No More Quiet Tuesday's

If you run a retail business or a restaurant one of the  frustrations is that part of the week, often Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon, when inevitably, week after week, business slows to a crawl and it costs you more to keep the lights on than you are bringing in sales.

But what if you could drive more traffic into your place during the slow times?

What if there was a way to reach out to the 500 customers who had signed up to receive text messages from you, your 300 Facebook fans, the 200 customers who follow you on Twitter, and the 150 customers who carry your loyalty cards? What if you could send them all the same message- one about the incredible deal you were running, but only for the next four hours? And what if you could get all that done in about one minute; or better yet, since you are always slow on Tuesday afternoons, you had pre-scheduled it, and your message went out to all those customers without you lifting a finger?

And what if you could do all that for less than the cost of a tiny 1x1 ad in your local paper (one that nobody is ever going to see anyway). And what if there were a way to set it up so your true cost is zero, zilch, de nada, nothing? And what if, just to get you see how well it works, the first two months are free, and there is no contract so you can quit anytime you like?

There are no what ifs- you can do all the above, and more, with SpotOn.

SpotOn is a powerful marketing hub for your business- a one stop dashboard to run all of your social and loyalty networks from. There is nothing like it- no other service runs your social media, mobile messaging, loyalty program, deals, and analytics. Usually you have to pay much more than what SpotOn costs just to get help with one of those programs.

"But I don't understand social media or mobile messaging," you say. No problem. SpotOn has a local representative to help you, they will teach you the ropes as they set up your account, and provide you with ongoing top notch support while you use the service.

"But I already have a Facebook page," you say. Yeah, I see that. You have 23 fans, and your last post was in May. SpotOn will show you how to drive traffic to your page; not just Facebook, but Twitter and Foursquare, too. A bagel company in California went from 180 Facebook fans to over 3000 in three months with SpotOn.

Bottom line- a group of guys way smarter than me are behind this, and they wouldn't let you use it for free for two months if they didn't know it works so well that after two months nobody stops using it.

There are very few true, no risk, what-have-you-go-to lose propositions out there these days. This is one. Drop me an email, or call 417-439-8785, and lets talk.

SpotOn- Click. Your customers are listening.

Why would you do that?

"I leased my credit card processor."

Why!!??!! Why would you do that?

"There's a guy here trying to get me to lease a credit card machine."

RUN!!!! RUN AS FAR AND AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!

Let's talk about business math.

Credit card terminal A processes cards quickly and quietly, has a small footprint and an easy user interface. You can lease it for $49 a month for 36 months.

Credit card terminal B is the exact same piece of equipment, brand new out of the box. It's free, and if it stops working you can get an equally free one that looks just like it.

So- what's better for the merchant, $1746, or free? Seems like a no-brainer, but every day I see smart, successful business owners that chose the $1746 option.

Now let's take it a step further. What if I told you that with the $1746 option, about $1000 of that goes straight into the pocket of the salesman who sold the equipment? Because that's the case. Kind of makes your ears burn, doesn't it.

One step further- your 36 month lease is actually a never ending monthly payment. At lease end, you have to return the equipment- or you can keep it, as long as you keep chucking out your $49.00 every month. Now your $1700 is $2352, or $2940. For something you could have had for free!

There may be a valid business case for leasing a credit card machine, but I have never seen it. Yes, a merchant gets to claim the depreciation on her income taxes; but I don't think the depreciation allowance comes anywhere near seventeen hundred dollars. I've heard salesman that lease terminals use buzzwords like "allocation of equipment" and "end user serviceability ", but that is a salesman trying to fog an issue and put a grand in his pocket.

There are processing companies that will provide their merchants with free equipment- not many, but a few. You can purchase a brand new terminal outright for a few hundred dollars. You can buy them refurbished on the internet for less than a hundred dollars.

One final note, if you still think leasing a terminal makes since to you. Go online and Google Northern Leasing, and LFG, and Eagle Finance, and Pushpin Holdings. See if that is a road you would like to travel down.

If I were a merchant I would want to stay far away from it.