Credit guru Thea Dudley has spent more than 30 years in LBM credit management. Now she’s here to answer your credit and collection questions. Got a question for her mailbag? Contact Thea at theadudley@charter.net
Dear Thea,
Recently, you wrote a response to a question about taking back a customer that burned you. Thanks to that, I have my sales reps coming in telling me how you would work with an account that had terrible pay history, didn’t pay you, and how you would give them a second chance. That is just making my job harder. Not everyone deserves a second chance. This isn’t really a question, I just wanted to make you aware you have made my job a little more challenging than it already is.
Signed, Irritated in Iowa
Dear Irritated,
I really don’t know why I don’t purchase more piñatas. Like right now, I would really love to beat the crap out of something with a stick, then eat lots of candy. My point, my dear Irritated, is people can take anything you say or do and twist it to suit their point of view and there is nothing you can do about it.
For example, I can look a a company’s financials and make them say anything I want, depending on how I spin it and what I focus on. Doesn’t mean it is entirely the whole picture. I’m just extracting the specific data that will get others to see what I want them to see.
If you truly read my response, I did not say become the company doormat and let every one of your worst nightmares back in. I admitted that some debts you cannot get over. Some you can. Some ex-customers are willing to work with you and take responsibility; some are not. Some are humble and take ownership of the situation, some want to place the blame on everyone else. Some expect (actually, demand) that you come up with a solution of how to make this problem go away.
There are some bad debt nightmares I absolutely cannot and will not get over anytime in the foreseeable future. Some are so bad that even the mention of the owner’s or company’s names makes me get the flying monkeys and my broom.
But let’s move the focus away from my issues and bring them back to yours. What I am reading between the lines in your email, sharing your feelings, is that perhaps this is more about how you view your role within the company and your willingness to put yourself in uncomfortable situations.
The line “you just made my job a little more challenging” is puzzling to me. You are in credit. The job IS challenging. Your job is to find a way to a “yes.” Maybe not the “yes” your sales rep is looking for, but to work to find solutions. Sometimes the solution is to walk away. But if you have not taken a moment to entertain the risk/reward and the cost of walking away without exploring the opportunity, then maybe, dear Irritated, you are the challenge.
Nobody likes revisiting a wound and picking off the scab, especially if it has had time to start to scar over. It is painful and having a sales rep stand in front of you and defend the offender who violated your company is just the icing on the cake. I am not credit shaming you or trying to make you the bad guy here, but placing the blame on me for your credit challenges is not going to resolve your sales team tossing whatever they can at you to push their agenda.
Everyday I get to hear from my sales team what our competitors do. How they don’t cut customers off; give million dollar credit lines; never call for payments, ask for financials, or request credit applications. This doesn’t mean I blame my competitors. I am sure competitors hear the same things about my company and those credit managers make the exact same faces (and gestures at the phone) that I do. Sales peeps are optimistic by nature – they are the true believers, the keepers of the faith. They must be this optimistic to spend that much time on the road, courting customers, hearing the same lines we do in credit. The difference is that the lines they hear are from a different perspective: “What is your price? Can I have extended terms? Do you stock the full line, even the obscure colors (that customers will ask for, insist you bring in and then never order).” Customers also ask for ridiculous credit lines and help perpetuate the myth that they have a super sweetheart deal from their current supplier and if you can’t stand on your head, rub your tummy and shoot quarters out of your mouth, you will not be getting their business.
The real question is: What are you going to do about it? Are you going to pull up your big girl/boy pants and deal with it? Are you willing to work that hard to find an answer, even if it remains a firm, but professional, “hell NO” in the end? Are you at least willing to have the conversation?
If the answer is “not really”, then perhaps, Irritated, you need to find your smile in another role within the company or in a different profession. Just remember, some days it feels a little bit more like negotiating a hostage situation with a band of drunken pirates then actual credit managing.
