Social Networking/Marketing

In 2010 I am stepping up my online presence, and attending more virtual events and joining and networking on social networks to save on expenses and travel.

If anyone wants to connect on other social networks, please join me on

LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/creditmd

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/DunnMich

Kaulkin Ginsberg’s Virtual Exposition a Success

Attending a virtual expo really appealed to me this year, especially since the economy has hit everyone hard and travel and time are an expense many of us can’t afford. The best part about the industry’s first virtual exposition was that it was free and you could attend from anywhere, the park, your home in your slippers, a coffee shop or your office.

The virtual expo had a virtual exhibit hall, live webinars and booths where you could download information, have a private or public booth chat and network. I stopped in to visit many of the booths and chatted with the folks manning the booth. It was great to see who was there, say hello to old friends and meet new people in the industry. I was able to connect and talk with specific vendors about their products and services and establish a relationship that I hope will help us to network with each other now and in the future.

I attended the webinar “State of the Industry – Trends and Predictions” put on by Kaulkin Ginsberg. They had a few different speakers and it was a very informative webinar. Some of the highlights that I took away from the presentation were that in 2010 it appears that smaller bills or invoices will be easier to collect and securing settlements will be easier. This makes sense due to the state of the economy and is a signal to all collectors to focus more on those accounts for more collections in 2010. Some other things talked about were the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act reform, which we all knew was coming. It was also discussed that the Federal Trade Commission will adjust who enforces it or who has rule-making authority. We should also look for an increased violation charge, significantly more than the $1,000.00 per violation charge now in place. Of course there will be more changes to the FDCPA and increased state enforcements of their specific laws. Collection agencies should look for increased data security requirements for agencies because they are handling sensitive consumer data.

The webinar also talked about student lending, and how private student loans are already in decline due to the economy and this will have a severe impact to the ARM industry in this sector. If you have been watching any national news or reading any national newspaper, you saw this one coming.

ARM service providers will see that 2010 will be a rebuilding year, once again due to the economy. Municipalities will increase their outsourcing which many agencies are already seeing. I know I have had more inquiries on my consulting in this specific area. This can be a good thing for agencies since it will help increase jobs in 2010. Surviving this recession will force many agencies to take drastic steps to be successful and if they focus on increasing their commitment to their compliance departments this will help them to be successful in 2010.

There was a question and answer period and someone asked, “Due to the economy, what positions are in high demand for the ARM industry?” The answer is, sales people and you can recruit good ones by offering incentives such as sign on bonuses, and senior level managers with experience with call centers. Many other things were covered, and I found the webinar to be engaging, informative and interesting. Something I would recommend and I look forward to attending more virtual expo’s this year.

Michelle Dunn, author of Starting a Collection Agency, how to make money collecting money 3rd edition.

Michelle Dunn: Your Credit Policy is an Asset to your Business

Michelle Dunn: Your Credit Policy is an Asset to your Business

Your Credit Policy is an Asset to your Business

Your business has many assets, such as physical items, maybe your building, equipment, items you stock, key employees, your customers and your credit functions. Many business owners don’t look at their credit functions as an asset, but your credit functions are one of the most important assets your business has. Assets are economic resources owned by a business. Anything tangible or intangible that your business owns is an asset, assets are things of value that can be easily converted into cash and cash is considered an asset.

Your credit functions should be involved in the segmentation, targeting and positioning of your business. Ask yourself, what is the objective of my business and is my credit policy in line with those objectives or with corporate objectives? Segmenting, targeting and positioning help your business to know your customers better and focus on those customers needs in your target market resulting in long-term customer relationships and therefore more sales at less cost.

Your credit policy is the backbone of your finances, without money you cannot continue to stay in business or grow your business. The credit policies you have for your company should be integrated with your sales department and distribution so that you can all be on the same page and provide outstanding customer service. When these things are in line with each other everything runs much more smoothly, and your customer can see that. When your credit department is run correctly and efficiently it helps you to maintain long-term customer relationships by ensuring repeat profitable sales and minimizes your costs. Having the lines of communication open between credit and sales will go a long way in your success, make sure to have regular meetings with the sales and credit departments and help them find ways that they can work together to make each others jobs easier. This will be reflected in your bottom line. These meetings can help you in many ways, it can help your sales people to learn the skills they need in order to gather key information that the credit department needs in order to make informed decisions. The credit department can also be “trained” to know what the sales people deal with and how they can help them to make a sale while limiting your businesses credit risk.

As you take these steps to improve your business, be sure to reward your sales and credit people, this helps them to stay motivated and strive towards doing even better, which can only benefit you and your business. If you do nothing else to increase sales try merging your credit and sales department and you will see a vast improvement in your receivables, bad debt and employee morale.

Whether online or off, women have no shortage of places to meet other women biz owners.

When Michelle Dunn wanted help, she went looking for other women business owners. Recently divorced with two small children, Dunn wanted help growing her business, which sells personal-finance books and classes. Too busy to go out for in-person networking events, Dunn found what she needed on the internet--at Digital Women, an online networking group for women entrepreneurs.

American Credit & Collections Association launches Social Networking website

With social media taking over as the new way to market, network and grow your business, the credit and debt collection industry is no exception. Michelle Dunn, the founder of the American Credit and Collections Association has created a social networking website for anyone who wants to learn more about collecting money, credit management and networking with others within the industry.

Membership is free and members can create a profile, upload videos, start a blog, join groups, ask questions and much more. Visit Americancreditandcollections.ning.com/ to join and keep up to date on what is happening in the industry, meet new people, learn about industry events and expand your network.

Ripoff Report: Elavon Elavon Merchant Services - NOVA Information Systems WARNING To All Merchants - Will take money without cause from your bank account!! DO NOT TRUST ELAVON to look out for your interests! Knoxville Tennessee

Ripoff Report: Elavon Elavon Merchant Services - NOVA Information Systems WARNING To All Merchants - Will take money without cause from your bank account!! DO NOT TRUST ELAVON to look out for your interests! Knoxville Tennessee

Top 19 ways to Recession Proof your Business or Career TODAY

If you plan ahead you can survive the recession with a positive outlook and some specific actions.

1. Invest in education: Continue to educate yourself, attend seminars, free online webinars, read books and trade magazines, keep up to date on what is happening in your industry and learn all you can.

2. Network and make contacts online and offline: Networking will keep you in everyone’s minds, also if you end up losing your job you will have a slew of business cards of others in the business that you can contact to work with during hard times.

3. Follow the market: Read the papers or watch the news, know what is happening and stay on top of it.

4. Pay off debt: If you can pay off any debt, now is the time to do it. Dealing with a recession is hard enough, but if you have a boatload of debt on top of that your stress level will go through the roof and you might not be able to pay it a few months down the line. Pay cash for anything you need, if you don’t have the cash, ask yourself if you really NEED it, or do you just WANT it? Put your credit cards in the freezer or cancel them and cut them up.

5. Cut back on extras: Seems simple, but do you need all the bells and whistles you have on your business or home phone or even your cell phone? Do you need to get Starbucks twice a day? Can you bring your lunch? Can you carpool to work?

6. Build your online presence: With a website, blog, newsletter or articles. Join online networking groups that relate to what you do, mentor someone or find a mentor, visit Craig’s list or other online portals.

7. Have your clients sign a long term contract or review their existing contacts and renew them or extend them.

8. Specialize in something: Make yourself valuable, employers are more likely to keep an employee who can do more than one thing.

9. Turn your hobby into a part time business: for example selling items on ebay.

10. If you don’t have to sell your home or any property, don’t. You won’t get top dollar and will end up losing money. If you can, work on the home or property that you want to sell so when the recession ends you can get more money for it, for example, paint the house, do some landscaping, whatever you can afford or do yourself to improve the quality of the property.

11. Update your resume now, just in case.

12. Learn more about jobs that are recession proof, industries such as food, energy, vices (tobacco), entertainment, medical services, debt collection, security or alarm services. Are any of these things something you could implement into your job or use as a part time job avenue?

13. Don’t cut prices, but reward your customers: During a recession business owners may think that cutting prices will help them and their customers. Don’t do it. Keep your prices as they are but offer your customers a coupon or a rewards program, to reward them for sticking with you during tough times.

14. Build value: Offer a buy one get one deal or buy one get something at 50% off. This increases your sales, where someone might have only purchased one item, with a deal like that it seems almost foolish to them not to take advantage of the deal and therefore purchase more from you

15. Get in contact with past customers who have not purchased from you in a while, this can activate a dormant account and possibly create more sales for you.

16. Follow up on any new leads and all old leads: Call them and see if they have a need for anything you offer.

17. Offer Outstanding customer service: To keep your customers you want to give them more than what they pay for. Keep your customers happy and they will stay with you.

18. Aggressively work on your marketing plan: send out press releases, keep yourself in the eyes of your target audience during the recession. Since you may have less work than normal, this is a great time to do this. Nothing may happen now but in six months you will see results.

19. Tighten or update and keep on top of your credit policy: now is not the time to extend credit blindly, and it is the time to collect from any customers that owe you money.

The end of “Easy Credit”

Like “easy money” easy credit comes to an end

When easy credit even first began it was perplexing to many. Why were lenders trying to entice consumers who had little or no credit or even consumers with bad credit to borrow money from them? Lenders could make more money by lending money or extending credit to people who could not afford it and who had bad credit in the first place. Doesn’t seem like a very ethical practice, but perfectly legal. But like all things in life, what goes around comes around and as the New York Times puts it “Bam! Easy Credit Evaporates, and so Does the Buyout Frenzy!” If you have watched the news of looked at any newspapers lately you will see they are full of stories about Wall Street, the credit and debt market and the housing market and it isn’t likely to go away any time soon.

This affects the American economy and is creating many more new difficulties for borrowing money for many homeowners and companies that have bad credit and in some cases where they have “passable” credit and even some money to put down. Quite a change from last year where you could get a loan with “No Credit” or “Bad Credit” and even with “No Credit Check!” This credit crisis began with a focus on the sub prime mortgage industry and has now spread into highly leveraged companies as well. We are now in the midst of a very weak market in terms of credit that reaches globally.

This not only affects companies and people who are looking to buy or build new homes, it also affects many jobs in the housing industry. According to a report released on Thursday, July 26, 2007 by Challenger Gray & Christmas, more than 65% of the planned job cuts in the real estate, construction and mortgage sectors are based on the impact of the housing market slump and that number is probably even greater than that. There are also job cuts in other industries such as retail, consumer products and industrial products manufacturing. Wednesday it was reported that the sales of existing homes fell last month to their lowest point in nearly five years. Take a look for yourself, drive down any street or through any neighborhood, how many houses do you see with for sale signs out front and how long have they been there?

In the next two years look for many more foreclosures, and defaults on mortgages, sub prime and primary. This slump has at least another year or two to run its course. This will cause even more financial strain for consumers, who may already be struggling to make a mortgage payment. They will likely spend even less in order to try and make their housing payments which will affect the U.S. profit growth in companies nationwide. Any slowdown in consumer spending affects the corporate world’s earnings considerably. In a survey done by the Wall Street Journal of 28 major metropolitan areas, they show that the surge in inventories of unsold home is slowing and in Boston and Denver the number of homes for sale has declined from a year ago. Many sellers who don’t “need” to move have taken their homes off the market. While those who do “need” to move are sprucing up their homes and lowering their prices to try and find a buyer.

As more borrowers default on their mortgages it creates this weakness and spreading troubles in the mortgage market and puts those homes back into the already flooded market. In addition to this, most lenders and banks are being more critical on who they lend money to even turning down people with good credit, full time employment and money to put down. According to the Commerce Department the inventory of unsold new homes in June was 537,000 houses.

Who is to blame for this slump? I believe it is the lenders, with the advertisements focusing on people with little or no credit, bad credit and no money down, how did they expect these people to make those mortgage payments indefinitely? When you advertise to people who don’t have credit or who have bad credit, of course they want to apply for a mortgage with you, and everyone wants to “move up” in the world, by owning their own home, or owning a nicer or larger home. I believe the lenders persuaded these consumers to borrow many times, more than they could easily afford with an adjustable rate mortgage when they felt sure the rates would rise. Many of the borrowers are so excited or enthralled with the thought of owning their own home or having a better life, that they don’t or didn’t pay particular attention to the type of interest or interest rates they were sucked into. Many believe that this was their only option to ever own a home, and so they took the bait. Most lenders or bankers would not or did not point out to a potential customer that the loan rate were all but certain to rise, now resulting in many of these borrowers being in default. Many of these sub prime mortgages that are now in default should never have been made at all. Now with tighter lending standards being put into place troubled borrowers are floundering. Now that their homes are worth considerably less and they might want to refinance in order to make their mortgage payments, they will not be approved which will contribute to even more prime-loan defaults in the next year.

Have you been Denied for a Business Loan? Add a Credit Policy to your Business Plan and Get Approved!

If you have been to the bank to get a business loan to start a business or for funding for your existing business you probably approached them with a business plan and possibly a marketing plan or outline. Every business plan has part of if not all of a marketing plan included. If you were denied your loan, part of the problem could be that you didn’t explain or elaborate enough on how you were going to pay back the money you want to borrow.

Your business plan tells the lender what you are going to do for a business, and the marketing plan tells them how you are going to obtain new clients and make money. Your credit plan or credit policy tells them how you are going to get paid, in order to pay them back. The credit plan will also tell them what you will do if you do make sales and don’t get paid. This can put a bankers mind at ease, while showing them that you are serious about your business and about paying them back.

Approval of any loan is based on many things, one of the most important being on how you present yourself and your business. A well written business plan is the first step, and will give the lender an overall picture of your business. Make sure you include a credit history or if you have poor credit, get copies of your credit reports and fix any errors and pay off any debts before approaching a lender.

You can expedite the processing of your loan by providing the lender with as much relevant information that they need to make a decision right away. If they have to continually contact you for more information, your chances of approval go down. Banks will carefully and particularly look to see if you have a solid understanding of financial record keeping, business credit, the importance of collecting accounts receivables, inventory control and turnover and marketing. If you include a credit policy as well as a marketing plan or marketing plan outline with your business plan you will find that the lender will take you much more seriously and if they had any questions on your understanding of their being paid back will see that you have thought this through and have a plan in place to pay them back their money. That makes every banker happy; remember they make money by lending you money.

Remember, when you are trying to get someone to give you money, it is a hard job and the more thorough you are the better your chances. If you approach your lender with a professional looking business plan, that includes a marketing plan and a credit plan, your application will go to the top of the pile.

Can I use a Blog or MySpace to promote my Business?

I have tried both using a blog www.BizCreditPolicy.com and My Space www.myspace.com/michelledunn to promote myself and my books. I had heard of My Space but thought it was a place for teens or kids, the description on their website is “a place for friends”. One afternoon I was reading an issue of Entrepreneur and they had a story about a woman who said she had used My Space as a marketing tool for her business. My first thought was “there are business people on My Space?” So I checked it out. I found there were very few business people that were active members, and a lot of teens, younger kids, musicians and people looking to party and meet other people with similar interests. I also saw that they have groups and some do pertain to business while some seem as if they are business related but are “Get Rich Quick” groups. There are groups for anything you can imagine someone might have an interest in. I thought I would try it, since I like to try everything to market myself and my books and it was free! I created my profile page, uploaded my pictures and began browsing the site for other business owners.

I have met a few people that I network with but I did not have a huge response or increased traffic to my website or orders of my books because of my myspace page. It is a fun way to meet a few other business people but you also have to weed through the emails from people just “hanging out” there and sending you emails about dating or partying. I found it was not worth the time and effort to continuously maintain a My Space profile for my business, but am hoping that will change. It was taking me too much time to weed through all the “friend requests” and “emails” from people who had no interest in my books or business. I have left my page up and do check it occasionally as well as post to my blog. My Space page also comes up when someone does a search on Google or Yahoo for me, so that is a bonus as well. If they find me on My Space and then visit my website, I have accomplished what I started out to do.

My recommendation with My Space is that if you have the time to create a page and do a little searching for business groups and people, it is something that does not hurt you to have it out there, but I wouldn’t count on it to help you make more sales or increase your websites traffic.

Depending on what you are marketing, a blog at My Space may be the tool for you. Tish Hill, from “Off the Hanger” which sells, buys and trades quality high-end used clothing and accessories tells me that she had no experience in blogging, websites or anything to market her business online. “My Space is a great option for me because my target audience is young people who want high quality fashion without the big price tags.” states Tish. “My Space is user friendly, anyone can create a page without any technical knowledge” says Tish. “You can screen the friends you accept, so you have quality contacts, and send out bulletins of special events or sales and keep a blog with fashion tips and ideas from what we have in the store.” I think this is a great option for young people who visit My Space; to have other profiles to view that are positive if they are going to be “hanging out” on My Space.

Depending on your business and who your target audience is, My Space can work to help market your business. Check it out and you can decide if it is a good fit.

I have a blog (www.BizCreditPolicy.com) through Know More Media, which is an online publisher of business information and news. The authors provide a broad spectrum of business knowledge, publishing their expertise on a continual basis. This is a great marketing tool. When you blog, it is like a diary. You can post every day, a few times a day or whenever you have something you want to share with your readers. In my case, my blog is about Credit Policy for businesses and how to extend credit and manage credit risk. The difference here and why this is so much more successful with marketing yourself than My Space, is that this is a blog for business! My Space does not provide me with my target audience, but Know More Media does, so this is a perfect fit if you have something of interest to entrepreneurs, business owners or business professionals.

When you use a blog to market yourself and your business, remember it is not a bulletin board for advertisements. You can list accomplishments, such as an award or press event, but don’t blatantly advertise your business. If you do, you will not have many readers. Give your readers valuable information, and update it often to keep them coming back and to keep the search engines coming back to index your blog. You want to post quality information, for example, I write books about collecting money and starting a collection agency. In my blog posts I try to give people tips on how to collect more money, or what is going on in the news in regards to my subject matter. You can incorporate other authors from your genre and do little interviews with them, link to their websites, and have them linked to your blog.

Easton Ellsworth who writes for “Business Blog Wire (www.BusinessBlogWire.com) and is also an associate editor for the Know More Media network of blogs about business has some great tips for businesses who want to utilize a blog to help promote their business. “A blog can promote your business in many ways. You could use a blog to tell existing and potential customers about new products or services” states Easton. “No matter what you do with a blog, make sure you have a clear plan before you start blogging about anything and everything.” Says Easton.

Easton was kind enough to share with me a simple process anyone can use to launch a blog right:

Choose a specific purpose and target audience.
Pick a smart URL and title.
Establish guidelines for the person(s) who will write for the blog.
Read other blogs and talk to bloggers in your industry.
Prepare a modest collection of ready-to-publish posts and quietly put several of them online.
When you’re ready, tell the world about your blog!

Michelle Dunn, author of an award winning book has spent the last 18 years stepping into dangerous debt collection potholes. She shares her hard-won expertise on debt collection with the release of a Second Edition title in her “Collecting Money Series.” She is the founder and president of Never Dunn Publishing, LLC, is a writer, teacher, and consultant. Michelle started and ran M.A.D. Collection Agency for 8 years. She created Credit & Collections a nine year old Association for credit and business professionals with over 978 members.

Michelle has been featured in Forbes.com, The Nilson Report, The Wall Street Journal, Ladies Home Journal, PC World, Home Business Magazine, Home Business Journal, Entrepreneur, Professional Collector, Credit & Collections Risk, NH Business Review and in many books including Home Based Business for Dummies. Michelle has been a featured guest on (NPR) National Public Radio and has been in many newspapers and magazines nationwide as well as on the CBS Early Show. She has many published articles and 7 published books to add to her list of accomplishments. Entrepreneur Press released “The Ultimate Credit & Collections Handbook, the check IS in the mail” penned by Dunn in 2006.

Visit www.michelledunn.com and www.credit-and-collections.com for more information about Michelle Dunn and her books. To learn more about “Off the Hanger” visit www.myspace.com/offthehanger or www.offthehanger.biz Get more blogging tips at Easton Ellsworth’s blog www.businessblogwire.com

$141 Billion of Consumer Debt was charged off last year

The Boston Globe is doing a series right now called “Debtors’ Hell” in their last segment, Part 4, they state, “They generally owe the money, but seldom anticipate the consequences.” I have found that to be my experience even when the consequences were printed on the credit application they have signed.

Richard S Daniels Jr. the Boston lawyer The Globe interviewed said it perfectly, “Any system that puts people’s backs up against the wall doesn’t work.” If you listen to my interview on NPR that aired on January 29, 2003 on All Things Considered, you will see that I spent my debt collection years trying to help debtors to get the bill paid that I was collecting on while having understanding for their situations. Sometimes this meant advising my client there was a hardship situation, or offering a settlement amount and taking payments. This only works with the debtors who seriously have run into hard times, not the “career” debtors. I created an online community for debt collection professionals and explain in my book “Starting a Collection Agency, How to make money collecting money” that being a bully does not work and is also against the law. Compassion, patience and understanding will help you collect more money and also let you and the debtor keep their dignity in an already embarrassing situation.

I am not saying everyone follows these practices but I think that debt collectors have been given a bad rap collectively and there are many collectors out there who follow the law and try to work with people rather than bully them into paying. I encourage collectors to join associations in the collection industry, as well as the Better Business Bureau and their local Chambers of Commerce. This is because when you are operating an agency, even if you are the most perfect agency on the planet, this will let anyone who is considering using your agency see that you belong to these organizations, which lends your agency credibility and shows you have ethics. The people who hire an agency, should realize the agency they choose is a reflection of their business, and not choose an agency because it is the lowest price, but because it is an honest, ethical agency that can back that up with references and statistics.

Something to consider is if there are debtors who feel they are being treated unfairly by a collection agency, we might want to look at the creditor that chose to use that agency. Why did they choose that agency? Maybe they are not aware the agency might have done something they wouldn’t have done, but shouldn’t they be?

How to Deal with Customers that Do Not Pay

Author Michelle Dunn, has been interviewed by Tom Taulli who writes a weekly column for Forbes.com. “Tom contacted me on a Sunday night and had just found my book online”, says Dunn. Tom had a deadline for his column which is featured on the front page of the Forbes.com website each week, and this weeks column is about how business owners can deal with customers that do not pay them, how to decide if someone should be on a cash only basis, if you should collect using phone calls or letters, hot to escalate things when no payment is forthcoming and when and how to place accounts with a collection agency. “The article will get front page exposure and Forbes.com gets quite a bit of traffic approximately 9 to 10 million unique visitors a day” says Tom.

As a recognized expert in her industry Dunn has received nationwide press through the years based on her knowledge and expertise in the debt collection industry. Michelle has been featured in Business NH Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, NH Business Review, NPR, The CBS Early Show and many other national media.

Tom Taulli is an author and advisor to startup companies, is the author of various books on finance, such as The Complete M&A Handbook (Random House) and Investing in IPO's (Bloomberg Press). Mr. Taulli teaches finance and investing at a variety of educational institutions, including University of Southern California (USC) and University of California , Irvine (UCI). He has written numerous articles for such prestigious publications as Business2.0, CBS MarketWatch, MSN Investor and Forbes.

In addition to being a published author, Mr. Taulli often appears on high-profile television venues such as CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg TV, and is frequently quoted in the various print media sources such as the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, USA Today and LA Times. Besides his books on M&A and IPO's, Mr. Taulli has written five other books on finance, with publishers such as Bloomberg Press and McGraw-Hill. Mr. Taulli has a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Cal Poly, Pomona , and a law degree from Whittier School of Law.

Dunn was a debt collector for 17 years, started and ran her own debt collection agency for 8 years and has written 7 books on the subject of collecting money. The Second Edition to her first book “Starting a Collection Agency” has just been released in June and Entrepreneur Press is publishing Dunn’s book “The Ultimate Handbook of Credit & Collections, the Check IS in the Mail” on August 1, 2006. Dunn also owns and moderates Credit & Collections a 10 year old online networking community and website with over 950 members. To learn more about Michelle or her services please visit www.michelledunn.com or www.credit-and-collections.com To learn more about Tom visit http://www.taulli.com.

Press!

I am happy to announce that I was featured in The Dollar Strecher Newsletter yesterday and received a lot fo great comments from people, thank you!
Look for more articles I have written in the April/March issue of "Home Business Journal" and in the March issue of "Business NH Magazine" as well as the March issue of "The Neighborhood Watch" newsletter for Glen Allen, VA.
Check out my website for new articles, books and updates on consulting, speaking and teleclasses.
Have a great day!
Michelle Dunn

How to make money Collecting Money

I just signed up here, and don't have much experience with Blogs.
Michelle Dunn
www.michelledunn.com
www.credit-and-collections.com