We Only Take VISA

Posted by David Chism | Thu, Nov 3, 2011

 We Only Take VISA
VISA, Mas­ter­Card and Amer­i­can Express are the three most wide­ly used Cred­it Cards, yet most con­trac­tors, if they accept cred­it cards at all, will only accept VISA and Mas­ter­Card. Why? Because Amer­i­can Express charges a slight­ly big­ger fee. I know what that feels like, as many of my clients use a cred­it card to pay me. When I first start­ed in busi­ness though, I made the deci­sion to accept cred­it cards, because I knew that is how most busi­ness­es wish to pay their bills. Many home­own­ers are the same way. So let me encour­age you to con­sid­er accept­ing the Amer­i­can Express Card: your cus­tomers want you to do so! Many busi­ness­es and wealthy home­own­ers use the Amer­i­can Express and will typ­i­cal­ly have a handy VISA because they know many busi­ness­es only accept VISA. Good mar­ket­ing does not just involve cre­at­ing good adver­tis­ing pieces, hav­ing an attrac­tive web­site or a nice sales­per­son. Good mar­ket­ing involves lis­ten­ing to what your cus­tomers wants, and then you, the con­trac­tor, meet­ing those needs. Your cus­tomer will nev­er tell you that you should accept the AMEX, but deep down, they are real­ly hop­ing you will. I use the Amer­i­can Express quite often. I used it for busi­ness for a cou­ple years and recent­ly switched back to a VISA card because I got tired of busi­ness­es telling me, No I’m sor­ry. We only take VISA.” It is actu­al­ly a lit­tle embar­rass­ing. The last thing you want is to make your cus­tomers feel uncom­fort­able. For­get about the Fees! What? You don’t accept any cred­it cards? Real­ly? It is 2011 folks. You’ve got to accept plas­tic, my friend. Con­sumers want to use their cred­it cards so they can rack up their vaca­tion miles, and you’ve got to help them get those miles! Doing a paint­ing project or a light remod­el can sure make get­ting points or miles easy. Now, there are ways you can ask nice­ly at times to get a check. Also, you don’t have to adver­tise all over the place that you accept VISA, Mas­ter­Card and (hope­ful­ly now) Amer­i­can Express. But always make sure that you remain pos­i­tive when it comes to talk­ing about mon­ey with clients. When you get down to sign­ing a con­tract, the home­own­er may ask, Oh yeah. Pay­ments. Do you by any chance accept Cred­it Cards?” You respond with, Absolute­ly! We even take Amer­i­can Express!” I’m sure you’ll see a lit­tle smile begin to form from your new cus­tomer. I’ve sure seen it hap­pen. I’ve even heard them respond with, Oh good! I may get a free flight out of this paint job!” Wealthy peo­ple using their cred­it card(s) does not mean they can’t afford it. They just are being smart with their mon­ey. Feed­back How do you make your cus­tomers feel com­fort­able when talk­ing about cred­it cards? Do you accept Amer­i­can Express? Will you?

About David Chism

David Chism started his business out of a passion for helping small contracting businesses grow, be more profitable and become better known to their target clients. One lifelong hobby of David is using techie gadgets. So this blog is a place where he writes about technology, marketing ideas, just for fun (humor), personal thoughts on small business and more.

     
   
       

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