As a creditor, you must stand out from all the other ones in order to be the one who gets paid!

When you call your past due customer, it’s quite likely that yours is not the only collection call he’s taken that day. In fact, he may be staring at a stack of bills an inch thick while on the phone with another creditor right now!

Why should he choose to pay YOU over all the other creditors he’s dealing with?

Because you have an edge! You know how to keep your cool as you dig beyond your customer’s claim of a cash flow problem. You’re a creditor, so you know the importance of listening to your customer’s story and the importance of verifying his claims. AND you know how helpful his Merchant Statements can be in spotting downward trends in sales.

Fact is, most of his other creditors aren’t listening patiently or validating any claims. And they certainly aren’t offering truly helpful suggestions for solving the debt. They’re loosing their cool instead. And every creditor that looses it get’s his invoice shoved to the bottom of the pile.

You have a greater chance of being the one creditor who gets paid by remaining professional in every engagement with your customer. He’ll take you more seriously when he sees you’ve done your homework. And when he realizes that you know he can pay his debt to you, he’s more likely to do so, especially when you’re flexible about how and when the bill will be paid.

The bottom line is, your customer can’t pay every past due invoice he owes to every single creditor, but he probably can pay yours. Make him pick you over the all those other creditors by patiently listening to his story, validating his claims and returning to him armed with information. You may be the one creditor who is willing to work out a plan without yelling and screaming. If so, he’s likely to pay you first.