What to do When You receive a Bad Check

By Stephen Bucaro

As a small business operator, personal checks may be one method to receive payment for your goods or services. As a way to receive payment, a personal check is actually better than credit cards because fees are less and there can be no charge back.

Fortunately, most people are honest and studious in taking care of their checking account. But sooner or later every small business operator will receive a bad check. The first thing to do is politely contact individual and give them an opportunity to make check good.

Most times you'll find that customer has simply been careless with their checking account or finances. They will probably be embarrassed about incident and will immediately replace check with a good one. Unfortunately, there are rare occasions when individual who gave you bad check decides to make themselves scarce.

Note: If a personal check is for more than a few dollars, it's best to let check clear before delivering product or service. Say, for example, that someone wants to buy your car with a personal check for twice what car's worth. Remember, a check is just a piece of paper until after it clears. They can return to pick up car after check clears, or you can offer to drive with individual to their bank to get cash.

Until recently crafts were usually sold locally or, at best, regionally. Now you literally have whole world at your fingertips! Some of you may choose a gradual progression from selling to friends, to selling at fairs and shows, to retail selling … and so on. Others may decide to jump directly from selling within their circle of friends to worldwide Internet market – costs are low enough that this is surprisingly doable.

My first career was as a special education teacher. After 15 years of teaching I earned an MBA degree followed by CFA (Certified Financial Analyst) certification. After 15 years in finance I was a vice-president and portfolio manager of a major insurance company before I was downsized. Tired of rat race, I opted for early retirement. Looking for something to do with all my free time, I started crafting and am now making a nice supplemental income from it.

As a crafter and a businesswoman, I feel I have some valuable insights into craft business that I can share with you.

Getting Organized to Sell Your Crafts for Profit

At some point in your progression from crafting for fun to crafting for fun and profit, you go from handcrafting individual items for yourself and friends to filling quantity orders for a broader marketplace. That’s time to take a very business-like approach to your craft business. This needn’t be daunting. You don’t need an MBA or management experience – just a bit of common sense. If you’re going to do this for profit, you need to under- stand The Four M’s:

1. Meet your market; 2. Minimize your costs; 3. Maximize your selling price; and 4. Market heck out of your product.

Simple, right? But very few people get it. Look at high failure rate for new businesses. It takes effort to be successful, but task is hardly impossible.

Traditional craft retailing methods are what most crafters use to get started. They're easiest way, especially if you don't know if anyone will buy what you make.