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Business After the Iraqi War
The rewarding of high compensation packages to top executives who turned over weak quarterly earnings, or who were involved in corporate scandals, adversely affected short-term investing, and collectively contributed to the downturn of the...
Christ and Culture Part 2
...cont. from Christ and Culture Part 1
4. Christ and Culture is in Paradox
This view differs from the preceding option by maintaining that while both Christ and culture claim our loyalty, the tension between them cannot be reconciled by any...
Corruption and Transparency
I. The Facts Just days before a much-awaited donor conference, the influential International Crisis Group (ICG) recommended to place all funds pledged to Macedonia under the oversight of a "corruption advisor" appointed by the European...
Help Wanted -New Business Leadership required to jumpstart the American Economy
Help Wanted -New Business Leadership Styles and Practices Needed To Build Confidence and Jump-Start the Economy. By: Denis Orme ______________________________________________________________________________ America's help wanted ad should read,...
HOW TO GET THROUGH IT WITH GOLD
In September, 1830 the Right Honorable William Huskisson, M.P., a fast-rising English politician, turned up at the opening of the Manchester Railroad, to see The Future. Somehow, a man who many thought would end up Prime Minister, couldn't...
Lesson Plans that Reach the Multiple Intelligences
American schools have traditionally favored those students who excel in the linguistic and analytical arenas because these skills are highly valued in our culture. Unfortunately, this traditional approach leaves certain students behind to stumble...
Religion is Deeper Than Culture: On Being An African-American Buddhist
The following commentary ran in the Religion Section of the Cleveland-based Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest Newspaper, Saturday, August 19, 2000. "Your father didn't teach you right, THAT'S your problem," I am told. It's late January, 1999. I sit in...
Selecting an Independent/Broker Dealer that’s Right for You
For financial consultants, picking the right independent broker/dealer for affiliation is one of the most important decisions they can make to benefit their business. While the right broker/dealer can provide effective support for your business and...
Twitch Speed: Reaching Younger Workers Who Think Differently
Every parent, educator, and manager knows that "Nintendo children"--those born after 1970 and raised on video and computer games, Walkmans, the Internet, etc.--are different. Unfortunately, the Gen-X discussion has focused mainly on the youths'...
What Type Of Zero Down Mortgage Is Best For You?
Below are 9 different types of zero down mortgage that you can qualify for. Each one has positive and negative aspects. Read and learn about which zero down mortgage will suit you best. 80/20: The 80/20 loan is simply an 80% first mortgage with a...
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Commercial Collections: Business Finance Booster Shot
If commercial collections is not part of your B2B business plan, you're losing money. Get your cash flowing again with these commercial collections secrets.
Commercial collections: fixture of the new B2B culture
If you're in the business-to-business field, or even if you're a consumer products business that works through third-party distribution channels, you probably know what it's like to check your mail anxiously each day, sifting through all the bills for that payment that was supposed to have been in months ago.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. If you were a good, honest businessperson who dealt with other good, honest businesspeople, "commercial collections" wasn't supposed to be part of your vocabulary.
Back in the good old days, an invoice or purchase order that had an established company listed in the "bill to" field was almost as good as a cashier's check. Nowadays, if you're in the business of serving other businesses you may find that your cash flow is less reliable than a small-time bookie's.
Commercial Collections: A Personal Story
This past April I finally got the $2,000 a client owed me for work done in December, after spending almost as much money's worth of my time reminding them to pay.
No, this wasn't one of those hand-shake deals-we had a 5-page contract specifying net-30 payment terms. Nor was this some guy with a lemonade stand. It was the media division of one of the largest retailers in the United States.
The worst part was, I trusted this client based on my experience working with them a few years before. I actually spent the money on Christmas presents, fully expecting the payment to come in before my credit card statement.
Avoiding Outstanding Invoices
Of course, you can nip this problem in the bud by cultivating strong relationships with clients who pay on time. But those clients are getting few and far between-and, as I found, the good can go pretty
bad pretty fast.
Worse, it seems that the larger the business, the less likely they are to pay on time. "Net 10 days" might as well be a foreign language in Fortune 500 land. The long-standing advice given to B2B businesses and self-employed people is that the money is in big corporations. But good luck getting it from them before your rent is due.
What I Should Have Done
Looking back on my experience with the deadbeat corporate client, my biggest mistake was doing it all myself, with writing the letters and making the phone calls. With an hourly rate of about $75, I ended up spending the time equivalent of a large chunk of my $2000 fee.
I should have gone to a collection agency. I just didn't know then that were collection agencies that would take on small business debts and run the whole process for you for as little as $20 per debt.
Of course, I also didn't know that going to a collection agency didn't necessarily mean "putting an account in collections." Many collection agencies are in fact refashioning themselves as "accounts receivable management" specialists; they'll even manage your invoicing from end-to-end if you want. The client may not even realizing that the person on the phone is from an outside agency and not your own personal assistant.
When I think of all the value of the time I spent collecting that last $2,000, I could kick myself for not handing it over to a collection agency. But, I can always look forward to putting this knowledge into practice the next time I have a client who's slow in paying.
About the Author
Steve Austin is a regular contributor to Let No
Debt Remain Outstanding (http://www.let-no-debt-remain-outstanding.com/),
a website with articles on choosing a collection
agency, along with recommended the best collection agencies.
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