How Does Square Up Work for Credit Card Processing

Many direct sales companies provide credit card processing and merchant services for their consultants but some require the distributors to provide their own credit card processing in they want to accept credit cards.

Credit Card Sales Increase Business & Sales

In the direct sales business, small business owners can use all the help that they can get. One of the ways to enhance your business services and increase sales is the ability to take credit cards.

It has been shown that when customers put purchase on a credit card they tend to spend more money.  The use of a credit card separates the purchasing pleasure from the pain of payment.

Until now, direct sales business owners had to go through an involved process to get a merchant’s account and procure the proper equipment to be able to take credit cards at an event. But with the new Square Up program, a direct sales business owner can take credit cards at any event in a cost-effective way.

Square UP- Easy Equipment

The best part about the Square Up service is that the equipment needed to take the credit cards is extremely simple to use. The Square Up program offers standard USB interface equipment to be used with a laptop, and it also offers the alternative to use the interface on iPhone, iPad or Android as well.

The convenience of the Smartphone card reader is that you do not need to ask permission to use WiFi connection at your event location. The other advantage is that you can take orders anywhere you can find customers.

Direct Sales Consultants Conduct Business Everywhere – Convenient

Direct sales consultants are known for conducting business everywhere they go. The entire Square Up process is one of the easiest credit card payment methods in the industry and fits in perfectly with the insdustry.

The fee per transaction is only 2.75 percent of the total (1/7/12), and the program accepts all major credit cards including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover. It only takes one swipe and the entire transaction is done.

To get you up and going quickly, the set-up process only takes a few minutes. You can begin accepting credit cards over your laptop or Smartphone within a few minutes of setting up your account.

There is also no guesswork involved when it comes to receiving payments. It only takes one business day for each credit card transaction to be processed. Once the credit card company has approved the transaction, you can expect the payment to show up in your account the next day.

Direct Sales Merchant Services

Applying for an maintaining a conventional merchant account can be expensive. The ability to take credit cards is something that will increase your revenue and expand your customer base.

When you use the Square Up program, you are using one of the simpler methods for accepting credit cards available. The merchant account can be managed online, and the Smartphone capability makes this the ideal solution for any small business owner that has the need to be truly mobile.

Direct Sales Consultants Go Mobile!

Small business owners in the direct selling business do almost all of their business away from the home office. That is where a smartphone with just the right apps can come in very handy. When a direct selling business owner is on the road, she/he wants to be prepared to take care of clients and keep all of her business records straight. With the right smartphone small business apps, you can go mobile and keep your business profitable at the same time.

Quickbooks for the Smartphone

Quickbooks remains one of the most popular and effective small business financial tool on the market. When you put a Quickbooks app on your Smartphone you are able to bill clients, generate purchase orders, review client accounts and take orders. It is something that you can sync up with your Quickbooks program on your desktop to make your mobile financial tools as powerful as the ones you have on your main company computer.

Another advantage to Quickbooks is that it lets you download up-to-date client payment information so that you have accurate information when discussing past due billings with clients in the field. If you are already a Quickbooks user, then the Smartphone app is free.

Inconosys Trip Tracker For Direct Sales Travel

Mileage can become one of the biggest tax deductions that a direct sales consultant forgets to take advantage of. The process of developing a mileage log, filling it out every time you get in the car and then remembering to include it in your tax filings can be cumbersome.

The Inconosys Trip Tracker Smartphone app uses GPS to help small business owners track mileage and create useful tax reports. When you get in your car, you just let the app know that you will be accruing business miles and it will automatically track the miles for you. At the end of the year, the app can create reports that can be downloaded to the most popular accounting software titles including Quickbooks and Microsoft Money.

Microsoft Office For Business Documents

The Smartphone app for Microsoft Office not only contains all of the same programs as the regular Office suite, but it can also sync up with your desktop to help you access and download documents. For the business coordinator who is constantly creating promotional materials or letters, this app is extremely important.

MyConsultant Direct Sales App

The MyConsultant direct sales app was designed specifically for direct sellers who want to calculate orders on the run and includes a mileage log as well. I personally have used the app and found it handy to add orders at the store or when you least expect to need to take an order. We always have our phone, right?! Read more about MyConsultant for direct sellers.

The Smartphone is a blessing to small business owners who are constantly on the road. With the right apps, your Smartphone can become a very effective mobile office.

MyConsultant For Direct Sales Consultants

MyConsultant is the smartphone app created for direct sales consultants.

I just downloaded it and played around a bit. It is fun and has some cool features that apply specifically to direct sales consultants.

Developed by Kevin McKinley for his wife who is a Thirty-One Gifts consultant, it has become a popular tool for consultants in all direct sales companies. Kevin will be the guest on The CashFlowShow – Direct Sales Radio on January 11, 2012 to share about the MyConsultant milage log when we focus on “Direct Sales & The IRS”.

Technology For Direct Sales Consultants

When I was working the field we had software to use at the shows and each order was automatically entered into the program as we took the party orders from the guests at the show.  When ready to submit, the only necessary step was to connect to the internet and push submit.

While many direct sales companies may have software or this type of technology for their consultants to use at their shows, many do not! MyConsultant is a a smart phone application for consultants who either need to go online to enter their orders and do not always have access to wireless at the party or the calculation/entering of the show is the final step in submission so orders need calculated manually at the shows.

Even if your company has great software read below as Kevin has some other ideas on how you can use MyConsultant.

MyConsultant Smart Phone App

This is what Kevin says about this new application for direct sales consultants:

MyConsultant is getting rave reviews from the entire direct sales field. It will help you to keep your attention and focus where it should be, on your customer. Not having to worry about calculating the tax and shipping charges on your orders can relieve stress and make the checkout process that much quicker. It will also help you to give your customer that personal shopper experience

Calculate Orders At Direct Sales Party

Quick Calc is (for now) the main feature in myConsultant. This is where you add up your orders, and Quick Calc will do all the tax and shipping calculations for you. When you enter a tax or shipping percentage or flat rate it will automatically save until you change it. So you don’t have to enter these values every time, making it even quicker and easier to use.

Built into the Quick Calc is also a button that will take you to a website where you can look up the tax rate of any area.

There is also a discount calculator integrated into this feature. The discount calculator is a paid-for feature (a one-time $.99 fee) where you can select which line items you would like discounted, what discount percent, and you can even select to tax your total before or after the discount.

The Vehicle Expense log is another great feature that MyConsultant has to offer. This is also a paid for feature (a one-time $.99 fee). You enter your odometer reading at the start and end of your trip or enter the miles driven. You can also enter a date and description of what you were doing. We have even put in a feature where you can export all the data in your vehicle expense log right into an email that will then open into any spreadsheet program. How great will that be come tax time?

For those of you who like your apps to be “pretty”….we have included 18 backgrounds for you to choose from. This way you can make the app just a little more “yours”!

Direct Sales Business Uses

We know that there are some direct sales companies that have programs available to their consultants to enter orders at a party. And you might think that if you have that, you don’t need myConsultant…. but I think you will still find so many great ways to use this app. Sometimes, you might not need to enter an entire party order. Or you want to be even faster and just get your customers their totals.  This app would be great for that. Another great reason to download this app is that you almost always have your phone with you.

Increase Hostess Outside Orders

What if you run into someone at the store and they want to order something from you. You can just pull your phone right out and give them their total in a matter of seconds.

We heard of another great use of myConsultant on Facebook: a hostess can download the app if they have a smartphone, so that they total up any outside orders they might get with no problems.

MyConsultant has so many great features all ready, but we aren’t even close to done. We have a lot of great features yet to come. We have a myParty feature in the works that will help you to put entire party orders in together; myExpenses, where you can keep track of all your business expenses, plus many, many more.

Time is far more valuable than money!!

If you are in the direct sales business, you know that time is something in short supply. There is never enough time in a day, or a week, or a month.

When you own your own business, it is easy to spend an entire day working and feel like you have accomplished absolutely nothing. However, there are ways to squeeze more time out of the day and actually get something done.

Use Technology To Leverage Your Business Time

Using technology to leverage your time spent on business activities will help you manage your time effectively and efficiently. There are ways to get everything done!

By applying leverage to your business and career, you can achieve much more than you thought possible. Learning how to properly leverage your time can improve organizational efficiency and boost profits, while giving you more time for leisure, relaxation, or other business pursuits. Using leverage is both an art and a science. It’s the art of designing methods to get more out of your day, and it’s the science of applying available technology to those methods effectively.

The following modifications to your work day will help you become more efficient with your time:

• Eliminate unnecessary activities and tasks.
• Learn how to prioritize: focus your time on the activities that bring the greatest rewards.
• Create goals and strive to achieve them.
• Learn how to build a team and implement an effective direct sales training system.
• Learn how to designate work to others.
• Utilize the services of experts if money allows.

Assess Your Direct Sales Business

Leveraging your time with technology is all about having the right equipment for your needs. You will need to assess your direct sales business and decide on the amount of technology needed to save you time. Obviously the starting point would be a computer, as this is a necessity for all businesses.

Do you need a PDA, a smart phone, a laptop, a scanner, or other equipment that will save you time and energy?

Proper assessment of your business needs is the key; you only need those devices that contribute to the efficient operation of your business. Think about these two questions:

• Where are you spending most of your work time?
• Is it possible to leverage the time spent on those activities using technology?

Two good examples of technology that save you time would include voice recognition software and a document management program.

Voice recognition software has improved over the years and is perfect for those people who are slow typists. Software that manages your documents can help to categorize and locate documents for fast retrieval. Payroll, bookkeeping, and tax software are additional products that save you time and help your businesses become more profitable.

Team Coaching Time Management Software

Most direct sales leaders spend a tremendous amount of time on team coaching. Software such as The CashFlowShow Game can leverage your time in team training activities.

There are hundreds of different available software products that help you leverage your time. Your time is invaluable and any money invested that leverages time is money well spent.

You can leverage your time by working more efficiently and by using technology to perform a variety of tasks and functions. Leveraging time is one of the keys to business success; it should be mandatory to teach this to your team members during direct sales training. Everyone on the team benefits when time is managed correctly.

June 29th Direct Sales Radio

On this call, we will discuss home office organization and contact management to provide great customer service. The Client Angel is a contact management system and the software tool of choice for the direct sales community. The Client Angel  gives you a system of follow up and office organization that will catapult your business success.

Jennifer Fitzgerald – The Client Angel

Organize Your Home Office The June 29th CashFlowShow – Direct Sales Radio guest, Jen Fitzgerald, creator of The Client Angel will share how to improve customer service and organize your home office.

Jennifer Says The Client Angel Fills Customer Expectations

Expectations…

Expectations is a big word in many ways.  We all expect certain things in our lives..such as that morning will come and night will fall…bills will come and go…kids will grow up.

These things are not new to us and we “expect” them to happen each and every day!

I think a lot of us also “expect” our customers to remember us when they want a product or need to re-order something.  However, that is not the case.  There are those that are diligent and call us when they need or want something but the vast majority of our customers will not contact us out of the blue.  They need a reason or to be reminded that you are still around and can help them.

A lot of customers know they need to refill something or want to order and then it just slips their minds or a thousand other things come up.  It happens to you and me all the time!!

Direct Sales Consultants Must Be Easy To Reach

That is why our job as direct sales consultants is to make sure they remember us and that we are so easy to reach, they have no problem placing an order.  We need to be sending them e-mails….calling them every couple of months….sending them a card in the mail out of the blue, just to thank them for being such a great customer.

All these things will cause them to remember us and even if you don’t mention your product every time (and you shouldn’t), they know who you are and associate you with your product.  Therefore they are reminded of you and they immediately remember that they needed to place an order or book a show.

Just staying in front of your customers will increase your sales…even if you are not selling at the time.  Look at all the big companies…they are EVERYWHERE…on billboards, TV, radio, magazines…the list goes on and on.

You need to be just like that but on a more personal level and more reachable than the big wigs!

Reach out to your customers every couple of months for some reason.  Remind them you are still around and want to be their friend as well as their Direct Seller!!