Episode 497: The Relationship-First Approach to Recovering Overdue Payments with Dee Bowden

Speaker A: Every business owner's most stressful moment is when they realize a client is not paying their invoice. Now, some business owners are going to be tempted to just walk away, but many of us, it becomes an ongoing stressor, a fear of losing that money, having to pursue that money, and all of the stress that goes with trying to collect. And my guest today wants to share a strategy to help you reclaim that money and get that invoice paid. Welcome to Amplify youy Success podcast. I'm your host, Melanie Benson. I'm known as an authority amplifier. I'm, um, host of the Rising Tide Collective and Authority Accelerator. And today I have a guest joining us to reveal how to collect the cash using the four Keys framework. Now, before we drop in, I want to remind you that the most important part of your work as a thought leader, as an expert, is getting your message in front of new audiences. And if you are not doing that, if you are not seeing your visibility turn into ideal clients and opportunities, you're either in the wrong rooms or you need to fine tune your topic. This is what I do in the Authority Accelerator Mastermind. And if you're ready to make sure your thought leadership is being not just, uh, witnessed, but it is a conviction, it is a conversation that moves people into action. Let's chat. I'll make sure to link it up in the show notes. My guest today is Dee Bowden, a recovery. Sorry, a revenue recovery specialist and author of Collect the Cash. And as a specialist with more than two decades of experience in improving cash flow and reducing revenue loss from unpaid evidence, uh, invoices, she has created Collect the Cash brand through which she teaches business owners that the sale is not complete until the money is in the bank. That's what we all want, right? And she's known for recovering 6 million in 60 days for a small IT company. Along with her relationship driven approach to 828 collections. She's had her work featured in Forbes and Black Enterprise. And now here on Amplify your Success. Dee, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: Melanie, thank you so much. My goodness, what an honor to be here today. So I'm going to do a course correction. My last name is actually Bowdoin, but Bowden.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: No, uh, worries. We're good.

Speaker A: You know, it's always those, it's like those little, uh, uh, where the, where the, uh, accents are. Right, Bowdoin?

Speaker B: Okay, we're good. We're good.

Speaker A: Well, and just a little history. Fun. History is Dee and I got to know each other. Invisibility Velocity. And, um, she was one of the people that joined VIP and pitched her. Extraordinary topic. I was so blown away by this because I have my own history of major stress and major impact to my business. With a series of unpaid invoices during the 2009 financial crisis, I had close to $40,000 in uncollectible invoices that just literally dissolved into thin air overnight because people's credit cards were, uh, impacted. I didn'. D. At that time. I wish I had. I wish I had this information and this strategy that we're going to go through today, because having a way to peacefully, powerfully and connection focused to resolve those client unpaid invoices could have made a major difference in my business. So, de. I'm so grateful you're here and that you're going to take us through this process today.

Speaker B: Absolutely. So funny that. First of all, thank you for sharing that, because I think that that's what m. If there are. There are lots of things that are very stressful in life, but not getting paid for the work that you do. That's my number one. I'm like, listen, um, you're. I'll say it this way whenever. When we started our businesses, all of us. I jokingly say all of us had kind of. I say we had a chicken wing, tequila, wine, whatever your favorite drink is. We had this experience. Go. We're like, we can make a difference. We can solve this problem. So, um, if it's okay with you, I'll share with you a little bit about my. About my story and how I got here.

Speaker A: Oh, I would love that. Yes. Because this is not something that everyone is capable or willing to do for work in the world.

Speaker B: No. And they don't. Most people do not wake up and go, oh, I just want. I want to talk to people about how much money they owe, and I want to go collect it. No, that's not. That's not normally what we do. So. So I'll tell y' all the story. So what had happened was about 20 years ago, I used to work for a small IT company outside of Boston, where I'm a resident fund. Melanie, I'm sure everybody else in your audience has probably had a corporate job, a nonprofit job, a government job. Pick your lane, and it's usually, you know, like this. Welcome aboard. Here's your cubicle, here's your box, here's your plant, and here's what you're going to be doing. My case, it was. Welcome aboard. D. You're going to join the collections team, and we have. We have a small problem. I'm like, how small? $8 million small. Wait, what? Eight. $8 million is not small. That's a lot of money. And I'm like, y' all are kidding, right? They're like, no, we have, we sold $8 million worth of IT services, software licenses, all the things. And like I said, I. They had a whole collections team. I'm a part time collector. I work Monday through Friday, 4 to 8. So I get to my desk, they give me a list of accounts and they're like, your resume says, you know how to recover money. We need you to get. We need you to help us collect this cash. And I'm like, okay, I'm a person of faith. So I had my short conversation with God. And then when I finished, I was like, okay, I do four things to collect this. Collect this money. Problem solving is the first one. And I start off with, you know, basically what had happened was, how did y' all end up with $8 million? So I literally, old school, get on the phone. Hi, my name is D. I'm from such and such company. I need to talk to the person. Accounts payable, please. D, I'm so happy that you called. Really? Yes. Well, here's, here's, here's what happened. So this particular client said, we changed our billing system. I said, you did? Right. When did you notify everybody? Oh, about three months ago. And I said, I promise you, my team never got the email in their leg. So that's why 2 million of the $8 million couldn't get collected because we kept submitting the invoices in the wrong system in the wrong format and not knowing that everything had changed. So I said, so you're telling me if I get these invoices that are worth $2 million reformatted and the right system this week, we can get paid? Yes. Can you do me a favor, please? Can you send a copy of that email, uh, to me? And my former boss was a cop shoulder. And I said, I need to know, I need to give it to her. Here's $2 million. If we fix this, we can get paid. Now, Melanie, when I sit there, I'm like, so these senior people never made that phone call, never asked the question, and never found out the story behind why we couldn't get paid. So I keep going and I collect $6 million in 60 days part time. True story. Now, if you've ever worked in sales, which is the other end of ar, salespeople get commissions. So, you know, you know, you get Used to you land your client. You know, if we get paid, you getting a commission. Great. Well, when we get paid, we usually get bonuses. So I'm thinking, great. Me and my buddies, we about to go downstairs and get this great envelope from the CEO. Mm. Mm. Hey, everybody, listen, come downstairs. We want to have a chat. I'm like, okay. I, uh, look at my buddies. They're looking at me, and we're like, okay, so we about to get this little white envelope, right? Nope. Thank you so much for what you've done. Across all the departments, we've made an executive decision. We're closing the company today and letting 100 people go two months before the holiday season. Now, even though that happened to me 20 years ago, Melanie, and everybody listening, I'm sure there's been something in your life that's either jarred. You kind of made this mark where you go, I don't want to be here again. I do not want to have this feeling of like, I went to work. I did my job. I'm out of a job. Wait, what? So after that happens, you know, I go. You know, I go on to continue my. My career, but then covet happens, and I'm like, here we go again. But it's on a bigger scale. I don't know if you know this, Mellie, but I love theater. So when Broadway shuts down, every theater house is a. Uh, yeah, every theater house is a business, which obviously has contracts with the actors, the people, the food. Da, da, da. And I'm like, so, here we go again. Larger scale. No theater shows are happening, which means no sales are coming in unless everybody got paid up front. There's no revenue coming in. I'm like, this is my story on fleek. And so my book coach goes, hey, D, you have a system. And your. Why is that? You want small business owners to win? Teach us your system. I said, don't nobody want to learn this. Nobody wakes up and goes, oh, my gosh. This is what I want to do for a living. I want to go talk about money. I want to go help people do this. She was like, no, D, you've got to understand. I've heard your story, and I've watched how you do this. You do this different than anybody that I know. Teach us how to do this. So we played double Dutch. If you know anything about jumping rope. I could not jump rope, and I couldn't swing. But she got the story out of me and helped me to put it in a framework that make me see that I had something of value that I could teach small business owners. And so, uh, she won. And that's why Collect the Cash now exists. And it actually has a framework and all the other things. But that's. That's how I got here. Because I went to work one day and I lost my job, and it was with a small. A small business. And I thought, this can't happen again. And at least if I start talking about it and I can start to plant my flag, here's a way I can teach y' all how to do this and make sure that you don't end up here again. Can't promise you it won't happen again. But the point is, if you have the systems and the strategies per, you will implement them. And you at least know, you know, your sale is complete and your money's actually in your bank.

Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, what a powerful and epic story. And as you're listening in, I. I'm sure you're imagining one of those kind of turning point, uh, you know, everything kind of downloads, and you realize, wow, okay, this problem, this challenge, this experience I'm having will never happen again. And here's what I'm doing differently. Um, we all have those, so thank you for sharing yours. You know, when you're sharing your story, I couldn't help but thinking that, uh, many business owners, like, they. They project the blame out to the person not paying the invoice. But what you were illuminating is there was a kind of a breakdown or a disconnect that the business themselves, the business owner and the people on the team did not recognize. How often do you see that as the reason why business owners aren't getting paid? Like, there's actually a breakdown inside of their own processes that's keeping them from getting paid.

Speaker B: Melanie, if I had a dollar for every time I saw it, listen, we. We'd be sitting on an island somewhere.

Speaker A: Well, I'm joking aside, let's start collecting those dollars.

Speaker B: Hey, listen, let's. Let's get the dollar. So seriously. But it happens more often than you think, because, number one, people aren't taught to investigate why they haven't gotten paid. They just go on the offensive. They go, you're my client. I did the work for you. Why haven't you paid me? Never once did they think, oh, maybe there's something internally that we didn't do, correct. Like prepare a proper invoice, or in my experience dealing with the government, you know, you forget. They forget the contract number or the task order number or purchase order number, um, or you forgot to include, you know, there's one copy of the original invoice plus, you know, four copies go to other five other people, plus the receipts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. A lot of people, you know, they're, they're so stuck on. I just need to get paid versus, okay, let me figure out, is there anything internally that we missed and then how do we fix it? And then secondly, when will you get on the phone? Imagine, uh, that. What a concept. Talk somebody on the phone,

Speaker A: get them on the phone.

Speaker B: Get them on the phone, or get them on the phone. Because I jokingly say we can't sell, we can't solve everything. 144 characters. So I'm old school. I, you know, how I've done, what I've done is I've built relationships. So we're going to have a conversation, we're going to jump on, uh, zoom or teams or Google Meet or whatever it is, and you're going to show me what happened with the invoice. Because if we don't problem solve, if I, if you don't show you the customer, don't show me where we made a mistake, we can't course correct it, we can't fix it. And it's not like, it's not that you don't want to pay us. It's, uh, it's potentially something that we missed. But if we don't ask you and we don't take, take, you know, take notes and, and fix it and oh my gosh, say, sorry, we're not going to get paid and we're not going to, we'll just keep repeating the same issue. That's how I've done. What I've done is because I'm just, I'm, I just believe that most companies are not trying to not pay you. There's now, there is exceptions now, of course, obviously, if they've got contracts that they're waiting for payments for, then they got to pay you. That's one thing. Secondly, um, if you've submitted an invoice to the wrong department, let me say you sent it to the wrong email, the wrong person. Okay? But you, as the business owner have to take responsibility for. I say it this way, collect the cash. The sale is not complete until the money's in the bank. So you got to go figure out why hasn't this sale ended up with money in my bank account? What, what steps do I need to take to go figure this out? You have to become not only a great salesperson in business. But you also have to become a really good problem solver. You got to sell. You got to sell and get to get the, get the contract at the client, you got to do the work, you got to invoice them and you have to get paid. And if you don't get paid, you got to circle back and figure out why and then the steps to go research it and fix it.

Speaker A: So let's, let's um, separate out the problem with, um, there's some, there's a problem you've created. Right. You didn't submit it properly, you waited too long, you know, any of those things from, um, now there's really a challenge with the client. And I love that you're introducing this idea that this, the money can get resolved, the debt can get resolved, or the invoice can get resolved through relationship building. You mentioned somewhere in your materials about every unpaid invoice has a story.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Tell us about what that means and does that tie in a little bit to how you build relationships? Maybe, sure.

Speaker B: Um, okay.

Speaker A: Best way or it doesn't and you can tell me about both.

Speaker B: No, it actually it does. And the reason I say every unpaid invoice has a story, and that's based on my career. So, um, every time I've had to go deal with. Okay, example, the six million dollar story I told at the beginning of this conversation, I had to go find out what was the story behind why they hadn't paid us. So one example I gave, I shared, was the client said they changed the billing system. That was the story behind why we hadn't gotten paid $2 million. So every unpaid invoice has a story, means that the money is stuck somewhere and you have to become the investigator and figure out why. What the story means. Okay, it could be, let's say, let's say you have a corporate contract. So the story, did you submit the invoice in the proper portal? Did you upload it into the system? And you do all the things. That's one thing. If you have a government contract, which is my lane, did you prepare the proper invoice? Did you include the contract number? All the things? Um, regardless of what field or industry it is, every invoice has a story means. Sorry. Every unpaid invoice has a story, means if you have not received payment, there's a reason why you have to become an investigator. You have to go basically old school Sherlock Holmes to go find out what happened. Because until you get the answers to why they haven't paid you, you'll keep Doing the same thing. You'll call, you'll email, you'll text, but you won't do the next step, which is do investigation to find out why and then give your client a chance to explain to you what happened. And then once you get the story, then usually you get the oh, uh, we're missing, we're missing data. Oh, we went to the wrong email. Oh, that person no longer handles this account. Now it's with so and so. Oh, in a way in the world I would have known that if I hadn't found, gotten the story. Because I'm sitting, I'm sending my email to that, my, my contact, thinking that's my person and this person has moved on, but nobody bothers. Let us know that your account has now been transferred from this person to this person and this is who you need to talk to. That's what I mean by every unpaid, um, invoice has a story because it usually leaves clues and you, but until you ask the question, you're not going to get the clue. So you could basically fix what's wrong and then eventually get paid.

Speaker A: Let's go a little deeper into the relationship side. And I am imagining because I may or may not have been this person in the past, that when I haven't been paid, I've made up a story in my head of all the worst case scenarios. And so if and when I do talk to this client, uh, I'm able to have a conversation. I may not necessarily be presenting my best self as a business owner. Right. But what would it look like if somebody's going into this investigative process with the idea that they want to build a relationship, what would be different about that?

Speaker B: Great question. What's different about it is this, this part is a continuation of your sales process because you built a relationship with that client to land the business, right? Mhm. Okay, so you landed the business. You have a deliverable, you have something that they bought from you that you have to deliver to them. Right. You have to invoice them, then you have to collect your cash and you have to make sure that you manage that relationship all the way through. Now I understand that most clients are going to be listening to this going, nah, D, I'm not having it, I'm not building a relationship. I'm getting on the phone, I need to know where's my coins, I need my money today. Wrong approach. Trust me, I know. And because collections, collections, generally speaking, and I'll say it this way, consumer collections has a really bad rep when people hear collections they hear, they think about the irs, they think about people that are super aggressive. They think about people that don't, don't care, don't want to hear the story. They just want their dollar for dollars. They got a list of accounts, they got to get this money. Da da da da. That's not my approach. How I've learned to do what I've, I've been doing successfully is this. I figured out that most people that do this level of work, number one, they just want to be heard. They want somebody to hear their, hear their side of the story. Number two, most people want to help you get your money. But there are, there are other things that are happening. So if you go approach your client from the solution, from the solution based approach, which is. Hey Melanie, listen, um, I'm calling on behalf, you know, listening. M. Melanie, we did have a conversation. Um, I noticed that my last invoice has not been processed for payment. I, I was just wondering if there's anything that has come up that's holding up the payment. Then you pause and then let Melody answer the question. Let her tell you yes. And here, here are the reasons then my approach. Thank you so much for letting me know because sometimes you just don't know. Sometimes you just don't know. I, I operate from a solutions based approach versus a demand approach. Uh, when I tried to do it the other way, trust me, earlier in my career, it was, it was not effective. And I was like, okay, don't do. We got to figure out a different approach. So I learned that when I built the relationships with accounts payable in the, with the accounts payable people in internally and externally. When I said thank you for taking my phone call, thank you for listening to me, thank you for explaining to me what I missed. And then we got the payment, I realized, oh, so that's how you do it. They, you need to express gratitude to them for helping you solve your problem. When I saw that, I said, oh, and most people that I've ever talked to that work with ap. I'm sorry, accounts payable and businesses, this is what they say. D. No one ever comes back and says thank you to us. And I said, oh, another key. Got it. I'm going to make a point to make sure I go back and say thank you. Seems simple, but it's been effective for me.

Speaker A: Mhm. I love that. And I think there's probably a question emerging for people who are listening in right now and they're like, yeah, but what about the people where it wasn't Just a mistake or an oversight, but they literally do not have the money.

Speaker B: Okay, great question. So here's the thing. If your client says, I don't have the money, okay, that's not good. That's the first thing. Secondly, second question is, okay, are. Are you said business owner, do you have. Do you have enough funds to keep you going while you all have a conversation? Because if they don't have all the money, you could ask them for a meeting and ask this question. Okay, you owe me $10,000. You say you don't have it. Okay, great. What can we work out today? Can we do a partial payment? And then you said business owner have to be okay with. I know they owe you $10,000, and they should have had the $10,000, but they don't. But you don't want to ruin this relationship. So can you ask them if they are willing to make a partial payment? And then y' all document that via email so that this was this. Now it's this, and we're going to make the payments. And then you. You remind them that, you know, you. You. You know that in good faith, you. That you expected them to pay you, and the plans were that they were going to pay you, but they don't have the funds. So can you make. Can you offer them an olive branch and say, okay, you don't have all the money, but can you make a partial payment today? And then what can we do in two weeks or 30 days? And then what? You know, and then you make sure that you follow up and make sure that both people agree to this and then ask them. And so that's my approach. Now, I understand that people hear this. They're gonna go, d. Oh, my gosh, I don't want to do that. Listen, I get it. They should. Listen, I'm. I'm on your side. I think you. I think you should get paid in full. Absolutely, you should get paid in full. But if they. If they can't pay you in full, and this is a client that you value in a relationship matters to you, and you want to do repeat business, can you give them grace this one time? I'm not saying you do this all the time. I'm saying once y' all make the. Make the agreement, and then here's the thing. You. You hold them accountable. Now, if. If 30, after 30 days, they don't make your payments, then that's a different conversation. That's. That's. That's past what I do, but that's a different conversation. My point is Is that, um, you want to. I. I want you to. I want you to win, but I want you to win in a way that if this is a client that matters to you and you want to keep working with them, see if you cannot, see if you can do a partial payment. Let's get. Let's get some money in the bank, because some money is better than no money. That's my personal belief.

Speaker A: M. No, I think that's really a, uh, valuable piece of advice there. Uh, I've certainly had to walk away. I mean, I'm lucky. I haven't had in 26 years, Dee. I've been in business. I've maybe had a handful outside of that one pocket in 2009, when basically everybody's credit cards froze overnight. I mean, that was an, uh, extreme situation with the industry, but overall, pretty much had good luck with getting people to follow through on their commitments. And there's been a few where we've had to do exactly what you talked about, where we had to kind of work with them into a payment plan that shifted what I was receiving. But they did follow through. And by the way, that's good for everybody, because when a client doesn't pay their invoice, most people have shame and guilt about that. And so by holding them to a, uh, plan that they can follow through on, you're actually helping them win as well and kind of resolve that residual guilt that's probably coming up for them that nobody wants to hold on to. Right?

Speaker B: No, and I'm so glad you said that, Melanie, because that's the unspoken part of business that nobody really wants to say. Nobody. I mean, most people, when they get into, let's say, um, a contract with you or a coaching program with you, they say they're going to get so many sessions, and they cost this. Most people, when they sign up to go through the work with you or anybody, it's usually okay. Yep. My job or my contracts are in place. I can make my payment. We're good. I'm getting so many sessions. Da, da, da, da. But then, guess what, y'. All. Life happens. It happens to all of us. Now, I know that there is a lot of shame, because it's not. There's shame, there's guilt, there's embarrassment, and then there's this line, d. I don't want to bother them. You're not bothering them. When you follow up to get your payment, that's part of business. My tagline is collect the cash. The sale is not complete until the money is actually in the bank, you're not bothering them by doing follow up. You are actually making sure that the sale is complete and your money's in the bank. So if they haven't paid you, there is follow up. Now, are, uh, there times when people just ghost you? Yes. Are, uh, there times that people don't. Don't honor their commitments? Yes. Does it suck? Yes. All the. All the things. But most people, when they sign up to do, to do, to do business, they intend to follow through. But you also need to understand that sometimes life just goes. What a kid say, life be life, and life does life. What does what life does life beat?

Speaker A: My life was lifing me.

Speaker B: Yes, exactly. And, you know, and, uh, I'm, um, you know, I don't want to see anybody, you know, get ghosted or get, you know, lose money, but it happens. And the thing is, like, you, you have to understand that that's a part of business. But the things you can do to make sure that this doesn't happen. And if you decide that, okay, you can make a decision like this, okay, I'm getting paid up front. I'm. I'm not doing a payment plan. If you don't have all the funds to pay me up front, we're not doing business. And that's your choice. Now, if you do it, do the payment plan, then you've got to have your contract in place and all the things in place to make sure that you get your deposit. Then you do your sessions, and then you build a card, a credit card. If the credit card doesn't go through. Hey, Melanie. Hey, D. Listen, I want to run. Your card didn't go through. Oh, my gosh. Uh, Melanie? M. You know What? I need 24 hours. I gotta. I forgot to make my payment, so I have an. I have extra credit so my card can go. Can you give me 24 hours? That's called grace. That's called grace.

Speaker A: Absolutely. So, last question around this, because, um, first of all, I know there's a lot of people in the coaching communities and the spiritual communities where there's a version of this where it's like, look, I'm not going to go into the energy of lack, so I'm just going to let it go. Or they don't want to get into the strife over holding somebody accountable to their payments. But I would be curious from your point of view as somebody who's lived in the trenches of, uh, collecting unpaid invoices for so many years, like, what is that line in the sand where it's like, Collect, pursue or walk away. Because what it's going to take to collect is not worth the effort or the investment maybe that they have to make.

Speaker B: Oh, boy. Melanie, that's a. That's a. That's a deep question, but it's a good one.

Speaker A: Okay, maybe it's the too deep. But give me the.

Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no. I'm. I was actually kind of doing a tongue in cheek. But seriously, I just actually, I had a conversation with somebody about this probably within the past 30 days. Um, they. They reached out to me and they said, hey, D, I've got some clients who owe me a lot of money. So we jump on a call, and, you know, I'm starting to get. Going down my list of questions. Okay, tell me, you know, tell me the story. What's going on? What happened? Do you have a contract in place? You know, they had, you know, a payment plan. Da, da, da, da. And before I could get down, I think I. I think I got maybe two questions asked. And they're like, lily, D, I just don't want to do this. I'm like, okay, um, can you tell me why? Oh, my gosh. And they. To your point, the enter the energy for me to go have somebody or get an attorney. Da, da, da. I just don't want to do that. And I'm like, but you just said 10 minutes ago that you didn't want to lose this much money. Yeah, but my. My energy, my spirit, my Whatever, uh, whatever the term was that day, I just don't feel like doing it. I was like, okay, so let me make sure I'm clear. You're ready. You're prepared to leave over a hundred thousand dollars uncollected. You're gonna walk away from a hundred thousand dollars? Yep. Okay. I'm not gonna fight you on it. That's what I'm not gonna do. I'm not fighting. You want. If you make the decision that you're. That your business is successful enough, that a hundred thousand dollars to you is just, you know, it's just. Just change. You're not worried about it. Okay, great. But then I. I did have a question. I said, so then why did you book a call with me? Oh, because I thought I wanted you to go collect the money, but you just said you don't want to meet the energy. So I'm like, okay, we. We're not. We're not doing this. Because if you want me to work with you, then I, you know, we have a process in place. We got to do some things but you're telling me that the energy to go get this money is not worth it to you. So you're like, I'm just. I'm just gonna walk away from like, okay. And I had to respect their. I had to respect their decision because I'm like, well, I don't want to see anybody lose $100,000. I want to see anybody lose a dollar. But I'm. I'm. But I'm not going to do it. I'm not fighting with you over that. If you come to me and you say after. After this conversation, I don't want to do this. Okay. And that's what you do. And, And I get that. There. There are some people that some of this. Melody, is this. A lot of people don't like confrontation.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Is that it? Confrontation brings up a lot of uncomfortable feelings for people. And I'm like, okay. Confrontation, to me, is. Is a, uh, is a conversation. Yes. I understand it can get hostile, and it can. It can go left if you. Unless you reel it in. But the point is, like, if you won't confront the issue that's sitting in front of you, then this will just keep going and it won't get solved. And then we're going to be. You're going to be back here again doing the exact same thing. Because you. You didn't. You. You didn't interrupt this pattern and do a, uh, bring. Either do something different, get some assistance, or outsource it to somebody who can actually do it for you so you can go off and do your thing.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great, great distinction. And really, I'm just going to leave this part of the conversation with. With the listener to think about if this is you and you've noticed that you tend to walk away from unpaid invoices or this is a pattern, like, there's something deeper going on. You need to look at your own, um, infrastructure and your billing practices. Like, I had a client one time, D. This is probably going to make your skin crawl. I had a client in my early days of coaching who she would, quote, unquote, forget to bill her clients for nine months. So I literally made her one day like her coaching assignment was, you. You are going to go and you are going to do your billing and get caught up and create a system so this never happens again. Because, you know, that's. Sometimes people's patterns with money show up in funny ways. But I love what you're saying here about really decide that the money is worth collecting again. Going back to what we said earlier, sometimes it's not just about you, it's about actually helping the other person too.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So you have a resource that you're sharing with our audience today on, you know, I think you call it the five Tips to Collect the Cash. Yes. Can you quickly share what that is and how people can find that?

Speaker B: Sure thing. Um, five Tips to Collect the Cash is basically a, a lead magnet. And it's basically, it gives you. There are five tips that, that you can get to, um, set up your, your tracking system, um, um, making sure your banking. Banking information is set. And there's a couple more things. The reason that, that I think is important is that, um, a lot of us, when we do our, we set up our business, there are some things we lack. We miss some steps because we're so excited to get the business going. We forget, oh, we need a tracking system. Oh, we forget, you know, we can't co. Mingle personal funds and business funds. You need like a business bank account, you know, things like that. So the tips give you five ways to collect your cash and to make sure that you can confidently have this conversation, um, and not be afraid, not be afraid to get paid. And then you can get it at collectthecash Biz Freebie. So that's collectecash dot. I'm sorry, Collect the Cash Biz Freebie. And you just put your name and your email and it's a great little download for you. Thanks for.

Speaker A: Sounds like a really, really valuable report to go keep on hand in your library so that when and if this does occur for you, you know exactly where to go. And by the way, you also help people, coach them through this consult and sometimes do this for them. So now you have as a list, you have a resource in your Rolodex of where to turn if you need expert guidance on this. So thank you, Dee.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you.

Speaker A: Um, before we close, I'm really curious, what's your, your parting thought for someone? And I want to go into the. How could somebody maybe, um, set themselves up to avoid a lot of these kinds of problems in the first place?

Speaker B: Number one, um, you need to have a tracking system. And a tracking system is nothing more than the name of your customer. If you have a contract number, the dollar amount, what do they buy from you? When do you invoice them? When do you get paid in a section called notes? It's that simple. A tracking system is very similar. The tracking system is very similar to how you bought your cell phone. The cell phone company uses that exact same system to track you. And the cell phone companies never miss getting paid. They always collect their cash. But yeah, definitely, definitely. So it's two things. Definitely have a tracking system. Number one. And then number two. Um, I believe in the. I believe in the power of affirmations. Um, the way I. The way I use that is I do it through a sports analogy. So right now we're in the middle of the NBA Finals, and you know, the two teams that are playing, and so right now they do their. They do what's called get into the zone. So for all of you business owners, you need to get into your collection zone, pre game, before you make the call to the client. What are you saying to yourself so that you know that you are ready to have this conversation? Game day is when you make your call or schedule your schedule on zoom or teams or whatever. And then post game is when you collect your cash. Number one. But more importantly is when you celebrate your win, because the wins that you celebrate create momentum. And then what you do is you rinse and repeat. So pre game affirmations, get into your collection zone, game day, have the conversations, even if it's uncomfortable, get it to resolution. Post game. I'm sorry. Yeah, pre, uh, game. Game day, Post game, opposed zone. Celebrate your win and then celebrate. Because when you. When you celebrate it, what you see is that, wow, something that I was afraid to do in the beginning, I actually won over here. And I believe you need to celebrate that because that actually puts a memory in place for you so you can do it again and again and again. So those are my thoughts.

Speaker A: Yeah, you're basically building a neural pathway of when I do this, I win. And that's a beautiful way to end today. It's a great reminder. And by the way, you can use that process for anything that you're a little uncomfortable doing in your business. Right? So. Oh, my gosh. Amplifiers, thank you so much for tuning in today. Thank you, Dee, for being such an amazing guest and dropping some really valuable insights. Today's episode. This is, uh, this is a gem to keep in your toolbox. Uh, keep it handy. Make sure you know how to get a hold of D when and if this comes up. And be sure to download the resource at. Ah, collectthecash Biz freebie. We will link that up in the show notes. Now, it would mean the world to me if you would share today's episode and pop over to Apple Podcasts and review and rate the show as well. Uh, you can come connect with myself and our guest today on social media. Give the episode some love, let Dee know what the big ahas were, and as a reminder, if you want more growth fuel strategies for your business, come join me over on my Growth Fuel substack and we'll link that in the show notes as well. Thanks everybody for tuning in. We'll see you on the next episode.