Credit Matters Newsletters

Credit Matters has been consolidating various aspects of the business during March. The benefits of this consolidation will be seen in the coming months.

Advertising via Credit Matters

If you are interested in reaching a wider group of business prospects, contact Kim to see what we can do for you. There are many different opportunities to advertise your business. However Credit Matters offers one of the few opportunities to reach a broad marketplace of customers with financial risk management requirements.

Attached this month are brochures from Absolute Facts, Insurance Advisernet South East, AICM, IMA and the ACFE.

There seems to be a mind-set which suggests if business slows down, rather than evaluate other business possibilities, employees are retrenched and / or sacked.

These approaches sound good in theory. However such actions usually mean there are insufficient employees left to complete the work properly in a timely fashion. In addition, those employees that are left are under so much pressure, they continually make mistakes.

As a result, business costs increase far in excess of the savings made by retrenching or by not employing enough employees.

From another perspective, any employment costs to ensure work is completed properly, is a positive cost which may provide new opportunities to grow the business. Trying to resolve problems caused by operating short-staffed are always negative costs which do nothing to add value to the business.

Therefore your conundrum is, do you spend money in a positive manner and get the work done in as required with fewer mistakes; or do you spend money trying to fix problems that may not be fixable and add no value to the business?

If only they had more time people lament these days. The truth is we all know how little time there is as we struggle to get everything done.

A key factor in business today is recognizing how impatient everybody has become and how little time there is to supply their needs. Therefore if we can assist our new and existing customers with their needs at short notice, we are bound to get their business.

However most of the factors which prevent you taking advantage of these new customer opportunities are time related. The one time factor which cannot be overcome is when physical and logistical circumstances prevent supply by even the best of run organisations.

Most of the other timing factors are self-inflicted and fall in to two categories.

The first timing category is the one where you have not paid your suppliers in a timely fashion or have broken your promises to pay in the past. Therefore your suppliers no longer trust you, even if you physically have the funds to pay your past due account.

Other time based problems can be caused by operating an inappropriate business model, a lack of employees, poor operating systems, poor quality IT facilities etc.

It is not unknown for instance for a supplier to have the stock available for sale. However due to a lack of staff and poor IT systems, the stock appears to be unavailable. For instance, the stock may be in the wrong areas of the warehouse, returned stock is waiting to be verified or the stock records have not been updated properly. Consequently your stock control system shows there is no stock available for the sale.

The customer service department is short-staffed and there are not enough support staff to help sales complete the special orders which have just come through.

The Credit or Accounts Department receives an order and application for credit from a new customer. However without due diligence checking facilities and partnerships, verification of the credit worthiness of the customer cannot be properly assessed.

Alternatively, all the accounts employees are busy contacting existing clients or allocating funds to meet the month end. Despite salespeople jumping up and down demanding the sale be processed, there is no-one is available to complete the due diligence and credit checks.

It is also wise to remember the lack of time is a classic weapon of the fraudster. When that tantalising sales or investment offer is presented with a time poor window of opportunity to verify the facts, it is amazing how often common sense is thrown out the window. As a result, the normal checks on the customer are not completed properly and the sale proceeds based on incomplete information. Instead of a sale, you have just created another bad debt.

These are a few of the many situations which are time-based and cause problems associated with new and urgent sales opportunities. Time is a double edged sword however. Deliver the goods or service quickly is a great sales tactic and can be very profitable. Failing to respond correctly to the time poor opportunity and you will waste a great deal of time repairing the damage.