When I first started out on my own I worked in the restaurant industry. I started as a dishwasher when I was seventeen, and filled just about every position you could do in a restaurant after that. What I liked most was waiting tables because you are paid by tips. A good waiter will pick up on every bit of advice they can get when it comes to increasing tips, and I had a ton of live by rules. One of favorites was knowing that customers hate to wait to pay the bill.

Customer Temperature Rising

A great way to basically kill your tip after working really hard on a table with flawless service is to drop off the bill and just walk away. Customers hate having to wait to pay, and for every minute you keep them waiting it’s like hitting the subtract button from your total revenue. You better not forget them, and the best rule to do that is to take ten steps, and look back to see if they are ready to pay after dropping off the bill. They are? Then get back there, and take care of them right away. This could be the winning deal to makeup for even bad service.

Your Website Sales

Converting this little lesson into a lesson about making sales online is understanding that customers want ordering to be easy, and they want it now. As a usability guy I will always say making it easy is important, but in the world of sales NOW is the keyword here.

Customers don’t want to send you an email to make an inquiry on how to buy. They just want to buy. They know if they send you a message, they may or may not get a response, and will most likely be shocked if you respond right away.

The trick here is to avoid delaying the customer all together, and take the time to make an online form that can close the deal by using Paypal or Google’s payment method. Another great option, especially if you have many products, is to set up a shopping cart that can help you do all of this (Those reading this in July, 2009 this post is for you: Boss Cart Give Away, a contest I am running).

If your business has a merchant account, take advantage of their services as well. You could be processing credit cards right now with little to no extra fee.

Killing your marketing efforts with half way done order pages is an expense I don’t think any of us can afford. Even if your marketing is done using low cost methods where simply time is the cost. Spending the extra hour or two creating a sales page where a visitor can complete now, is like the looking back a good waiter does after his tenth step. You need to make sure the customer is happy, and one of the best ways to do that is by letting them pay right away. The alternative is them buying NOW from another website.

Shocking To Me, No One Wants My Money

Looking for places to advertise my own sites and services a few days ago, I was shocked at how many sites had an “advertise on this site” link, but no order form. They all wanted me to contact them first so they could send me their rate cards. Some had rate cards, but no way to order, not even an email! Even many of the huge blogs with 20,000 subscribers publicize their rates, so I am not really sure what all their secrecy was about.

After sending several emails to those possible site owners, I was even more shocked at the lack of response. I can only conclude they don’t want my money. Forget slow response, they simply did not respond at all. Should I respond back to them when or if they do? I’m thinking I should look elsewhere now.

If you are trying to make money selling anything online, know that the easiest part is collecting the money, and making the customer happy. Don’t blow this part after spending all that time getting visitors to your site by getting flaky on the transaction. Close the deal now by letting the customer happily pay now.

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