Category: Blog

  • “They’re a Friend.”

    Personal and business relationships blur naturally when you already know someone socially, or have known them for years before you ever traded together. Treating a friend differently in business doesn’t protect the friendship. It delays an uncomfortable conversation, and the delay usually makes that conversation harder, not easier, when it finally happens.

  • Your Terms Say 28 Days and Your Customers Pay in 50: Which Number Is Real?

    Pull up your aged debtor report and look at the column headed “days overdue”. Now ask yourself an awkward question. If nearly every account on that list is somewhere between 15 and 30 days past your stated terms, is the report telling you which customers are behaving badly, or is it telling you that your…

  • “They’re Too Big To Fail.”

    Scale feels like safety. A large, well-known company seems inherently more stable than a small one, simply by virtue of its size and visibility. Carillion. Wilko. Thomas Cook. Debenhams. Britishvolt. Every one of these was a large, established, well-known business right up until it wasn’t.

  • 421,800 Pounds a Year: The Hidden Cost of Chasing Money You Are Already Owed

    421,800 pounds. That is what the average organisation surveyed by Marsh now spends each year collecting money it has already earned, invoiced and legally become entitled to. Sit with that for a moment. Not the cost of winning business. Not the cost of delivering it. The cost of persuading customers to hand over money that…

  • “They’ll Pay at Month End.”

    Don’t worry, they’ll pay at month end. That’s just how they operate”. A genuine month-end payment run is a process. A repeated promise of “month end” with no month actually delivering payment is an excuse wearing the clothes of a process.

  • “I don’t want to upset them.”

    “I don’t want to upset them”. Are you avoiding this conversation because the customer is genuinely likely to be upset, or because you’re uncomfortable having it?

  • Why the Data Nobody Reads Might Be Your Best Credit Risk Tool

    Picture a credit controller running the standard checks on a new customer this week: a credit score, a search for county court judgments, a quick look at whether the company has been through insolvency before. All sensible. All also incomplete, because none of them would have caught the two stories that actually broke in the…

  • “I don’t want to use a debt collector, they’re aggressive and heavy handed.”

    Media portrayals and old industry reputations have shaped a lasting image of debt collection as intimidating, involving threats and pressure tactics. Some agencies genuinely have operated this way, and a handful of high profile cases have reinforced the stereotype for the whole industry. Business owners understandably don’t want their name, or their customer relationship, associated…