with a real person ready to whip out her credit card and throw some dolla bills at them, they both bawked.

Which tells me they have some major money blocks going on.  Which makes me sad, and bummed out, because accepting money from a customer who is approaching you trying to pay you should be the easiest thing, and least of your worries.

While both of these situations were pretty surprising to me – they were also both big teachers.  They shone a light on how avoidant humans are when it comes to handling money.

Neither one of these small business owners were prepared to close a big sale. They also had zero awareness of their customer process + experience buying things with them. 

Don’t let this happen to you!

You want to be prepared to close your big sales like you make them everyday.  You want your customers to have smooth, seamless transitions from interested browser to paying client.  Here are my best tips for making it smooth and easy to pay you.

Know your price-points, get comfortable saying it out loud 

You should be able to say without stuttering or stopping, how much your services are.  If you have payment plan options, you should be able to rattle those off as easily as your shoe size.  Especially if you’ve just raised your rates (yay!) get comfortable saying the numbers before you talk to clients.

Make the tech part a breeze

Don’t ask someone to just sent you money via Paypal or mail you a check.  Make it easy on them – send them a link or invoice, or direct them to a secret webpage with a payment button.  Don’t depend on other people remembering to pay you or how to spell your last name to get money in the bank.

Let people know what to expect next

What’s the process once they click BUY NOW?  Will they get an automatic email? Personalized intake form? Packet from your assistant?  Don’t leave them hanging! They just did a super big deal thing paying you for your services, you don’t want to leave them feeling like they’re wandering around in the dark, wondering what’s going to happen next. It doesn’t need to be complicated, a quick “here’s what to expect” and the timeline attached to it works wonders.

Do the internal work

Some of the best business advice I ever heard was “Do not apply your money issues to your clients.” The energy and attitude you have around money works like a mirror. If you have judgements about how much you’re charging for your services, your potential clients will too.  It might show up like them asking for a discount, or asking for a ton of free add-ons.   If you don’t believe anyone will pay you that much for your work, congratulations, you’re right, but client-free.   Make sure you’re really grounded in the value you provide at the price you’re charging.

What I notice is that these are steps that we repeat as our business grows.  So if you’re just starting out or landing your 100th client, make sure you’re making it easy to pay you, so you can get on to doing what you do best – making a positive impact in the world.