James Brooker
Strategic Business Manager, LoveAdmin
Perhaps one of the most anxiety inducing conversations is the one you have about asking for money from your customers. It fills business owners with fear of making the wrong choice, forcing all your customers to head for the exit door.
“But I’ve always done it this way”
It’s all too easy to think that because your lessons are structured termly, you need to charge your customers by the term as well. On a superficial level that seems to make sense. Historically, that’s how it’s always been done, it’s the comfy old slipper decision that avoids any challenge or the scariest word ever, change. Just because it’s what you’ve always done, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. To never look to change your way of working leaves you open to missing huge opportunities for growth and future success.
To quote Henry Ford, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Look at how customers pay first
Now that we’ve broken through the myth of keeping things the same, we can start to look at why you should look at your payment plans first. As the most fundamental interaction between you and your customers, as well as, being the lifeblood of your existence as an organisation, it’s the best baseline to set the tone of your organisation.
Termly billing of customers is unhelpful, both for the customers themselves and for you as an organisation. It means that customers have to find a large sum of cash upfront in order to join the club, and then have to do the same every 3 or 4 months to keep going, which for a lot of people is by no means easy.
For you and your organisation, it makes your cash flow unpredictable and under strain. You’re reliant on 3 or 4 times a year to collect all of your revenue and then have to manage that revenue carefully for 2 or 3 months until you get your next slug of cash. If customers don’t pay, or more customers leave than expected, a termly billing frequency model will immediately put you under financial pressure and restrict your ability to proactively protect your income.
So, what can I do about it?
The answer is alarmingly simple when it comes to getting customers to pay – Look at how they pay for everything else in their life. Mortgages, utility bills, credit cards and pay all largely work on a monthly basis. If you’re able to work alongside someone’s other incomings and outgoings, you’ll not only make it easier for them to see how you’ll fit into their financial life. You’ll also reduce that first barrier to entry by not requiring an entire terms worth of fees upfront, making you accessible to a far greater number of potential new customers.
How do I do it?
Using LoveAdmin’s payment management software, it couldn’t be simpler. We have a variety of tried and tested models that we can help you implement. Our two favourites are:
Flexible Monthly Payments
Set the rate you want to charge for each individual session and the system will then bill your customers each month via direct debit for the number of sessions they’ve been booked into.
Monthly Instalments
Gives your customers the opportunity to pay the same amount every single month, regardless of the number of sessions held in each month, allowing them to plan their financial lives effortlessly. You can even have the first month as a higher amount to tie people in, reducing the chances of them leaving at the drop of a hat.
The combination of these two options makes your class as accessible as possible whilst protecting you from spontaneous leavers. The LoveAdmin system can offer these seamlessly, giving your customers the choice around the framework you’ve set.
In summary
By charging your customers monthly, you’re going to open up a world of opportunity. From making it financially more appealing for new customers to join to making your cashflow run like clockwork each month – there are many ways in which monthly billing is going to help your business run more efficiently and grow your revenue.
What’s my next step?
If you’re a current LoveAdmin customer and would like to talk to us about moving to a monthly billing frequency option, book a short call with me here. We can then discuss your specific organisation and how we can implement a new model.
Looking at joining LoveAdmin to help free your workload and unlock the potential for growth? Book a demo here
