We treat the small business as if it were a Goliath, such as Coca Cola or Microsoft, stretching the globe and able to buffer our incessant poor treatment, our insensitivity and our thirst for more for less.
But the truth is that we treat them this way because we know that we can get away with it, and Late Payment is leading the Small Business to suffocate under the weight of their own invoices.
Just to clarify, I rate every business from the zero employee, where it is just the founder of the company working on the business, to the 100 employee enterprise as a small business for the purpose of this discussion.
Ask anyone who owns, runs or/and manages a company with even 10 employees, ‘does it feel small?’, and they will tell you that in no uncertain terms, it does not. Often it can feel like the world outside is just something that they tell stories about when you’re little.
It is the small business that, on the back end, funds most projects, and that bankrolls industry.
It is the small business that drives innovation, is willing to take risks and provide sole focus on skirting the status quo in favour of trying something different and new.
It is the small business who employs your friends and family, your neighbours and the members of wider community where you live and beyond, over lapping into each adjoining community.
If it weren’t for these often undervalued entities, many of the communities in which we live, simply wouldn’t be able to exist in the way that they do now.
Each small business feeds another, whether directly using their goods and or services, or indirectly, by enabling the employees which draw a wage from that company to offer another custom.
Now that we have discussed briefly some of the reasons that these businesses are so important, let me ask you a question……
Why do we allow them to struggle?
We aren’t talking about lazy good for nothings here, we are talking about a business that was created from and is run everyday with passion. A business that lays down a bead of perspiration on everything it does. A business that treats its customers, suppliers and employees like gold and holds its standards so high that they can be seen from outer space .
Did you know that it is more often than not, that a customer will withhold payment? Not for any reason other than they do not wish to pay? Residential or commercial customers, contract or no contract….
Late Payment. Late Payment. Late Payment. Late Payment. Late Payment. Late Payment.
When you put pressure on the fabric of our society in such a way, you reduce the rate of growth, restrict and diminish ambition and starve the community as a whole. The knock on effect is felt throughout and in turn holds back other businesses, their employees, their families and their ambitions.
This isn’t far fetched. Many business owners lose sleep on a regular basis, are burnt out and find the stress of simply being paid for what they have provided overwhelming. This pressure is not one that can be easily dispersed throughout the company, even with a dedicated accounts department as they are dedicated to existing matters and nobody wants to tarnish moral by looking at, what is said to be the US national average, the $300k owed at anyone time.
This seems like something that would be a rare occurrence, but it is not. Almost every invoice requires more work after the fact, awkward phone calls, several emails, awaiting acceptable periods so as not to seem pushy, a visit to the property, the thought of legal and possibly even having to write off the debt. The debt that has cost the business valuable resources and if it isn’t satisfied will put them back more than a step.
Again….. Why do we allow the small business to struggle?
No…..
Why do we make the small business struggle?
Can you imagine how much better off we would be if we treated the small business, its employees and owners as if they were as important as they actually were?!?
The treatment of the small business community and the people within is the reason that I started Hindsight Rated, in order to produce and provide the solution and dig us out of this way of being treated….
I’d love for you to connect with me on LinkedIn – My name is Gavin Hesketh
There Is Such A Thing As A Great Customer – I Call Them My Donald O’Connor Customer.
