For as long as I can remember — in helping small businesses with their marketing and web strategies — I’ve struggled with the one big difference between micro-businesses and businesses that are larger; Small biz, Med Biz, Large Biz, Whales. That difference? … their budgets.
In the day-to-day operation of their companies, micro-businesses have budgets that are, frankly, micro. No surprise there. The impact is not simply that they have to scale down their thinking, the big problem arises when they have to completely remove business concepts from their operational and marketing toolkits. A couple of examples would be; Radio (too expensive), TV (too expensive), National PR campaigns (too time consuming and too expensive).
What about accepting credit cards? Have you seen a Whirlygig Vendor at a craft fair take credit cards? Nope. What about local fine artists? Not likely. What about temporary fundraising projects like a walk-a-thon? Not! All of these examples are of people who’ve found accepting credit cards is either too expensive, too complicated to set up or too much of a long term commitment.
Enter SQUARE!
Started by the smart folks who founded Twitter, this free device allows you to swipe a credit card using your smart phone. Monthly fees of …. zip. Setup fees … nada. Annual fees … bupkiss. With a 2.75% per swipe fee and no other commitments, just about anyone can star accepting Visa, Matercard, Discover and AmEx. Brilliant!
