Business.com |
- PayPal Credit Card Processing: How to Accept Card Payments With PayPal
- How to Instill More Transparency in Your Business
- How to Create a Company Culture Your Team Will Love
- How to Pivot Your Business
- Marketing and Sales Tools That Streamline Outreach Communication
| PayPal Credit Card Processing: How to Accept Card Payments With PayPal Posted: 13 Dec 2019 01:00 PM PST 
Accepting credit cards and debit cards as payment methods is a must for modern businesses. Fewer consumers are carrying cash than ever, so making alternative payment options available is a matter of customer satisfaction and retention. To secure more business, you need to partner with a payment processor that enables you to accept these types of payments. However, if you don't complete a large volume of credit card transactions each month, a full-service processor might not be for you. PayPal, the popular peer-to-peer transfer mobile application, offers credit card processing as one of its business services. This guide covers what you need to know about working with PayPal Business, the transaction rates and fees you can expect to pay, and other key considerations you should know before signing up for an account. If you want to know more about credit card processing services, visit our best picks page for a complete buying guide and reviews of the top services on the market today. Does PayPal offer credit card processing?PayPal is best known for its peer-to-peer money transfers, but it also offers credit card processing services for businesses. In fact, PayPal is our best pick for mobile credit card processing services for Android devices. PayPal extends credit card payment processing services to 23 million merchants throughout the world. Coupling a PayPal Business account with the PayPal Here mobile application allows businesses to accept debit and credit card payments, both in person at the point of sale and online. While PayPal is our best pick for mobile credit card processors for Android, it works equally well on Apple devices, including smartphones and tablets. The Apple version of PayPal includes all the features we found in our review of the Android version, so no matter what platform your small business relies on, PayPal can deliver payment processing services. [Read related article: How to Accept Credit Card Payments: A Beginner's Guide]
Editor's note: Looking for a credit card processing service for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you with free information.
How much does PayPal charge for credit card processing?PayPal charges competitive rates for its credit card processing services. Even if your business doesn't accept a high volume of credit card payments, PayPal offers inexpensive rates and transaction fees that can help you start accepting debit and credit card payments from your customers. It has flat-rate pricing and pay-as-you-go terms, so it doesn't require any long-term contractual commitments. All of PayPal's pricing is laid out transparently on its website. Here are the current rates that PayPal lists for its credit card processing services:
Although PayPal's transaction fees tend to be higher than what most full-service credit card processors charge, the lack of account setup and maintenance fees easily offsets the costs and makes it a cost-effective option for small businesses that process a low volume of transactions each month. Here are the other fees you won't have to pay with PayPal:
However, some of PayPal's services will cost you extra beyond the transaction rate and fee. These are optional services that cost extra:
Certain businesses are eligible for special pricing with PayPal. If you fall into either of these categories, you could qualify for lower rates and transaction fees:
Does PayPal have a card reader?PayPal offers businesses several options for a card reader. You can choose a free PayPal card reader upon signing up (until June 30, 2020). Additional card readers cost extra, but some options are relatively inexpensive. It's always wise to incorporate a card reader that works with EMV chips and contactless payment options through near-field communication (NFC) as well. Here are the card readers PayPal offers.
Which credit card types does PayPal process?PayPal accepts all types of credit card brands, including the major names like Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express. When you sign up with PayPal, your customers will be able to use whichever brand of debit or credit card they already have, offering a versatile new payment method for your business. Once a customer pays with their preferred credit card, you have the option to instantly transfer the funds to your bank account for a 1% fee. Regular bank transfers that take one business day are free with PayPal. What do you do when PayPal cannot process a payment?Sometimes PayPal will be unable to process a payment. This can occur for several reasons, such as when there isn't enough money in a customer's balance to complete a transaction or their card information is not up to date. The payment could also be blocked for various security reasons. When this happens, first ensure that the customer's information is entered correctly, especially if you are manually entering it for a card-not-present transaction. You could also ask the customer to change their funding source in PayPal for their current transaction. If these methods fail, contact PayPal customer support to resolve your issue. PayPal credit card processing makes accepting card payments for your business easy.With relatively low rates and few fees, PayPal makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to process credit card payments. Even if you don't conduct a high volume of credit card transactions each month, you can still benefit from PayPal's credit card processing services. PayPal offers a variety of card readers and is compatible with several point-of-sale solutions. It has discounted rates for registered charities and businesses that conduct a lot of small-ticket transactions, and it offers additional services for extra costs. Credit card and debit card transactions have become ubiquitous; consumers expect businesses to accept these payment methods. To avoid falling behind in an increasingly digital marketplace, you need to partner with a credit card processor. If you want to learn more about how to choose a credit card processor, see our buyer's guide for a complete overview of the buying process. |
| How to Instill More Transparency in Your Business Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:00 AM PST  Transparency in business is, to be completely transparent, a highly-debated topic. While traditionally businesses have limited transparency – justifying that decision as a necessary evil to avoid internal conflict – modern businesses, especially technology startups, have started a movement in the opposite direction. Successful startups have shared salaries company-wide, have made company performance reports accessible to all employees, and have generally built transparency into everything they do. The results are striking: an increase in employee morale, higher retention rates, and a boost to the bottom line. At Unito, transparency in business is something we take very seriously. Here are ways we've increased transparency that you can apply to your own company. Why is transparency important in business?We've already mentioned some of the outcomes greater transparency can result in, including greater employee morale and higher retention. A few benefits you can add to that list are:
But why are these potential outcomes of transparency? The real reason transparency is so important in business is that it levels the playing field through information accessibility. It is a powerful sign of trust when your employees all have the same access to information, regardless of role or seniority. You're showing the team that you trust them with the information and that you have nothing to hide — which in turn increases their trust in you. This has a massive impact on retention and team morale. Plus, by providing an even playing field, you're empowering your team to make more educated decisions independently. They no longer have to pry information from those in the know in order to move projects forward. This leads to more accurate deliverable and quicker turnarounds. In addition, since people are more informed when entering conversations, transparency eliminates the duplication of work and increases the efficiency of your internal communications. How to implement transparency in your businessSalary transparencyFor the past decade, salary transparency has been a huge topic of debate. Companies like Buffer have made waves by making their salaries visible to all employees (and even the general public). Generally, people recognize that being open about salaries can play a significant role in helping to end gender or race-based salary discrimination. This is one of the reasons we have embraced total salary transparency at Unito. At the same time, even business leaders who aren't discriminating on salaries tend to fear negative competitive repercussions. One of the main arguments against salary transparency is that employees who get paid less than their peers will either work less hard or be unhappier at work. That was shown to be at least partially true in an MIT study, which found that employees who knew they were making less would reduce their output by over 50% and actually attend work less. However, what often goes ignored is that this same study found that these effects can be mediated if you're able to justify the differences in pay. We provide this justification through an accessible salary matrix. Within the matrix, each department's roles are listed vertically by seniority (think entry-level marketer up to head of marketing). Then, each individual role has an assigned salary, and projected salary increases. These are set using the following system:
Yes, this involves a lot more upfront effort. You really need to put in the work to build a solid compensation system since you will be held to it. This isn't a place where you can cut corners. But isn't that what you should be doing in the first place? Cutting corners on compensation will always bite you in the end. Salary has been proven to be a poor motivator at best, but it's proven to be a strong de-motivator if someone feels underpaid. Task transparencyOh, the silo; the most-used metaphor in business. We hear so much about breaking down silos because, unfortunately, it's an almost universal issue. Information gets stuck on all levels: at the individual, team and organizational levels (as well as inside software).
These bad habits grow alongside the company, becoming more of an issue as you scale. That's why it pays to make transparency part of the culture early. At Unito, every Monday morning we have an all-hands meeting during which the leaders of each team share wins and fails from the previous week and check in on team goals. This is a pretty common way to provide visibility across teams and create a culture of openness on both positive achievements and areas requiring improvement. During these meetings, we also provide strategic and financial transparency. We share how much cash is in the bank, how the business is performing, and whether we're hitting our targets. We feel this knowledge empowers every individual to make better, faster decisions and prioritize – without having to constantly involve senior leadership. It's by improving decision making on all levels that you become a high-velocity company. As we grow, there's a recognition that company-wide meetings might be difficult to scale (does your office even have a space that could fit 50 or 100 employees?). With that in mind, all employees (myself included) also participate in an asynchronous daily scrum. Everyone is asked to post what they worked on yesterday and what their focus is for today in a public Slack channel for the entire company to see. The benefits of this system have been stark. Our team is constantly finding new opportunities in the work of other teams or colleagues they may not have otherwise encountered. Someone on the data team might encounter a marketing initiative that they feel deserves more testing. Our customer service team might have a call with a client who could make a good beta tester for the product. This Slack channel is such an easy, but effective way to promote work transparency. And even if nobody else reads your daily update, the few minutes you spend thinking about the previous day and planning the next one has huge value. It keeps the team on task, and just the fact that these lists can be scrutinized by anyone at any time provides healthy pressure to follow through on your planned work. There's nowhere to hide. We also host all non-confidential documents and files in a company-wide Google Drive. Everyone is able to view and usually edit investor pitch decks, the upcoming blog post draft, and recorded client demos. Not only does this save us the effort of having to share files and set permissions for each file, it again provides company-wide transparency into the work we're all undertaking each day. People might balk at the idea that a developer should have edit access to blog posts. But the fear (of judgment, of criticism, of unwanted advice or changes) at the route of that argument has proven, at least in our case, to be unfounded. First of all, version tracking allows us to see what any individual has changed so we can revert any changes we disagree with. But regardless, our employees recognize their own expertise and that of their colleagues. They're using this access to
Performance transparencyDid your company achieve its goals this quarter? Did you? What about your boss? What about the person in the standing desk across the open office? As mentioned above, company performance is shared openly in our weekly meetings. In the past few decades, companies have warmed to sharing progress on company-wide goals (though many businesses still choose to keep this information from staff members or pump the numbers). That said, progress on personal goals is a far more controversial topic. Why should staff members know whether or not their colleagues are achieving their goals? We measure performance using OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). There are company-wide OKRs, team OKRs, and individual OKRs, and all of them are built into our project management tool for the entire staff to see. As we progress through each quarter, these OKRs are updated to reflect percentage completed – again, so everyone knows how close the goal is to completion. Having visibility into goals and into progress on those goals helps employees both prioritize and empathize. If you see that a colleague has only achieved 10% of a complex key result with only two weeks left in the quarter, you may not bother that employee with small passion projects. Maybe, if you've made better progress on your own OKRs, you even offer to chip in. And knowing that certain OKRs are not being met prompts important questions. What are the blockers? What is holding this up? Was the goal too lofty, or is there anything we can do to support it? These are conversations that don't happen naturally for everyone. Providing this type of transparent forum on OKRs leads to a far more collaborative culture in our workplace. You also need to push for transparency when it comes to feedback. Like many startups, we have embraced the ethos of "work fast, break things, but own your mistakes." Owning your mistakes means being open to feedback, and I try to push that to the extreme. We periodically have 360 reviews which prompt our staff members to provide feedback to colleagues. When that feedback is shared, the source is given anonymity so people feel safe to share their true thoughts with colleagues. I take it a step further, though, and share all of the feedback I personally receive with the entire company and our shareholders. In being so open with people's criticisms, I'm trying to foster an internal culture of taking feedback in stride, not personally. No one should feel ashamed for needing to improve or work on themselves. Hiring transparencyHiring and transparency are rarely heard in the same sentence. When you find a candidate you want to hire, you don't want to share anything that might push them away from the job. You're hiring because your business is facing a need or a challenge, but we still hesitate to share those with the candidates. Plus, if you're unsure if they're the right fit, you don't want to give them too much access. You also don't want the power dynamic to shift in their favor, especially while in negotiations. One way to increase transparency in your hiring process is by bringing candidates into your work environment for a pilot project. We don't want our new hires to come in for their first day without any context for what a workday looks like. We use a project to test the candidate's skills during the hiring process. But we take it a step further and invite them to come work on the project at our office: Have lunch with the team, interact with employees, ask questions to those around you, and get a true sense of what it's like to work with us. No one is putting on a show for these pilotees so they get an honest look at our day-to-day. Is greater transparency in business such a radical idea? If you look at all of these ways you to implement transparency, it can simply be summarized as:
These seem like logical and forward-thinking steps, not radical changes. While transparency in business may not be the norm, when has sticking to the norms ever spawned exceptional companies?
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| How to Create a Company Culture Your Team Will Love Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:00 AM PST  Company culture might seem like a buzzword that human resource professionals like to throw around, but it's actually a very real and important concept. The culture you set internally influences the productivity and happiness of your team and can have a significant impact on the long-term success of your business. It's human nature to want to fit in, and a defined culture can help cultivate that sense of belonging in your workforce. If your staff generally enjoys coming into work each day, chances are they will want to continue working for you for the foreseeable future. In many ways, your company culture can help you:
Oftentimes, your industry influences your culture. But you – as the business owner – have the ultimate say. Once you know how your company is perceived by your current staff and potential job candidates, you can adapt, develop and improve your culture so that it is optimized for what you want it to be. What company culture is vs. what it is notCulture is the way things are done by a certain group of people. So, without people, you don't have a culture. It's the same definition whether you're talking about a geographical region or a business. The only difference is that with company culture, the people involved are you and your team. Your business's culture includes everything from your core values and beliefs to attitudes and behavior. Company culture can be difficult to define, but it will influence nearly every aspect of your business, including:
It's important to remember that company culture is not:
Those are the perks and benefits that come with working for your company, which are not the same as culture. Your company culture, however, will shape what perks you offer. Common types of company cultureBecause culture can be difficult to define, it's often easier to understand if you look at examples. 1. Team-orientedTeam-oriented cultures encourage employees at all levels to participate and help the company reach its goals. Everyone helps each other out, instead of only looking out for themselves. When hiring someone new, these companies focus more on how the candidate will fit in than what skills they bring to the table. Staff members are comfortable communicating with each other, and they'll often try to find a compromise that benefits all involved parties when conflict arises. They are also usually friends with their co-workers and regularly socialize outside of work. This comradery is promoted through frequent team outings or an open office plan, which encourages the team to interact with people in other departments and freely share ideas. A great example of a team-oriented culture is Zappos, which understands that each new hire influences its culture and team. So, they hold a cultural fit interview for each candidate, which carries a lot of weight when determining who to hire. Then, they offer each new team member $2,000 to quit after their first week of training if they decide the job or company isn't a good match for them. 2. TraditionalIn traditional cultures, there are clearly defined responsibilities and hierarchies. Major decisions are primarily left to the leadership team. Because of the strict chain of command, opportunities to advance often require a formal promotion or transfer process. To project professionalism to their clients, traditional companies usually have a strict, business formal dress code. Employees typically perform tasks that require their full, uninterrupted attention, and the workplace will include individual offices so workers can shut the door when needed. Staff members are not likely to interact with people outside their department, and they will often communicate through more traditional methods – phone calls and email. Furthermore, they'll generally proofread their emails before sending them to ensure they're free of grammatical mistakes. Although many companies, particularly small businesses, have adopted more relaxed cultures, you're still likely to see traditional cultures at your local attorney's office or bank. They want to ensure their clients see them as an authority in their respective industry and feel confident that nothing will fall through the cracks. 3. FreestyleFreestyle cultures are on the opposite end of the spectrum from traditional ones. They tend to have flexible roles and allow self-organization to promote collaboration within the company. Many startups have freestyle cultures because it's vital that everyone pitches in and takes on new responsibilities as needed. Staff members are encouraged and enabled to work however they are most productive, which tends to resonate with an increasingly mobile workforce. Transparency is especially important, and co-workers communicate in all different ways: text, instant message and social media are all fair game, while video chat allows remote workers to dial in and stay engaged when they can't meet in person. HubSpot is an excellent example of a freestyle culture. They published their culture slide deck to share their vision and purpose with people outside the company. Not only are they transparent with the world, but they also enact a "no-door policy," so every team member has access to anyone else in the company. They focus on results rather than the process by allowing their team to try new techniques without having to run every decision by someone on the leadership team. 4. EliteBusinesses that adopt an elite culture want to push the envelope, and they encourage innovation at every level of the organization. They have a strong purpose and want to have an impact, so they're willing to take big risks to accomplish their goals. Their employees share these same ideals. They regularly push themselves to exceed all expectations by making their jobs a top priority and working 60 to 70 hours a week. Like with team-oriented businesses, companies that adopt an elite culture will often have an open floorplan. But, they'll take it a step further and allow workers to move freely around the office so they can hold impromptu brainstorming sessions. Because of this freedom, staff members are usually not afraid to bring their ideas directly to the leadership team or question whether processes could be improved. To further encourage innovation, companies with an elite culture often opt for a more casual dress code. This allows their team to showcase their creativity through their wardrobe and to ensure that everyone is comfortable at work so they can focus on pursuing new ideas. A great example of elite culture is Google. Their mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." To achieve this mission and surpass users' expectations, Google famously allows staff to work on side projects for 20% of their time on the job. This policy has encouraged workers to find innovative ways for Google to achieve its purpose and has led to the creation of products like Gmail and Google Maps. How you can create a strong cultureIf left to its own devices, your company will still develop shared beliefs and behaviors based on your team members' personalities and prior experiences. But, you can also build your culture by following these steps:
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| Posted: 13 Dec 2019 06:00 AM PST  Not every business strategy is successful. According to Investopedia, around 50% of businesses will collapse within their first five years of operation. There are many reasons that businesses fall apart. Sometimes they aren't avoidable, but sometimes they are. The death of an idea doesn't have to be the death of a business. You may have brought together an impressive team, built a valuable reputation and established links to powerful contacts and reliable suppliers, yet your product just isn't selling. Why give up on everything great about your company if the product is the problem? When reality starts to bite, and you realize you can no longer walk your current path, you don't have to close shop. Instead, your business can not only survive but thrive by performing that most delicate but enticing of acts: the business pivot. Countless enterprises have gone on to achieve great success after pulling off a business pivot. Some pivots can be very natural – for example, Starbucks began as a retailer providing coffee machines and beans. Other pivots can be far more extreme. Motoring manufacturer Suzuki famously started life as a production business for silk looms. Both these businesses had assets worth keeping hold off, but when faced with opportunities to grow, they changed what they provided to their customers. And these aren't just exceptional examples either; any business that gets its pivot right can become so much more than they once were. But how do you achieve a successful pivot? When considering a change in business strategy, make sure you ask yourself these questions: Is a pivot right for your business?The purpose of a business pivot – as opposed to dismantling your company and starting from scratch – is to retain as many of your current assets as possible. These could include branding, employee skills and network options. But, what if these assets don't have any value, or in fact, are harming your business? A pivot is not the answer for every struggling business. Sometimes, you're in trouble because of elements directly relating to your brand. You may have tarnished your reputation by getting involved in controversy or upsetting customers. Or, you may have built relationships the wrong way and, as a result, are being dragged down. You should only consider a pivot if you've got a great company, but the product is wrong. If the problem is your business, then the business has to go. Will customer feedback secure your future?The best and most successful businesses are those that solve a want or need of their consumers. Often, businesses fail to make an impact because they were developed to suit the desires of the owner and not the market. To capitalize on the potential of a pivot, you must enter into a new area of business that satisfies consumers' wants and/or needs in a way that means they find your product irresistible and irreplaceable. As an already established business, you have an advantage over newcomers, in that you already have a consumer base from which to draw inspiration. Gathering information from your customers through surveys, questionnaires and feedback forms can provide you with essential insight into the kind of problems they have – which means you can start to figure out what problems your business can help to solve. Can you leverage your current network?The saying goes, it's not what you know, but who you know. In business, this is only half true; most companies will quickly discover that it's both. Knowledge and skills are important, but so are your networks. Networks remain an incredibly powerful business tool that you can leverage for success. It's commonplace to use contacts to source resources and information or to sell your current product. When you are in a position to pivot your business, however, your network becomes something more. It becomes a mastermind group and a support structure that helps you evaluate ideas. Feedback from your customers lets you identify problems with your current business model, and how you can change to meet demands. Feedback from your network of contacts allows you to take the information you've gathered from consumers and access insight into how you can build the business they need. Engage with your network and ask questions. Use the resources you have to build foundations to support your business pivot. Ways to leverage your network include gaining insight into your new market, finding out what systems will help your new venture, acquiring new partners, and finding suitable resource suppliers. Your current contacts may not be able to offer what you need. But by considering how they can help you, you may find they can build bridges between your business and their list of contacts that can give you what you need. Are you being indecisive?Understandably, you would want to spend as much time as possible putting in place a strategy that will support success, but there is one important factor to consider: the longer you wait, the longer you are running a business that is not achieving the success you are aiming for. There is such a thing as too much planning. If you are simply on a plateau, this may not be harmful. However, if your business is unprofitable, you are losing more and more money the longer you wait to pivot. At some point, you will have to bite the bullet, just as you did when you first started your business, and make the changes you need to make. Striking a balance is the absolute key here. You need enough time to formulate a plan that has the potential to bring you the success your current outfit did not. But at the same time, you need to move fast enough that you still have a business to pivot. Remember, you won't just pivot and succeed immediately – or at least, you are unlikely to. It will take time to re-establish certain elements of your business and market your new product. You have to account for this when thinking about available timeframes, or you may find that after you've finally committed to the pivot, you can't make your new dream a reality. Are you ready to change your business information?When you pivot your business, it's important to create a clean break. The last thing you want is to be dealing with the remnants of your old company: turning away clients, wasting time on calls and emails that are no longer relevant, and so on. You want to be in a position where your entire focus is on your new business strategy, which means you need to eliminate all links to your previous operation. If you've ever moved house, you've likely put together a list of things you need to change. Update your address on official forms of identification, update your insurances, cancel your bills, register for new healthcare providers and more. You are still you, but the elements around you need to be adapted based on your change in circumstances. It is the same for your business during a pivot. You need to update all your business information to fit with the restructure you are going through. This includes:
Don't allow anything of what your business used to be remain. For example, if you were to pivot from repairing computers to developing software, you don't want to continue to have your business listed on repair directories or have information on your social media about your rates for hardware maintenance. Take time before your pivot to identify all areas that need switching, and make sure you update them in an appropriate time frame following your pivot. |
| Marketing and Sales Tools That Streamline Outreach Communication Posted: 13 Dec 2019 05:00 AM PST 
The sales process is ever-evolving, and in order to stay current, you need to regularly evaluate and introduce new tools to your arsenal. When you make sure to cover all of the stages in your sales funnel, you will need different tools and processes to aid you in turning leads into customers. As you reflect on what is working and what needs improvement with your sales process, here are some things to consider. What processes do you use to schedule meetings with prospects?It is important to nurture leads by understanding their processes and to use tools effectively to move them along. A sample roadmap might start with a phone call. The first conversation should be just that; a conversation, not a pitch, to find out what's really going on with a potential customer. If you ask detailed questions to qualify your leads and have a meaningful talk about their pain points and what they might want to ask you, you may be able to move them along the funnel. Using email to follow up on an unanswered call or a first conversation is an obvious, yet still effective, route to go. It is worth finding strategies and tools that can help your email stand out in a crowded inbox, such as a creative subject line or a first sentence that really pops. As touches continue to add up, sales and marketing tools can help you manage all of your communications. Using the best in market tools can help you get more done more quickly, and even add more touches to your clients. How can sales tools help you make cold calls and track leads?Using sales tools can help keep you organized and targeting the best possible prospects in the most efficient way. Here are some of the ways that salespeople use tools to make cold calls and track their leads.
What sales techniques can help you optimize your outreach efforts?Besides using state of the art sales tools, there are other ways to get more from your outreach efforts. Here are some of the things you can do.
How do you build relationships with leads?Specific software and strategies can take you quite far in the sales process, but nothing will completely remove the human element of sales. You can consider your sales team's human side a valuable addition to your toolbox – one that may be the difference between lead and customer. Here are some pointers to help you show your leads respect so you can build relationships with them.
Each and every lead that you encounter is different, so it is crucial to nurture them all through a variety of tools and approaches. Sales software can save you time, and ultimately money, when used to its maximum capacity. In addition to software, the human element will gently nudge your leads into action. Those strategies, coupled with an overall attitude of building a relationship, will help you see higher conversion rates and a growing business. |
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