{"id":7913,"date":"2009-04-17T08:35:01","date_gmt":"2009-04-17T15:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=7913"},"modified":"2009-04-17T08:35:01","modified_gmt":"2009-04-17T15:35:01","slug":"shop-talk-how-are-you-collecting-on-bad-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7913\/shop-talk-how-are-you-collecting-on-bad-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"Shop Talk:  How Are You Collecting on Bad Debt?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Seeing that 2007-08 were extremely rough years in our industry, we at Top of Mind experienced a significant rise in slow-pays and no-pays.\u00a0 Ultimately, we found ourselves with high-five figure 90-day+ receivables.\u00a0 Anyone who&#8217;s ever been in this position surely is aware of how uncomfortable it can be calling clients and asking for past due payments.\u00a0 After all, if we&#8217;re doing our jobs right &#8211; our clients ultimately become our friends.<\/p>\n<p>There are basically two common approaches to collecting on receivables &#8211; and they&#8217;re polar opposites of each other:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Approach #1)\u00a0 The aggressive, finger-pointing, condescending way:<\/strong><\/span> I think this is the way most businesses pursue bad debt.\u00a0 Heck, when I was young and ignorant, I let a few personal account balances go late.\u00a0 The increasingly frequent calls I received from my debtors became threatening and borderline obnoxious.\u00a0 Certainly I wanted to make good on my debt, and ultimately I did.\u00a0 My motivation in paying the debt, however, wasn&#8217;t to please these bill collectors &#8211; it was simply doing the right thing and paying my bill as soon as I could.\u00a0 As far as my debtors were concerned, their tactics worked.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Approach #2)\u00a0 The compassionate, understanding and communicative way:<\/strong><\/span> I&#8217;d like to share how I&#8217;ve handled our bad debt over the past couple years.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I do not delegate collection calls to my employees.\u00a0 In my opinion, this is the kind of s**t work that causes employees to dread coming to work.\u00a0 It isn&#8217;t my employees&#8217; fault that we let some of our clients get behind on their bill, why should it be my employees&#8217; work to clean up a mess management created?\u00a0 99% of collection calls come from me as the President of our company (with the other 1% coming from my partners).<\/li>\n<li>I have one ground rule on how I treat a debtor &#8211; if they&#8217;ll communicate with me, I&#8217;ll bend over backward to help them.\u00a0 Clients who owe us money aren&#8217;t treated as &#8220;B-class&#8221; clients.\u00a0 I use my CRM system to take copious notes on all phone conversations and email threads &#8211; and I set reminders to check the status at reasonable intervals (depending on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7913\/shop-talk-how-are-you-collecting-on-bad-debt\/#more-7913\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seeing that 2007-08 were extremely rough years in our industry, we at Top of Mind experienced a significant rise in slow-pays and no-pays.\u00a0 Ultimately, we found ourselves with high-five figure 90-day+ receivables.\u00a0 Anyone who&#8217;s ever been in this position surely is aware of how uncomfortable it can be calling clients and asking for past due [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,29],"tags":[323,322],"class_list":{"0":"post-7913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-general","7":"category-group-therapy","8":"tag-bad-debt","9":"tag-collections","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10028,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/10028\/how-to-be-more-honest-accounting-for-morons\/","url_meta":{"origin":7913,"position":0},"title":"How To Be More Honest: Accounting For Morons.","author":"Chris Johnson","date":"October 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The worst thing that ever\u00a0 happened to me was November of 2003.\u00a0 I made, as a Realtor $57,000 in closings (without a team) in one month.\u00a0 In early December, I added another $19,000 to that pile of money.\u00a0 Because of my phone banging good times, I didn't have expenses or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Dirty Laundry&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Dirty Laundry","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/dirty-laundry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1667,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1667\/the-800-pound-gorilla-in-the-corner-the-meltdown-of-the-wall-street-mortgage-market\/","url_meta":{"origin":7913,"position":1},"title":"The 800 pound gorilla in the corner &#8211; the meltdown of the Wall Street mortgage market","author":"Morgan Brown","date":"July 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As we go about our daily lives in the mortgage and real estate world; dutifully performing our job functions and taking the high road of customer enlightenment via blogs such as Bloodhound; we are faced with a very large gorilla looming in the corner of our workplace. That gorilla is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Lending&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Lending","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/lending\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9192,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/9192\/for-those-of-you-following-the-lurid-drama-of-our-lives\/","url_meta":{"origin":7913,"position":2},"title":"For those of you following the lurid drama of our lives&#8230;","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"We bought our house out of hock today. All it took was a tiny little pawn ticket and a great big check. Our small feat of redemption was actually paid for by June's receipts, but I got myself into this mess by surfing the payables, and I got myself out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Dirty Laundry&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Dirty Laundry","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/dirty-laundry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10552,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/10552\/into-the-belly-of-the-beast\/","url_meta":{"origin":7913,"position":3},"title":"Into the belly of the beast&#8230;","author":"Damon Chetson","date":"December 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"So I've been building a criminal practice... I've now reached the point that I'm bringing in enough clients to make that self-sustaining in terms of paying the bills and generating some income. Criminal practice is fun, but limited in terms of compensation. My intention has always been to add at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3263,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3263\/housing-rescue-plan-passes-senate-smell-test\/","url_meta":{"origin":7913,"position":4},"title":"Housing Rescue Plan Passes Senate Smell Test","author":"Brian Brady","date":"June 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Ever see what you thought was a pragmatic idea bastardized?\u00a0 I'm no politician but I love throwing mock legislation up to the Bloodhound Congress.\u00a0 If you've ever watched C-SPAN, The Bloodhound Congress resembles The British Parliament much more than our domestic legislative body.\u00a0 Boos, hisses, and cheers abound in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Real Estate&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15125,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15125\/warren-buffetts-secretary-an-open-letter\/","url_meta":{"origin":7913,"position":5},"title":"Warren Buffett&#8217;s Secretary &#8211; An Open Letter","author":"Sean Purcell","date":"September 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I feel compelled to answer the question that has thrust you, Ms. Warren Buffett's Secretary, into the hot spotlight of public scrutiny and in so doing, I hope to stop this before you become, like Farrah Fawcett before you, the poster child of prurient interest.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Mother&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7913"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7921,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7913\/revisions\/7921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}