Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | May 14, 2018 | Worcester Business Journal 19 10 T H I NG S I know about . . . ... Card payments By Keith Reardon Keith Reardon is managing partner & co-founder of Worcester payment processing firm Commonwealth Consulting Group. Reach him at keith@ccgpays.com. 10) Payment card industry compliance – One of the biggest pain points in accepting credit/debit cards is annual PCI certification. Talk with your provider to reduce your scope. 9) Credit and debit card processing fees – Our industry is fully commoditized. Do not be sold into flat rates or qualified pricing, as you are not getting the true costs. 8) Proper merchant category code – Ensuring your business is set up with the proper MCC code can help to significantly reduce costs. 7) Accepting business, corporate and purchasing cards – Special rates are available for accepting a business, corporate or purchasing card for Visa & MasterCard. 6) Accounting and integrations – Having to process payments in one system and then reconcile in another can be cumbersome. Integrating payments with your software like QuickBooks, Sage, Oracle, etc. will make payment acceptance less time consuming. 5) Chip card (EMV) acceptance. As of Oct. 1, 2015, all businesses (except pay at the pump gas stations) were required to process the chip on a card. If your company doesn't, upgrade immediately to avoid automatic chargebacks. 4) E-Commerce. EMV has reduced fraud by roughly 65-70 percent. Therefore, fraudsters are hacking small business online stores at an alarming rate. Ensure you have a SSL Certificate for your domain and your shopping cart is secured and encrypted through it. 3) Near-field communication acceptance – With the increasing use of Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc., NFC is an easy way to allow your customers to pay you. 2) Point-of-sale systems – Make sure the POS you select is agnostic to what credit/ debit card processors you can work with. When a POS forces you to work with a processor, there is a monetary partnership between them not in your best interest. 1) Cash and debit discount program. It is illegal to surcharge a customer if they are paying by credit card in Massachusetts in a card-present situation. With new processing software, you can build in card costs to your margins and offer a discount if someone uses cash or a debit card. K N O W H O W Want results with your marketing? Get SMART 10 1: F I N D I N G T A L E N T W hen it comes to marketing your business, you need to establish goals to help lead your com- pany toward a specific direction. But setting goals isn't enough. You can't, for example, set a goal of adding 1 million new customers to your base in three months and expect it to come true, which is why when setting goals for your marketing ventures, you have to get SMART. SMART goals stand for the follow- ing: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timely (or timetable). To understand how we employ SMART goals when developing mar- keting campaigns for our clients, let's pretend we represent a Worcester-area law firm. Our imagined law firm hires us to grow its business. But, boy, is that vague. ere a lot of elements going into grow- ing a law firm, and if we try to tackle all of them at once, we'll go nowhere. So, we introduce the idea of SMART goals to our client: Specific goals falling in line with its greater purpose (grow- ing its business). Let's assume our research uncovers our client receives an average of 45 leads each month to its website. If we want our client's business to grow, then it's logical to increase its monthly leads, right? Already you can see how we're getting far more specific with our efforts (get more leads) than just "grow our business." And, it's a relevant goal: If the client wants to grow its business; getting more leads is certainly a factor. It's a measurable goal as well. We know our client gets an average of 45 leads each month. We can actually measure whether or not we did, in fact, get more leads for the firm. But saying, "We want to get more leads" isn't enough. How do we know when we hit the mark? Is it fair to say we won if we get 46 leads one month? 46 is more than 45. But that sure isn't much of a challenge. Here's where achievable goals are key. What's a realistic number to strive for? Market research will help here. You don't want to set your sights too high, or too low. For our purposes, we've concluded that we can increase our client's average monthly leads by 25 percent. In other words, we'll strive to increase the aver- age monthly leads from 45 to 67 (spell- ing it out like this is key; that way we know the number we're shooting for). Now comes the last part: the time- table. When will we hit our goal by? Timetables are important because they help us create a sense of urgency and keep us focused on our task. For our law firm, let's say they hired us in August. Based on our market research, we think it's realistic to increase their average leads by 25 percent by Dec. 15. Put it all together, and this is what a SMART goal for a law firm might look like: We will increase site monthly leads by 25 percent (from 45 visits to 67) by Dec. 15. Everything we do for the next few months will focus on that goal, which in turn will grow our client's business. en, come December, we can review our efforts, and, if needed, create en- tirely new goals to market our client to its prospects. Regardless of your business, SMART goals like these will focus your efforts and reveal whether you're hitting your mark. Kham Inthirath is the founder and president of Worcester marketing firm InThink Agency, focused on helping local businesses find and connect with their target audiences. BY KHAM INTHIRATH Special to the Worcester Business Journal BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal H iring is never an easy task for an employer – especially if a recruiter is not in the budget. For large companies, less-bureaucratic small businesses may be luring your po- tential employees away. If you are a small company, more-robust benefits could be what attracts qualified job seekers to the larger businesses and away from firms of your size. Here are some ways to be proactive in hiring. Start with those you know; see who they know. Maintain and use your network. "If one of your contacts refers a candidate to you, chances are good that they've done some of the selling work already," says an Inc.com article, quoting e Wall Street Journal. You can even offer rewards to sweeten the pot if a contact brings you a viable hire for your company. Go unconventional, advises Nicole Fallon of BusinessNewsDaily.com. Virtual career fairs are a great way to connect with talent without the travel, expense and setup of a real-life event. Social media is another way to reach out, especially if employees help spread the word. "Participating in or host- ing a panel is a great way to not only position your company as an expert in your field, but also find potential job candidates," writes Fallon. Pump up your employment brand. Engaging talent is a constant endeav- or. Recruiting.com advises companies to shore up career sections on their websites. Ensure it's easy to find, clearly states what your company offers over competitors and offers insight to your company culture, core values and team environment. "Include a Talent Commu- nity widget on your career site … if a job seeker wants to work for you but can't find a relevant position available, they can still easily send their resume and contact information … whenever new positions at your company open up, you can consider this group of candidates right away." W W W

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