Renew your Subscription
One thing I’ve noticed over the last few years is that more of the “apps” that we use on our devices now charge a subscription fee to use them. In the past you just paid a one-off price.
Whilst we’re used to annual subscriptions for newspapers, journals, professional bodies, subscriptions for “apps” are still relatively new.
If anyone provides a business or service, they need cashflow to sustain and improve that business. App developers are discovering this and need to show investors that they have “sustainable income” to bring them on board.
This episode doesn’t concern an app, but a yearly subscription for a newspaper that my company recently renewed. We’d been subscribing for some five years and in the past, the newspaper used to remind us when our subscription was due for renewal.
This time, nothing happened.
We renewed anyway but it made me think: how often are we all guilty of forgetting to send reminders about renewing subscriptions, paying fees, paying a bill that’s overdue, meetings and appointments (the list goes on)?
Assuming we weren’t the only ones who didn’t receive a subscription renewal reminder, other subscribers were in the same boat. They might have renewed, forgotten or decided not to renew as a deliberate act.
When our revenues depend on regular payments or subscriptions, we need to make absolutely sure that we have the processes in place to remind people when they need to pay. Businesses often fail because they run out of cash not because of poor management (although that’s another good reason). For a small business, this generally means a diary system of some sort, although off-the-shelf systems now exist that can often generate reminders for us (and no doubt our subject to subscription charges!)
Business conditions change all the time. If we forget to send timely reminders, we lose money – and it’s our own fault.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email.
Labels: Financial, Productivity, Strategy
posted by William Martin @ 11:18
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