Paypal Payments + e-mail

[Spider]

I have clients who are extremely busy and that is why they seek my help - to help them break out of the "one-person-plus-helpers-doing work" level to become true "business-owners-running-a-business." A monthly fee is sometimes not very effective, because the client can go a week or three too busy to focus on developing the breakthrough mindset that such a transition requires. The result is, we exchange a couple of e-mails, then they get too busy to respond for a while and the next month's fee is due before they can take on coaching again. A whole month's fee for a couple of e-mails is not a suitable ROI for them, so they drop out.

I want to offer a "per e-mail" payment system to my clients that would work like this -

1. Client types up an e-mail that they send to me.

2. e-Mail arrives and automatically charges a set fee to the client's Paypal account.

3. I reply.

Alternative process:

1a. Client types up an e-mail that they send to me

2a. e-Mail arrives

3a. I reply - on 'send,' a set fee is automatically charged to client's Paypal account.

Does anyone know, or have any suggestions, as to how this can be done?

[billbenson]

I don't think you will be able to do this with your email application (at least not economically). You could do it with a server side script. You would fill out a form on your site instead of your pc email and send it. You could include a paypal link in that. That is custom software, but wouldn't be that expensive.

If you just ad a payment link to your emails that would work fine and be inexpensive, but not automatic. If you want it to be fully automatic, you will need a custom script which can be simple or elegant.

As a side note, this is why I advocate learning php / mysql. You can do custom management scripts; some easy some time consuming; that will do things like this.

Maybe someone else has a better solution.

[Steve B]

I don't know if it's technically possible or not, but it sounds like a bad concept in my opinion. What if the client sent you an e-mail asking a simple question like "by the way, I have a billionaire friend that wants to hire you, are you taking on any new clients?". If I understand what you wrote above correctly, he'd automatically get charged for that. Is that correct?

Why don't you just bill them on an hourly basis like a lawyer? I used to use lawyers all the time as a "legal" Coach in the HR world. Sometimes I'd call them (or email) them several times a month and sometimes I'd go almost a year without needing them. I just got charged (or should I say overcharged) for what I used. This way you can decide what was worthy of a charge or not.

[Spider]

Thanks, Bill - I was afraid that might be the answer.

Steve - Good point - my idea clearly will not work. I haven't considered per hour billing because most of what I do is thinking. I can take a whole morning writing one e-mail, considering various points, writing, re-writing, reconsidering, checking for facts, doing calculations, what-ifs, and so on. And, most of what I write is not a transfer of facts but intended to get the client to think and come up with his own answers and decisions. The finished e-mail does not reflect all that and what took four hours looks like a 2 minute message. Perhaps that's why lawyers are always felt to be overcharging.

[vangogh]

Why not charge a monthly retainer?r It doesn't have to be tied specifically to hours. It could be something like $x for monthly email consulting. I also don't see how the email charge would be technically possibly. If it was I think it would only lead to less emails and more phone calls. I think a monthly retainer is really how you'd want to go about this.


help them break out of the "one-person-plus-helpers-doing work" level to become true "business-owners-running-a-business."

As an aside how is a one person plus helpers not a true business? That's kind of suggesting that most of us here on the forum aren't true businesses. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you meant so I'm asking for a little clarification.

[Spider]

What I have now is a retainer, although I don't call it that. Perhaps this just needs a change of wording.

[Harold Mansfield]

I don't think automatic billing based on emails sent is a good idea. Automatic billing only works when the terms have been discussed and agreed upon, and an invoice is sent at a predetermined and expected time.
You can't possibly know what to set your billing at based on an unread email.

I have some clients on a monthly retainer. It's different for each depending on their needs. Some pay every month and get continuing support and maintenance, and some pay a month at a time for how ever long they need my services.
Yes, people get busy ( or at least say they do) and forget to pay. But my reliable clients pay on time every month no matter how busy they are. No pay. No services.

I think a monthly retainer is the best solution for you. It keeps a fire lit under the client because they are paying for your services so they have a vested interest in using them, and it stops them from "wasting your time" and dragging out payments.

Sometimes it's constant work and sometimes months can go by where I hardly do anything at all. But it balances out for them to have me on call for every little thing or question, and the months that require many hours of work are balanced out by the months that I don't do anything and still get paid. Over the course of a year, it's a good deal for both of us.

You can set those up on month to month increments, 3 months, 6 months, or whatever.

[jamesray50]

Frederick - You can do what you want to do through Pay Pal, although I'm not sure how. I don't if it is somehow set up through them or another way but I have seen it done on a service website. Here is a link to the website so you can see how they do it. Consulting & Training | Long for Success (http://longforsuccess.com/services/remote-consulting-training/)

[Spider]

Thank you, Jo Ellen. They seem to be using the basic PayPal process - not automatic, as I was contemplating, but paying manually like this might overcome some of the reasonable objections already raised. I'll think on this some more.