Electronic payments benefit radio stations in many ways. They offer convenience, accelerate payments and eliminate paper processes. In most conversations, the main storyline is the impact on finance and operations. Sales teams can also realize positive effects when organizations transition to electronic payments.
The basis for these benefits isn’t purely assumptions. Our clients have noted how electronic payments are good for sales teams. Here’s why they should be all-in on this strategy.
Digital Pre-Payments Streamline the Process
When you’re onboarding new advertisers or managing the accounts of those historically slow to pay, pre-payment requests remove the need for collections later. It’s easy to enable customer pre-payments in an integrated electronic payment solution.
With this functionality, there’s no manual work that could potentially cause delays and impact campaign start dates. Enabling pre-payments in a digital environment makes the process much smoother. Getting paid up front also protects sellers’ commissions. Unpaid invoices could trigger chargebacks, which is a situation no seller wants.
Faster Funding Speeds Up Commissions
Some stations only pay out commissions after the bill settles. In these cases, sales staff could wait months if invoicing and payments are paper based. A holdup on commissions can disincentivize sellers and create feelings of discord.
You can’t completely avoid this, but electronic payments offer an excellent strategy to get funding faster. They’re a proven method for reducing days outstanding. Our clients have seen decreases of up to 32 days.
Faster payments boost your cash flow and ensure salespeople receive their commissions in a timely manner.
Sales Teams Can Spend More Time Selling
Sales staff have historically been check collectors. Some see it as a touchpoint opportunity to check in with customers, but it’s also a drain on time. There are much better avenues for outreach, like discussing trends and campaign performance.
Picking up paper checks can take hours. It’s also risky; in 2023, 65% of businesses reported facing check fraud. It increases the chance of check theft or loss before they make it to accounting.
Removing this burden from sellers gives them time back for revenue-generating activities. Our customer, Southern Stone, made the PayNow payment portal mandatory for ACH and credit card payments. Finance staff trained account executives on the system to walk customers through it and ensure adoption.
The results were positive for all. Local sales manager Michelle Mariano shared, “Reps don’t have to drive around picking up checks weekly, which ultimately gives that time back to the seller, giving them more time to actually get new business. Now that PayNow is the standard and everyone has mostly adopted electronic payments, it is much easier for all involved, and the payment process takes up less of our time.”
Collections Support from Sales Is Easier with an Electronic Payments Platform
If your station involves salespeople in the collections process, having a web-based tool creates efficiency. In many current scenarios, finance must pull reports and manually manipulate them before dispensing them to sales.
PayNow users have access to a collections tool to manage this much more effectively. It’s configurable, so each salesperson only sees their accounts. They’ll see updated information regarding outstanding balances and aging, saving them time and helping streamline collection efforts.
Electronic Payments Support All Revenue Players
Ensuring payments are on time, accurate and easy for advertisers creates benefits for all your staff. Finance, management and sales can all see the positive impact of providing an electronic payment solution.
With PayNow, stations see payment speed increase, efficiencies grow and insights become clear. Explore how it can help your station improve revenue by requesting a demo!
