How Much Money Do You Need to Save to Make Something Worthwhile?

Would you walk away from a $20 bill laying on the street? How about $50? $100? You may be able to save that and more in your business each and every month if you accept credit cards. Find out more NOW.

One of my newest passions is the rip-off's in credit card processing. Most businesses, no matter how small, are pretty well resigned to the need to accept credit cards. Our main business has been accepting them for 19 years and I've had lots of experience with a variety of different merchant service providers.

Then a few months ago a friend had a major problem with her provider and blogged about it. Since I check our rates every couple of years I realized I hadn't done that in a while and started checking around. And because of her issue I really did research this time, not just shop rates.

What I found was amazing. The vast majority of providers charge "junk fees" every month that just add to their profit. Do you have a "statement fee" or a "customer service fee" on your statement? Those are pure profit centers for the provider. I actually have a list of about a dozen junk fees that commonly charged. And did you know that even a merchant provider can request a copy of a charge slip...it's called a "retrieval" and yes, they charge you a fee for it. So less than honest merchant service providers will often pad their profit in a month by issuing retrieval requests for no reason except to add to their profit that month.

I delved deep into this and finally found my current Merchant Service Provider. No statement fees, no batch closing fees, etc., just a great rate with a business that is honest and straightforward.

I'm actually doing a video interview later today on this subject. But my question to you is how much money do you need to save in order to make you sit up and take notice? If someone said they'd save you $20 a month each and every month would it be "worth" it to you to take action? What about $50 a month? $100? $300?

This is money you are currently spending that would stay in your pocket. You don't have to do anything, sell anything, buy anything...it's just saved money. And yet I know people who just don't take the action necessary to do it. And this is not just about credit card processing, but changing a vendor for a better price, canceling a service you really don't use, doing something different, anything, that would save you money. At what point does keeping more of your money make you take action?

How Can You Make Some Extra Money in Bad Economic Times?

My favorite Forum has had some great topics concerning staying afloat and even making some extra money during these tough economic times. Someone said they read that average person in danger of losing everything, their house, car, etc., was short in income by about $500 a month. Think about that. With another $500 a month of income they would be OK. That got everyone throwing out ideas as to how someone could create additional income without taking on another W-2 job.

This forum is heavily populated by entrepreneurs so it didn't take much to get them going. Selling items on eBay, doing landscaping, painting numbers on curbs, house cleaning, auto detailing, dog walking, cleaning out garages (and then help them sell on eBay!), home repairs, house painting; techie types could offer to help with computer stuff, setting up VCR's, home theaters, etc. All things that you could get going quickly and get extra money. And, they'd have a business which would give them all sorts of possible tax deductions.

Sometimes it just takes someone to get you thinking. Our forum host has a weekly meeting with her family about how many ways they might be able to generate additional cash that week. Clean out your own garage and have a yard sale or sell the things on eBay, fill out old rebate forms, call and cancel those automatic subscriptions that you don't want, pack your lunch all week, call about an overcharge that needs to be credited, etc., etc.

And your business can benefit from this idea, too. That's how I happened to get involved in referring businesses to a Merchant Service Provider (For Ethical Merchant Services Click Here!) - Because of a "rant" post on our Forum about a problem with their Merchant Account Provider I was reminded that I hadn't checked out our rates in a couple of years . Being the "information addict" I am I not only researched better rates for our company, I researched the issue she had as well. I learned more about the subject than I ever would have imagined. Then I talked about the subject with our friends who own a retail store and heard another horror story from them. That really got me digging.

Bottom line is I found a Merchant Service Provider that does business the way I do, honestly, above-board and with the highest degree of ethics. And I searched the web for complaints about them (none), pulled their D&B report (great), checked out their BBB report (excellent). They are saving me hundreds of dollars a month and also made me aware that we had an odd situation in that all of our transactions were being put through as "non-qualified." This was costing us hundreds of dollars a month as well and when I looked into it it was because our processor trained our people to not answer any of the qualifying questions they were asked when processing a credit card.

Right then and there I called the VP of Marketing and said I wanted to refer business to them, could we work out a referral arrangement. It's very small dollars, but the gratification I get when another business person is shocked by how much they can save makes it all worthwhile.

So this post started with one thought, but flowed to another and ended with yet another! Isn't that what makes it interesting and exciting?

The answer is always NO if you don't ask - or in this case, participate!

A thread in a Forum that I regularly post in had a link to http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/09/04/come-to-the-seo-thinktank-2008-on-me/ - a contest for an all expenses paid spot at the SEO Think Tank in San Diego at the end of September. So I looked at it and said to myself, why not enter? I may be new to this but that's why I want to go to this event, to learn more!

I have an "information addiction" and I love to share all of the stuff I find and learn about. My blog is just in the testing stage, but it's evolving and I'm learning in the process.

"People told me they wanted to go to an Internet business event that focused on Networking and learning from each other, in a casual environment." Hmm, that's a quote from the www.shoemoney.com site about how the event came to be. So learning from each other and networking is right up my alley! I'm soaking up as much as I can about how to create a presence on the internet, partly because it's fun, partly to earn some money, and partly because I'm at a place in my life that I can give back some of the knowledge I've learned over the past 30 years of being a business owner.

I have a website under construction (not ready for primetime!) for my newest company, Bridgeway Connections, LLC -"Helping Businesses Work Together to Achieve Their Goals" (tm) and my website for a network marketing company, www.SendOutCards.com/cardgallery that I've begun to promote.

I participate in a Mastermind Group that helps me to stay on task and focussed, and hopefully I help the others in the group as well. I set up a private Google Group for us to post on which was a totally new endeavor for me.

I'm running AdWords campaigns and now Facebook ads to test what that might do for me. I'm beginning to learn about Facebook and LinkedIn and every day is exciting because I know I'm going to learn more!

I have a passion and a crusade for making businesses aware of the pitfalls of Merchant Service Providers and have found and make referrals to the one honest, ethical credit card service provider I found in all of my research. I was doing research for my own company, but when I found them I called the Vice President of Marketing and said, "I want to refer businesses to you, what can we work out?" So, if you're reading this you can save substantial money by going to www.bridgeway.merchantrates.com - don't take my word for it...get a quote and see for yourself! My main business is saving about $400 a month with them (now we do process about $150,000 a month in credit cards).

Now if I can just figure out SEO and get traffic to my sites! LOL - I guess this is part of that attempt, now isn't it?