Getting paid in a timely fashion can make – or break – your business. In “4 Ways to Make It Easy for Customers to Give You Their Money,” Carol’s recent post on entrepreneur.com, she shares some tips and examples of how different types of businesses can implement them. Carol begins:

Marketing and selling are part art and part science, but sometimes, the simplest of tactics are truly the most effective. If you want to grow your business, make it easy for current and prospective customers to give you money. Here are four simple tactics to do so.

1. Contact them.
Far too many businesses are reactive when it comes to customers. Businesses wait around for the customers to contact them about purchasing their products and services instead of proactively reaching out.

My old cleaning service that I used prior to moving always waited for me to contact them for an appointment. Given my busy schedule, my home was often way overdue for their services by the time I got around to make an appointment. Now, my current cleaning service owner texts me regularly, which forces me to make the appointment a priority. This means that my new cleaning service probably gets almost double the revenue from me each year that my old one did.

My Gyrotonic teacher does even better. He doesn’t let me leave his studio without making sure that I book my next appointment. Again, if it were up to me to fit the time to contact him into my schedule, he would certainly see me less often.

If you own a spa, book the next appointment before the customer leaves. If you are an estate lawyer, contact your clients about reviewing their estate plans to make sure they are up to date. Being proactive with your existing customers can lead to a significant uptick in revenue and be helpful to managing your clients’ time in the process.

This can work with prospects, too — offer to book a free or discounted service for them when they inquire for information before finishing the correspondence, whether it’s by phone, text, email, in person or in another format.

You can read the rest of the tips here.