Despite your best efforts, there are going to be customers that you can not collect from. As bad as it is to not get your money, it is just as bad that they waste your time. You can't afford the time and effort to keep sending statements and letters plus calling and calling them! Let your collector do the job for you.

Here are four ways to spot the customers who qualify for immediate collections placement.

You catch them lying to you.

You can not trust them now to follow through with their promise to pay. A credit relationship is one of trust, and if they violate that, there is no reason for you to continue to extend credit.

Why would you continue to give yourself headaches, not to mention an empty bank account?

They keep promising a check, but it never arrives.

They are stalling you. Maybe they have good reasons, such as their receivables not being paid, but again, they are violating the trust relationship. Honesty is best here.

Ask them when they are expecting money, and if that check does not come when agreed, send them right to collections.

You call and call, but can never get anyone to talk to you.

This is a huge red flag! They know exactly what you are calling to talk about, and they don't want to hear it. Sometimes folks are in a very desperate situation with their money, and have a lot of calls for payment, and some folks can be very rude when they call.

No one is unavailable ALL THE TIME! Don't let them keep stalling you off with this tactic. Your collector has hours every day to call and call and call.

You get them to agree to a deadline, and it passes with no payment arriving.

Part of getting them to agree to a deadline is them knowing when they will have the money to pay you. If they don't follow through with payment, then something else is going on here. Face it; they just didn't WANT to pay you. Did they call you and say they couldn't make the payment deadline? Probably not. Don't continue to chase them. They have just again violated the credit trust relationship. Turn them over to collections.

As a small business owner, you probably find yourself stretched in a hundred directions every day. With not enough hours in the day to get everything done! Throw a dozen or more customers wasting your time with collection efforts into that mix, and you are in trouble. Plus your bank account can be in trouble.

Don't let them do it to you. If you spot one of those four qualifying signs of immediate collections placement, don't wait any longer, send them right to your capable collections person.

Save your valuable time for those activities that are going to make your business make money!

There is a lot more information on specific things to do to collect your money in my new Ebook, Get Your Money EZ, A Business Owner's Guide to Collecting Receivables. There is a complete list of the table of contents on the web site, so you can see all the topics covered.

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