When contemplating what issue’s we felt we needed to bring to the industry this time around, we came up with the title for this blog and then looked at it after it was written and had the distinct, following thought; “That sounds like a TED talk”. So, lo and behold we set out to check. A few seconds later we were to find that we found one which is similarly titled, but not exactly the same. Points for originality are still in check!
Funnily enough, it does strike a strong resemblance to one of our previous posts – feel free to visit our website if you fancy an impromptu blog treasure hunt to see which one it is – however it is safe to say the topic is entirely different. However, it is probably not a coincidence that the aforementioned blog was one of our most popular to date. Can Freudian slip’s' occur in our writing as well as the words we speak? Perhaps.
We once read a very short statement online which said something like “when your talking, your only repeating what you already know, however when you listen you are making yourself available to new knowledge” and that statement resonated for two reasons. First of all, we have to be mindful in roles such as ours that we find the right balance between advising our clients on the best course of action to take and also still giving them the feeling of being responsible for the outcomes which our efforts produce. Secondly, it implies that new knowledge is a good thing.
New knowledge is a good thing because it implies change and without change, growth is not possible. JSP Credit Management exists to produce growth within the companies that it works for. Not simply from a cash-flow perspective but from a knowledge perspective too. We have taken one for the team many times over during our time in the credit management industry so you don’t have to make those mistakes. We have already made them for you.
And one of the dangers with blogging is that if it always seems to boil down to a sales plug then it is going to start to look like the previous paragraph is nothing more than just a bit of fluff to fill a gap in our website, so this time we are going to go down a different route. It is not as difficult as some of you might imagine. One of our core values (which were going to be putting on our website soon) is “honesty” so above all that should take precedence.
So the above-titled blog is not discreetly aimed at our clients as is sometimes the case. Instead, it is written from the perspective of us saying “no” to our clients. And it is not as provocative as it might sound. It is actually a very important ingredient in the recipe needed to produce the growth which we mentioned above. This cool blog outlines the history of debt collection and that tells us that regardless of anything else, it's been around for a while and is bound to be in the future too.
However, when a client approaches JSP Credit Management and we discuss their case with them, we are conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs to start looking at what could have been done to avoid this particular case getting to where it has. As we say in almost every blog we do, prevention is better than cure when it comes to commercial aged debt and if we can prepare our clients to put measures in place to prevent the same problem from happening again in the future then we will.
Sometimes it is unavoidable, but often it is not and we are prepared to say that to our clients when we think that is the case because that is what is going to help them become the thriving businesses we want all of our clients to be. What is the saying “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day but teach him how to fish and he can feed himself forever”. That is a philosophy shared here at JSP Credit Management. But there has been another more recent lesson learnt in our short time around.
Sometimes we will get approached by companies who are attracted to the no-win, no-fee commission-based pricing structure of our bad debt collection service and they will instruct us to begin collection activities on a debt. However, after a quick examination, we find that the debt is not collectable and we have to decline the instruction. At JSP Credit Management we pride ourselves on our ability to defy the odds when it comes to collecting difficult debts however there are some instances where it is unquestionably better to decline to act in the first place.
Cases we have seen over the years where the only real legitimate course of action to take on a debt that has long outstayed its welcome on a business’ aged debt ledger. is to write it off can include things like having a debt which is statute-barred and no longer legally enforceable, having a long-standing dispute against a dispute which the creditor has neglected to resolve, or even attempt to resolve (usually a telling sign that the debtor is right), having a debtor who has gone AWOL and has not been heard off for many years, or has been declared bankrupt or in liquidation. The list is not exhaustive.
So sometimes we have to say that we are not willing to take some cases, as we could ironically end up suffering the same fate that we spend so much time trying to prevent our clients from experiencing and using resources and therefore incurring costs to fulfil a customer order without any prospect of being paid for it. We like to practice what we preach here at JSP Credit Management. However, there is also a more subtle collateral benefit to being this transparent in our dealings with our clients.
A client that feels like they are dealing with a business – us in this case – that they can trust through the way they do business is a very important element to a successful business partnership and is more likely to lead a relationship that consists of mutual respect as opposed to working with a company that you feel has only got their own best interests at heart and those are some of the values that we take seriously here. It also frees us up to work on the many cases out there where there is a genuine need for our services.
We are here to do a bit to businesses safeguard their cash flow against late payers or debtors that are refusing to pay, so if you have been struggling to get an invoice paid and would appreciate the support of a team who pride themselves on operating in a way that is mindful of the above then visit our website at www.jspcreditmanagement.co.uk and contact us to discuss your needs. We operate on a no-win-no-fee basis for bad debt recovery and our credit control and credit risk services can be ordered via our website with the littlest of hassle.
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