{"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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":""},"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":4588,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4588\/wall-street-bailout-plan-to-include-more-than-bad-mortgage-debt-feds-to-absorb-unpaid-bar-bets-inadvertently-laundered-postage-stamps-unredeemed-soda-cans-and-insufficient-tooth-fairy-disbursements\/","url_meta":{"origin":7913,"position":3},"title":"Wall Street bailout plan to include more than bad mortgage debt: Feds to absorb unpaid bar bets, inadvertently laundered postage stamps, unredeemed soda cans and insufficient tooth-fairy disbursements","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Totally absurd? Think twice:In the dark of night over the weekend when most people were snoozing, the Treasury dramatically expanded its bailout plan to include buying student loans, car loans, credit card debt and any other \"troubled\" assets held by banks. The changes, which were included in draft language that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Group Therapy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14253,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/14253\/rage-and-rates-a-tin-foil-hat-production\/","url_meta":{"origin":7913,"position":4},"title":"Rage and Rates&#8230; a Tin Foil Hat Production","author":"Sean Purcell","date":"March 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The question is: when do you lock the rate for your client? Well, if we knew the actual date this crazy, unforseen event may occur, we could watch closely and lock right up to the day before. Why the day before? Because there are three possible outcomes to this disruptive\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":10552,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/10552\/into-the-belly-of-the-beast\/","url_meta":{"origin":7913,"position":5},"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":[]}],"_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}]}}