Risk & Reward: A Collection Agent’s Point of View

Risk and Reward are the two sides of almost every business deal. What are you risking if the deal doesn’t go well? What will you gain if it does go well? Does the reward justify the risk? In collections, we often have to weigh risk and reward and make similar calculations. When trying to decide … Read more

5 Tips for Negotiating Salary (yes, even now)

Negotiating salary intimidates a lot of job hunters, especially in today’s economy. In addition to the health crisis, Covid-19 has caused an economic and employment crisis. The official unemployment rate hit a high of 14.7 percent in April, and continues to hover around 7 to 8 percent. But, that doesn’t mean that if you do … Read more

Six Strategies to Strengthen Cash Flow During a Pandemic

Cash Flow is King during COVID-19

Cash is King during COVID-19. Poor cash flow can cause a significant number of financial issues but in a pandemic it can destroy your business. The good news is, strengthening your cash flow in a volatile environment can improve your overall cash position. Cash flow is about both bringing in more cash and spending less … Read more

Six Strategies For Protecting Your Business During This Crisis

During this difficult time, protecting your health and the health of your family is the most important task. Of course, the health of your business is critical as well. The Covid-19 crisis will end. When it does, you want your business to be in as good a shape as possible. Keeping your business running and … Read more

5 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Negotiate

Part of being a collection agent is being a negotiator. I’ve mentioned before how important I think negotiation strategies are for everyone. Recently, I was talking to a friend about some unfortunate medical bills he was facing. I asked if he had tried negotiating with the hospital and he looked at me like I was … Read more

Negotiating Across the Generations

The cliché of the entitled millennial employee is more than a little worn out. I’m fortunate to have a birds-eye view of a lot of different companies and their employees and I know for a fact that millennials are just as capable and dedicated as their older coworkers. But, having managed employees in many different … Read more

Negotiation Tips for Car Buyers (and everyone else)

As a collection agent and a business owner, I spend a lot of time in negotiations. I’m fascinated by how negotiation tactics vary from situation to situation. I try to learn from negotiations outside of work and apply them to my work, and vice versa. Ask my kids, I’m very good at using active listening … Read more

How to Negotiate with Your Contractor

Whether you own or lease, real estate is a huge expense for any business. If you are planning on remodeling your space, or building a new facility, the expenses can skyrocket. Quality construction costs money, but that’s no reason to throw away money by failing to plan properly or negotiate with your contractor.  Negotiation is … Read more

What Collection Agents Know About Hiring

If you Google “hiring negotiation” you’ll see hundreds of articles about how to negotiate a higher salary when given a job offer.  You’ll also get a lot of articles from the employer’s point of view about how to negotiate a lower salary.  But what so many of these articles overlook is that the negotiations involved … Read more

When Unpaid Invoices Force You to Fire a Client

  In our last blog post we talked about how to make sure you get paid even after you fire a client. For the most part we focused on what happens when you terminate the relationship because they are no longer a good fit for your company. Another common reason for termination is that the … Read more

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