I am amazed at how many small retail shops make the automatic business decision that they can’t afford to take credit or debit cards.  Who carries cash around these days?  Let alone a big old uncomfortable checkbook?

These are the days of traveling lean and light – and electronically!  A credit or debit card in your back pocket and you’re off for a fun day of shopping – until you walk in to one of those delightful little unique shops, spend an hour shopping, only to find out they don’t take credit cards.

Some people say “oh, I’ll be back – just let me go to the ATM.”  But statistically, more than 80% of them never return for their carefully selected treasures.

These days, the truer question is “How can a business NOT afford to take credit cards?”  There are so many options out there – Square for your iphone, PayPal has a new smart phone processor too – and these don’t require a monthly fee.  Square charges 2.75% of the purchase price and the attachment and set up are free.  Last time I counted, that was 97.25% in your pocket!  Who can afford to turn that away?

With those reasonable fees, I could even see homeowners have one on standby in case they decide to have the mega garage sale of the century – can you imagine being able to use your debit card at a garage sale?  I’m there!

Greg Hammermaster, president of Sage Payment Solutions, was quoted by BusinessNewsDaily.com, “Business owners don’t always have a chance to have a dialogue with customers. They might come in one time, see that you don’t take credit cards and walk out.”

Talk about a loss.

And Ann Latham, president of Uncommon Clarity, a Massachusetts consulting firm, takes it one step further, “Businesses that operate on a cash-only basis to avoid transaction fees for debit or credit cards may be committing “financial suicide.”

When I think of customers small businesses should be targeting, I think of my mother.  Did you know that those in the age sector between 50 and 75 have the highest percentage of disposable income?  My mom falls into that category and she loves to shop! But she never carries a checkbook, rarely carries cash and prefers to use her debit card.  Why would anybody want to turn her buying power away?

So all you small business owners out there – what are your thoughts?

Chris and I stopped in Jimmy John’s last week for a quick sandwich. The decor of the place was amazing and we spent a lot of time just taking it all in. As we were leaving, we saw Warren Buffett’s Ten Rules on the wall.  Chris had to stop and read every word, digesting it and applying it to his life. I just waited in the truck intent on looking them up on the internet. I’d seen enough to know that this was something I needed to follow up on.

Two years ago, Chris and I started an eBay business with some of my mom’s overflowing items and five dollars in our pocket. Lo and behold, we sold everything and decided then and there that every penny we made would be reinvested in inventory, even if we had to go hungry. Well, fortunately, we never went hungry.

Each week we would take a specified amount of money and hit the garage sales, auctions, Craig’s List, whatever it took to spend every single last penny of that money. After less than a year, we had $20,000 in vintage pottery inventory.

That business led us to buying a building in downtown Sedalia and the rest is history. Well, maybe history yet to be written.

Warren Buffett’s Ten Rules

1. Reinvest Your Profits
When you first make money, you may be tempted to spend it. Don’t. Instead, reinvest the profits. In high school, Buffett and a friend bought a pinball machine to put in a barbershop. With the money they earned, they bought more machines until they had eight in different shops. When the friends sold the venture, Buffett used the proceeds to buy stocks and to start another small business.

2. Be Willing To Be Different
Don’t base your decisions upon what everyone is saying or doing. When Buffett began managing money in 1956 with $100,000 cobbled together from a handful of investors, he was dubbed an oddball. He worked in Omaha, not on Wall Street, and he refused to tell his partners where he was putting their money. People predicted that he’d fail, but when he closed his partnership 14 years later, it was worth more than $100 million.

3. Never Suck Your Thumb
Gather in advance any information you need to make a decision, and ask a friend or relative to make sure that you stick to a deadline. Buffett prides himself on swiftly making up his mind and acting on it. He calls any unnecessary sitting and thinking “thumb-sucking.”

4. Spell Out the Deal Before You Start
Your bargaining leverage is always greatest before you begin a job – when you have something to offer that the other party wants. Buffett learned this lesson the hard way as a kid, when his grandfather hired him and a friend to dig out the family grocery store after a blizzard. The boys spent five hours shoveling until they could barely straighten their frozen hands. Afterward, the pair received less than 90 cents to split.

5. Watch Small Expenses
Buffett invests in businesses run by managers who obsess over the tiniest costs. He once acquired a company whose owner counted the sheets in rolls of 500-sheet toilet paper to see if he was being cheated (turns out one time he was). He also admired a friend who painted only the side of his office building that faced the road.

6. Limit What You Borrow 
Buffett has never borrowed a significant amount – not to invest, not for a mortgage. He has gotten many heart-wrenching letters from people who thought their borrowing was manageable; but became overwhelmed by debt. His advice: negotiate with creditors to pay what you can. Then, when you’re debt-free, work on saving some money that you can use to invest.

7. Be Persistent 
With tenacity and ingenuity, you can win against a more established competitor. Buffett acquired the Nebraska Furniture Mart in 1983 because he liked the way its founder, Rose Blumkin, did business. A Russian immigrant, she built the mart from a pawn shop into the largest furniture store in North America. Her strategy was to undersell the big shots, and she was a merciless negotiator.

8. Know When To Quit
Once, when Buffett was a teenager, he went to the racetrack. He bet on a race and lost. To recoup his funds, he bet on another race. He lost again, leaving him with close to nothing. He felt sick. He had squandered nearly a week’s worth of earnings. Needless to say, that mistake was never repeated.

9. Assess the Risks
In 1995, the employer of Buffett’s son, Howie, was accused by the FBI of price-fixing. Buffett advised Howie to imagine the worst- and best-case scenarios if he stayed with the company. His son quickly realized that the risks of staying far outweighed any potential gains, and he quit the next day.

10. Know What Success Really Means
Despite his wealth, Buffett does not measure success by dollars. In 2006, he pledged to give away almost his entire fortune to charities, primarily the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He’s adamant about not funding monuments to himself – no Warren Buffett buildings or halls. “When you get to my age, you’ll measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. that’s the ultimate test of how you’ve lived your life.”