In this latest episode, Walls & Ceilings Group Publisher Jill Bloom speaks with Thea Dudley, CEO of Pocket Protectors, aka “The Credit Overlord.” The two breakdown the issue of vendors delaying payment to clients. Dudley presents some solutions to how this can be addressed. 

“Every single Thanksgiving, when that turkey hits that table, it’s merry-late-payment-season and that goes into January,” said Dudley. “The holiday season messes up payments. You need to figure out how to get payments to people.”

So what are customers saying as an excuse as to why they are not paying? “’It was a short week’, ‘It was a short month’. ‘My cash flow doesn’t stop and people need to get paid’.” 

In short, Dudley presents four ways to get payments from those wayward clients:  

• Email is Your Friend: Don’t rely on snail mail. It’s an added bonus to you if you have a link so where people can make an instant payment.
• Payment Portal: Make it easy for people to do business with you. Youre competing with the big bucks and they have made it super easy.
• Do a Terms Tune-up: Are you a one-size-fits-all company? You need to make sure you’re setting up your customers with success.
• Interest Late Fees: When you pull a credit report, are they are paying the high interest rates? Late fees work.

Those are the four things that can be used by companies. If you have a payment portal, you can set-up reminders that will alert customers to pay on time. 

Blooms asked what are some of the things that you can train your salespeople to say? “We had to rework our crews: Do I need to send someone by to pick up a payment? It’s amazing what you can say to people if you say it right? It’s very humbling to get people to be humbling but to really suggest that collection is highly important. 

Listen further to Dudley’s tips for collecting those tardy vendors.