By Charlotte Kemp

In a recent Humorous Approach to Debt Collecting course, some of the delegates worked for a collection agency who had to trace students who had defaulted on university fees. We discussed various means that they used to try and find these former students, and then we thought of Facebook!

Obviously being young people they are more likely to be on Facebook than any other group of debtors, and as former varsity students the likelihood of them having a profile there is even higher.

I told the group of stories about judges who had granted approval for notification of legal proceedings to be served via Facebook, and after a bit of looking, found the following stories that I have attached as links.

New Zealand High Court serves man in Britain via Facebook

Facebook ‘pokes’ can be used for court notification

You Got Served! Judge OKs Facebook For Sending Legal Docs

What are the rules or ethics of using online media to track down, contact or notify defaulters of their debts? Well I guess some of the online rules are still being worked out, but the primary one is that the messages be sent via the private forum and not posted on the recipients’ Wall.

And is the online world not some sacrosanct arena protected against such invasions of privacy? Not really – not when people are prepared to reveal so much private information to the whole world and make their profiles available for view. And furthermore, if your client is avoiding you at all cost in the physical world, then surely you have a right to track them down in the virtual world.

Next step – Second Life Debt Collectors!

By Charlotte Kemp

Don’t worry, until yesterday I didn’t know what that meant either.And to hear an audio pronunciation, click here to go to Merriam-Webster.

Psychoneuroimmunology is the study of how psychological factors, the brain, emotional states, including humour, and the immune system all interact to influence health.

With the amount of stress created by financial pressures, and passed on like a virus more virulent and certainly way more deadly than any threat of swine flu, we need an antidote or cure as a matter of urgency.

Mahatma Gandhi said “If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”Unfortunately far too many people in this current crisis have taken just that decision.Financial institutions world wide have been rocked by suicides.

I don’t take this issue lightly at all.Just like countless others, I have made mistakes, as well as suffered unforeseen circumstances beyond my control and the effect on my personal and financial life has been devastating.

But since I have decided to stick around, then I have to find a way to cope, and humour seems as good an idea as any.And when I came across this impossible word it made a great amount of sense to me.We are complete human beings, and the stress caused by debt – either our own or debt that we cannot recover from someone else, can cause health problems in addition to all the other problems.

That is why in each Humorous Approach to Debt Collecting course, we present a Gaviscon Award to a participant – whoever has the most grueling story to share of having to collect payment from a difficult client is awarded the Gaviscon to help with the heart burn that sometimes comes with the job.

But we also trust that what we teach in the course will allow us to have a new approach with our clients.Starting that initial approach in a friendly, cooperative, and sometimes humorous mood, means that so much more progress is likely to be made in collecting invoices, than the approach that starts with aggression and threats.In the end, we get paid, we enjoy our work more, and who knows – our health could improve too.

By Charlotte Kemp

Do you know what is a curious thing about humans in business?We want to earn money and presumably profits.We sell our products or services for a price that we have agonized over.But when it comes to sending out invoices, some people are really hesitant to get the job done.

One man who turned his business around said his first step was to fire the bookkeepers he used, who weren’t sending out his invoices – not only not on time, but sometimes a month or two late.What message does this send to your clients?I am not serious about my money and not in a hurry to receive it, so you don’t need to worry about it either.

If you want your clients to know that you are serious about being paid

• then state your payment terms clearly before entering any transaction
• invoice as soon as possible
• follow up promptly when payment is not made at the agreed time.

If you don’t take yourself seriously, why should they?And how can you complain about past due payments when it took a month and a half to send the invoice in the first place?

This is a no-brainer, and you don’t even need to be humorous or contrive any attention getting plan.Just this one change in policy in your business will already deal with a number of your clients, and leave you to concentrate on how to motivate the rest, and how to sell more as well.

In The Humorous Approach to Debt Collecting courses, we sometimes look at light hearted stories that one could send to clients that would accompany either an electronically sent invoice, or a reminder of an invoice, sent by email.

 The idea is to entertain or amuse the client with an anecdote and yet still direct them to your requirement of being paid.

 For example, you could tell them this interesting story.

 Inappropriate Money!

 This 1896 $5 Silver Certificate was part of an educational series that featured Columbia, the female personification of the United States of America.Unfortunately due to her lack of sufficient attire, she, and consequently the $5 note, was deemed inappropriate for American children and the note was withdrawn from circulation.

 Just to let you know that we are not quite as sensitive as that, and we don’t find semi-dressed money inappropriate at all.In fact we find all forms of payments, like cheques, debit orders and especially EFT’s completely appropriate.So please choose your preference and settle the attached account.

 I wonder what Columbia would have thought of that?

On voting day, I treated my daughters to an ice-cream to keep them busy while I was standing in the queue. (I know, I seem to have an ice-cream theme going here in the blog.) My youngest daughter returned very soon with quite a devastated look on her normally consistently happy face. It turns out that her ice-cream had broken off and fallen onto the grass within a few licks of opening the wrapping.

So on our return home, I stopped at a small café and allowed them to go into the shop to buy a replacement for her. I really couldn’t remember how much the ice-cream cost, and I gave her R20 but told her that one ice-cream was all she was buying.

Obviously lecturers of the value of money are ringing in their little ears. Within a few short minutes, she runs back out to the car that was parked right outside the store. “It only cost R1.80!! Look at all this change for you.” She was so excited about the fact that she hadn’t wasted too much of my money with her accidental spill of her ice-cream, and so delighted to share the news and return my change, that my darling daughter had left her ice-cream in the shop. I had to send her back in side to fetch it.

But I recognized immediately my own, and so many other people’s reactions to money. The reason why the economy falters, and why we end up in debt and why we make bad financial decision at home and in business, and most especially why we make poor decisions over and over again. The reason why we do this with money, is that our emotions totally over-ride our logic.

Any good sales training will tell you right at the start that we buy with emotion, backed up by logic, which only means that we use our brains to justify why we have so often made poor buying decisions.  And in The Humorous Approach to Debt Collecting we start with talking about why it is that people have problems paying up, even when they know they should.  And sometimes, even when they are in a position to pay up, but still don’t.

But in terms of why we may be personally in debt, why our businesses may not be making money, why we have trouble collecting what is due to us by clients – all of this is because we allow our emotions to get in the way of the right, correct, proper decisions that will ultimately bring us long term emotional peace and prosperity.

My daughter nearly lost two ice-creams that day because she was overwhelmed by the emotions of loss, then guilt of waste and then relief of discovering how little the second ice-cream cost.  I wonder if after all that she managed to actually enjoy that second ice-cream at all. But then again, considering the kind she bought at R1.80, who would?

Wow! I had the privilege of seeing Wolfgang Riebe in action last weekend at a gala dinner for the Global Speakers Summit in Cape Town. Wolfgang is a key note speaker, comedy illusionist, and enter-trainer! And he is really funny. While entertaining what had to be a highly critical audience consisting of professional speakers, he managed to entertain, fascinate and keep them laughing.

At one point, while managing to keep really funny jokes coming every minute, Wolfgang was also demonstrating his phenomenal memory. He was writing telephone numbers on a flip chart and as he turned, he dropped the lid of his marker. Without even pausing, he bends down, picks up the lid, and says, “Now let me just recap” and then continued with the demonstration. That line, as apparently spontaneous and not necessarily funny as it was, was so truly appreciated by the audience that it drew huge laughter and applause.

Now why is it that we are looking at a magician, comedian, entertainer in this section, and how do you think I am going to tie this up to the Humorous Approach to Debt Collecting?

Well it’s like this. Wolfgang Liebe is at the top of his class, and it is a pretty tough class to be in, because he has prepared really well for it. He actually sells a book that he has written with one liners that entertainers can use for various subjects and circumstances. He is prepared with a quip, observation, joke or tease on just about anything that he can anticipate occurring in a presentation because, firstly, he has done so many of them, and secondly, because he has taken the time to be intentional about considering those circumstances and deciding what he could say. He prepares some alternative responses and practices them, and considers which are funnier, which will be ‘caught’ quicker as a joke, which are appropriate for certain audiences but not for others. He does not ever wing a performance, but has the years of experience to draw from that allows him to respond to his chosen career in a way that is wonderful to experience and must be a pleasure to perform.

So how can you prepare yourself for your debt collecting? In talking with delegates, we often come up with the same type of client profiles. We have rude and aggressive men or perhaps women, as well as those who try to make us feel ashamed, or those who try and pretend that outstanding accounts are some vague issue that aren’t really that important. If you know your clients well, you can anticipate their excuses or their approaches to you, and you can prepare your response to them. You can have a set of comments to make, maybe funny or light hearted ones or firmer if necessary. But once you are prepared, you are removing 95% of the anxiety of making the call in the first place.

And you also increase the likelihood of being able to present a really funny line every now and then. Not necessarily always, but remember, Wolfgang’s “recap” comment wasn’t the funniest line ever, but it was so well timed and so appropriate that it did the job better than any other response would have.

You really are capable of doing this too, and if you don’t believe it, then join us on a Humorous Approach to Debt Collecting course, and by the end of the session you will be adding your own suggestions too.

When I suggest that human minds are creative enough to find novel ways of addressing outstanding debts, so that they are not always hanging over a person or a business, I never imagined hearing about this option.

I know that there are cultural differences at play here, but last week in Saudi Arabia, a judge upheld a contract where a man arranged the marriage of his 8-year-old daughter to a ‘close friend’ in payment of a debt.

A daughter in exchange for a debt.A LEGAL debt payment.This sounds like something out of the dark ages.

Apparently the child has the option to annul the marriage when she reaches puberty, but not even her mother, who is divorced from the father, can get the marriage contract annulled at the moment, not matter how opposed she is to having her child used as a debt settlement.

This is yet another story that shows how debt corrupts our lives and relationships.There has to be a better way to do life and business than this.

In The Humorous Approach to Debt Collecting, we look for ways that affirm human life, creative methods to find payment solutions.But anything that hurts or devalues another human life is simply not worth doing business over.

While describing the basic Verbal Business Card to a client once, I explained that she shouldn’t attempt to get too complicated to start with. Especially if someone is not comfortable with public speaking, then preparing a simple, clear and effective explanation creates far more confidence within oneself, than attempting to do something overly ambitious.

So we could start with a ‘vanilla’ flavour Verbal Business Card. Now there is nothing wrong with vanilla. As an ice-cream, it gets the job done. It cools you down, is sweet and refreshing and adds a pleasant touch to a gorgeous, warm day. But after a few vanilla ice-creams (not on the same day of course!) you are going to want something a little bit more. And that is when you can start to play with adding flakes this time, or a chocolate or caramel topping next time.

Every now and then we get carried away with the euphoria of a summer day on a beach front and happy people milling around and we ask for an ice-cream cone with flake AND caramel topping AND crunchies and maybe chocolate sprinkles too. Mmm. It tastes good for a few bites or licks. And then we struggle through the rest. And then we have a tummy ache and regret if for the rest of the day. Some things aren’t meant to be consumed all at once. Best to leave combinations like this to the kids. Along with the bubblegum flavour please!

And in a 30 second opportunity to communicate effectively about your business, you need to be careful not create a tummy ache for your listeners. Do not try and tell your prospects everything about your business at once. You cannot communicate effectively when trying to tell them about your product, your unique selling proposition, your physical location, your value proposition, your credentials, your experience and your ideas for their business, all at once.

They cannot consume an entire dessert in 30 seconds. Give them your vanilla flavour version. And once you are comfortable with presenting that, then experiment with vanilla and a topping – one topping, at a time. Then your prospects will be tempted to come back for another taste and you can open up your menu of products and services to them at that point.

Do you remember the scandal about toilet seat prices in the American government departments some years ago? Well here is a well balanced response to that situation, buy an American tax payer.

Attn: IRS

Enclosed is my 2003 tax return and payment.

Please take note of the attached article from the USA Today newspaper. In the article, you will see the Pentagon is paying $171.50 for hammers and NASA has paid $600.00 for a toilet seat.

Please find enclosed four toilet seats (value $2400) and six hammers (value $1029). This brings my total payment to $3429.00. Please note the overpayment of $22.00 and apply it to the “Presidential Election Fund,” as noted on my return. Might I suggest you the send the above mentioned fund a 1.5 inch screw.” (See attached article…HUD paid $22.00 for a 1.5 inch Phillips head screw.)

It has been a pleasure to pay my tax bill this year, and I look forward to paying it again next year.

Sincerely,

A satisfied taxpayer

I have encountered some not unexpected emotional reactions to telling people that I am presenting a training course on the humorous approach to debt collecting.

Firstly, there is the ever so slightly defensive position of an individual who wants to know why companies need help with that, as they are already so pushy in trying get paid. These people totally ignore the “humorous approach” term in the title of the training.

Mostly people laugh at the title. I don’t think they think it is funny, but probably more ironic. Attempting to collect money from someone who has not or will not pay you, is not really a fun-filled activity.

But most interesting has been the response from business owners. Many are very keen to hear more and ask to see the White Paper that has been prepared. However there are some business owners who are emphatic in their responses, like these: 

• No credit is given. Ever.
• If money is owed I feel there is no reason to be polite or humorous about going after it, even if I loose the business with that client.
• Clients will pay what is owed, or I will hand them over for legal action. No question.

I can certainly understand the hurt and distrust behind all of these statements, and obviously if anyone chooses to do business with a company, and fails to pay what is owed, they do run the risk of encountering business owners like these.

But I still believe that there is a very good reason for taking a deep breath, choosing a more pleasant approach and attempting to win the battle and get paid before legal action has to be taken. If only because the cost – financial and emotional – of the legal battle, is sometimes not worth the Rand amount outstanding.

If you have any comments about your approach to extending and collecting on credit, I would love to hear about them. Please reply here.