Business Owners - Stop the Snatchers & Grabbers - Part II

Snatchers and Grabbers are the people we meet that pretend they want to do business with us. You must identify who they are and how they operate in order to not give away your intellectual property, services, or products for free. I've enjoyed your feedback for my article Stop the Snatchers and Grabbers and for my free ecourse, Stop the Snatchers and Grabbers. The purpose of the free ecourse was to help you design your system so that you stop giving away products and services for free. Below are three more types of Snatchers and Grabbers.

Stop These Three Snatchers and Grabbers:

1. Late Payers: One type of Snatcher and Grabber may masquerade as a client or customer but he or she is always late paying. Therefore, they are using your product or service for free. The cost of the service or product may be so low that it is not worth your time or money to pursue in small claims court. The product or service may also not be worth your administrative time. The Snatcher and Grabber knows you do not have time to spend tied up in smalls claims court. They also may be a friend and know you will not take action to collect payment. If you find this happening to you it is time to review your collection procedures. When you do not receive payment on time it throws your business budget into a tail spin. Do not allow this to happen. Enforce your collection procedures.

2. Time Wasters: This type of Snatcher and Grabber will spend hours of your time letting you tell them about your products or services. They know you will share samples or valuable tips. Only after demanding your first available appointment and spending hours (sometimes multiple sessions) with you will they tell you that they are not ready to buy. I know one person who spent hours measuring windows only to be told the person had no intention of purchasing until nine months later. I suggest you pre-qualify the person before spending time with them. It is OK to ask them a series of questions. One question could be how soon they would like to begin using your product or service. I ask clients how soon they would like to get started and how many hours they would like to invest in coaching each week or month. I too have had people want to meet with me several times and share tips and resources knowing they were never going to hire me. They were snatching and grabbing and wasting my time. They were costing me revenue by tying up my time when I could have been working with paying clients.

3. Just Shopping: We all love a great bargain. But, an important lesson learned by several of you I heard from is how much information to put in your proposal. There is nothing more infuriating than spending hours with a potential client then only to have the potential client take your proposal to a competitor and receive a proposal that is lower. Again, my window treatment client offered free temporary blinds for home owners while they reviewed her proposal. Lesson learned...they got free temporary blinds and shopped around using her proposal. They went with someone who was willing to do the work cheaper. My friend who sells insurance labored over a proposal only to have the person show it to someone else and go with them. Be careful how in detail you make your proposal. You do not want the person shopping online with the manufacturer or with your competitor who will then offer the service cheaper. Do not let your competitor under bid you after you did all the hard work; take a look at how you are writing your proposals.

Remember, when you stop the Snatchers and Grabbers you will have more money in your bank account. Your coach can help you design your systems so that you can stop the various Snatchers and Grabbers mentioned in this article. Stay tuned for Part III where I will identify three more Snatchers and Grabbers.