There are many important steps and stages in most sales processes. If any of these steps are missed, it could result in losing a sale. However, there is something worse than losing a sale: Getting a sale, doing all the work, and never getting paid.
Below are some best practices to make sure this doesn’t happen to you.
1. Leading up to the sale:
a. Agree on Terms as part of your sales process, not after all the other aspects of the sale have been determined.
b. Make sure you are communicating with the person or department in your company who determines the creditworthiness of customers if you think there might be a question.
c. When a sale is agreed to, you should immediately ask what email they would like the invoices sent to and run a test email.
2. After the sale:
a. Schedule time and make it a priority to know all your customers’ terms and if any are outside of their terms or getting close to being delinquent.
b. Don’t say to yourself, “I’m sure they will pay soon.” Ping them and just make sure they know they haven’t paid an invoice. Often invoices get lost and/or sent to the wrong person. You will be doing your customer a favor by staying on top of it.
Although getting paid should always be urgent, the next month is probably the most urgent. Many businesses will close their books for 2024 and that can make it more difficult for them to pay you for that outstanding invoice.
