by Nancy Seiverd | Apr 4, 2025 | Uncategorized
One of the most frequent complaints I’ve heard over the years from credit risk managers is that they don’t feel appreciated for their hard work in trying to increase cash flow and minimize the risk of selling on credit. In fact, as time goes by, some credit...
by Nancy Seiverd | Apr 4, 2025 | Hector the Collector
Hi Everyone, As always, I greatly appreciate your emails, especially when they mention how someone would like to improve and expand their professional goals. One email came from a middle-aged collector at an agency here in the US regarding his employment. After 5...
by Nancy Seiverd | Apr 4, 2025 | Poll
When a broad tariff policy — like Donald Trump’s recent across-the-board tariffs — is implemented, it suddenly forces credit managers in the U.S. to navigate new challenges in evaluating credit risk on their international customers. For example, decreasing credit...
by Nancy Seiverd | Mar 4, 2025 | Feature Article
It has certainly been quite the whirlwind over the past several weeks with many new changes in our regulatory agencies. One change that has hit close to my credit and collection home has to do with the sidelining of the Consumer Financial Protection...
by Nancy Seiverd | Mar 4, 2025 | Uncategorized
To be expected, as the use of AI continues to advance through the entire global business community, there is also an increase in the creation of forged Letters of Credit. A forged Letter of Credit (LC) is typically created to deceive a supplier into...
by Nancy Seiverd | Mar 4, 2025 | Dear Crabby
Dear Crabby, I am the credit and collection manager at a small logistics company. I’ve been working here for about one year and as a small company, I find myself wearing several multi-ethnic hats that are making me slightly unbalanced. Let me explain. I am an older...
by Nancy Seiverd | Mar 4, 2025 | Poll
As a credit and collection professional, getting your sales team, manager or representative involved in the collection of a past due account can range anywhere between successful to disastrous. Following below is a general guideline as to when it might be advantageous...
by Nancy Seiverd | Feb 4, 2025 | Feature Article
I don’t profess to be an economist. In fact, like many credit professionals, my focus is primarily on the credit and collection problems directly in front of me. However, in the back of my mind is the accumulation of all the news and opinions I’ve been hearing...
by Nancy Seiverd | Feb 4, 2025 | Uncategorized
Over the course of my credit and collection career, I’ve observed the careers of hundreds of credit professionals. Some may enter a client’s place of business as a high school graduate and slowly work their way up to becoming the credit and collection manager. Others...
by Nancy Seiverd | Feb 4, 2025 | Hector the Collector
Hi Everyone, It’s Hector and as always, I greatly appreciate receiving many wonderful emails from readers asking for my thoughts and guidance. Last month I received a rather concerning email from one in-house collection manager, I’ll call Joe, who was confronted...
by Nancy Seiverd | Feb 4, 2025 | Poll
At a recent conference, I was invited into a group of other long-term credit professionals to discuss what we felt were some regrets in our long careers. Following below are the major ideas I took away from our discussion.Overlooking Relationship Building –...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jan 7, 2025 | Feature Article
I was talking with several relatives on New Year’s Day about my New Year’s resolutions and from their reaction, I guess my list seemed over the top. Since I like adventurous activities, which includes wall climbing, a few of them suggested...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jan 7, 2025 | Uncategorized
A client of mine was recently talking to me about one of their customers who had been covered under their credit insurance policy, but coverage was suddenly cancelled due to negative financial information that came to light. According to my client, they have been...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jan 7, 2025 | Dear Crabby
Dear Crabby, Hope you had a nice New Year holiday. I wish mine had been better — I was in a bad mood. Let me explain. I am the new credit and collection manager at my company and started one year ago. In just one short year, I reduced our DSO from 75 days...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jan 7, 2025 | Uncategorized
The “January Effect” is a well-known financial market phenomenon referring to a seasonal increase in stock prices during January, often attributed to year-end tax-loss selling, portfolio rebalancing, or increased market optimism. While it primarily impacts...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jan 7, 2025 | Poll
As a credit risk management professional, aligning your credit and collection goals with the objectives of your organization is essential for a cohesive and effective approach. Depending on the company size and leadership hierarchy, here’s a general outline of the...
by Nancy Seiverd | Dec 10, 2024 | Feature Article, Uncategorized
by Nancy Seiverd | Nov 7, 2024 | Feature Article
One of the most heartwarming Thanksgiving stories is the one about Wanda Dench and Jamal Hinton, often referred to as the “Thanksgiving Text Mix-Up.” It’s an example of how unexpected friendships can begin and the spirit of Thanksgiving. In 2016,...
by Nancy Seiverd | Nov 7, 2024 | Uncategorized
About one year ago, one of our clients asked us to help them interview candidates to fill the position of in-house collector for their commercial claims. They had received over two hundred resumes and in reviewing them, there were about two dozen candidates...
by Nancy Seiverd | Nov 7, 2024 | Hector the Collector
Hi Everyone, It’s Hector and I hope you all had a nice Halloween holiday. It won’t be long now before we go from eating a lot of candy to chowing down on some delicious turkey for Thanksgiving. In the meantime, I continue to receive wonderful emails from many...
by Nancy Seiverd | Nov 7, 2024 | Poll
Newly hired executives often choose to fire existing team members and bring in people they have previously worked with for several reasons. Here are some of the key motivations behind why a new executive manager will remove the existing team. Familiarity and...
by Nancy Seiverd | Oct 7, 2024 | Feature Article, Uncategorized
I can’t believe how fast the summer flew by! But here we are in October and the leaves are turning all shades of yellow, orange, and red before finally falling to the ground leaving a huge mess for me to rake up around the house. At the end of the month, it’ll...
by Nancy Seiverd | Oct 7, 2024 | Uncategorized
If you’re a baby-boomer and older, there’s no doubt you’ve seen the “Who’s on First?” comedy skit between Bud Abbot & Lou Costello several times when you were growing up. They certainly brought out a lot of laughs with their silly antics. At least they...
by Nancy Seiverd | Oct 7, 2024 | Dear Crabby
Dear Crabby, I’m the credit manager at a liquor wholesaler and have been at my current company about eight years. Liquor wholesale distribution means that we sell to retail liquor stores, mom and pop convenient stores, some smaller supermarket chains, and to other...
by Nancy Seiverd | Oct 7, 2024 | Poll, Uncategorized
Whenever I have been asked to participate with reviewing resumes for clients to fulfill a credit manager position, my eyes will always look for the credentials CCE, CBA, CICP, or MBA as a starting point. It lets me and the employer know that at a minimum, one has...
by Nancy Seiverd | Sep 6, 2024 | Feature Article
As schools begin across the country, I was talking with a few acquaintances about their children, some of whom are still in high school and others who are beginning college. One parent mentioned that they have their child on a “tight leash” when it comes to money and...
by Nancy Seiverd | Sep 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
In my many travels as a credit risk management consultant, I’d like to share an interesting collection situation that came across my desk. Several months ago, I was contacted by an Intellectual Property law firm which has been in business for several decades. Their...
by Nancy Seiverd | Sep 6, 2024 | Hector the Collector
Hi Everyone, It’s Hector and I hope you all had a real nice summer. Mine was very nice but went by way too fast. Fortunately, in between the office and the beach, your emails kept me busy. Among the correspondence was one inquiry about how to deal with a debtor (owner...
by Nancy Seiverd | Sep 6, 2024 | Poll
I remember when I was just starting out as part of the CMI collection team (there were just two of us) and my portfolio of accounts contained mostly small balances. Fortunately, by nature of being small, they were relatively easy to collect. That not only gave me a...
by Nancy Seiverd | Aug 5, 2024 | Feature Article
A couple of months ago I received a letter from a performance ticket outlet letting me know that they incurred a data breach and that my personal information may have been compromised. The personal information not only included my name and basic contact details, but...
by Nancy Seiverd | Aug 5, 2024 | Uncategorized
From time to time, I am asked to help a client evaluate candidates for their open credit and/or collection positions. I feel very fortunate when I am requested to do this because I believe it reflects a deep level of trust between my client and our firm, and...
by Nancy Seiverd | Aug 5, 2024 | Dear Crabby
Dear Crabby, I’ve read your column for years but never thought I would be writing to you myself. But here I am with a problem and not sure how to handle it. I am the credit and collection manager at a small business that sells furniture to restaurants and bars. The...
by Nancy Seiverd | Aug 5, 2024 | Poll
When I first started out, I did a lot of collection work but as the years passed and the clients and claims increased, my collection experience supported the hiring, training, and managing of additional staff. For quite a long time, my weekly and monthly work was...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jul 9, 2024 | Feature Article
Last month’s article, “A Young Man’s Nursing Home Journey,” resulted in many readers leaving comments and contacting me with their own stories. So many of you have had very heartfelt experiences in taking care of a loved one. They really touched me. One lady,...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jul 9, 2024 | Uncategorized
A couple of months ago I received a claim from a creditor in China. The creditor is a marketing research consulting firm, and they performed various focus groups on behalf of a beverage manufacturer in Pennsylvania that was trying to enter the Chinese...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jul 9, 2024 | Hector the Collector
Hi Everyone, It’s Hector here and I hope you’re enjoying your summer. Mine has been busy reading and answering many of your emails concerning all kinds of credit and collections issues and challenges. One email reflected my own life story as a...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jul 9, 2024 | Poll
For the past few years, inflation has been a very concerning topic for most of America, including hundreds of thousands of businesses. Depending on the industry, inflation has brought some companies to the brink of bankruptcy and yet...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jun 4, 2024 | Feature Article
At the end of last month, I attended my granddaughter’s high school graduation. Naturally, I am very proud of her and all that she has accomplished during her four years. As she prepares for college in the fall, I’m excited to see her future unfold in many promising...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jun 4, 2024 | Uncategorized
When it comes to obtaining credit information on privately held companies where financial information is often carefully guarded, the quality of the information in a report should be treated with some level of skepticism. As we have often seen, there can be a huge...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jun 4, 2024 | Dear Crabby
Dear Crabby, I am the credit and collection manager at a plastics recycling company and have been here for about 15 years. Our company buys all kinds of scrap plastic and after putting it through our recycling process, we sell it as raw material to other...
by Nancy Seiverd | Jun 4, 2024 | Poll
As credit professionals, from time to time our credit decisions have been questioned and overridden. Sometimes the credit limit that we established for a new or existing customer has fallen short of expectations or needs. When that happens, either sales or the...
by Nancy Seiverd | May 7, 2024 | Feature Article
As I was making some minor adjustments to our home security system recently with my grandson, he mentioned that the first home security system was invented by a woman. I said to him, “How do you know something like that?” He responded that his 7th grade history class...
by Nancy Seiverd | May 7, 2024 | Uncategorized
I have a client who has always sent a birthday gift to his customers as a way of showing his appreciation for their business. The client currently has about 100 customers, which means that he will send a gift to about 9-10 customers per month. The expense of the...
by Nancy Seiverd | May 7, 2024 | Hector the Collector
Hi Everyone! It’s Hector and as always, it’s wonderful to get your emails about your joys and challenges of collecting. I recently received one email from a gentleman, I’ll call him Ted, who has been struggling with his accent during collection calls. Ted is 45 years...
by Nancy Seiverd | May 7, 2024 | Poll
Credit reports are not perfect and in fact, they may often contain information that is either erroneous, obsolete, or misleading. In my experience, the best credit information is information that is verifiable, and one of the best ways to obtain it is through joining...
by Nancy Seiverd | Apr 2, 2024 | Feature Article
It’s April and tulips all over the world are coming up. In my front and back yards, I’ve been monitoring my sweet little darlings since it became unusually warm in February. Now at the beginning of April, they are about one week away from blooming. Last October,...
by Nancy Seiverd | Apr 2, 2024 | Uncategorized
My grandkids love to tease me about how technologically behind I am. While they can type on their tiny smart phone keyboards at a speed that would rival a concert violinist, my fat fingers can barely plunk out a text message without several mistakes. Although I’ll...
by Nancy Seiverd | Apr 2, 2024 | Dear Crabby
Dear Crabby, I’m the controller / credit manager / accountant and all around cleaner upper at our very small beer and wine distribution company. We import very specialized craft beers and wines from all the world and have hundreds of customers throughout the...
by Nancy Seiverd | Apr 2, 2024 | Poll
My personal feeling is that if you have a non-paying customer that is ignoring your calls, emails, and letters requesting (demanding) payment and they are very close by, it may just make sense to do a stop by and see if you can talk to someone. Not too long...
by Nancy Seiverd | Mar 5, 2024 | Feature Article
One of the only reasons I happen to like March is because of Daylight Savings Time. Finally, I feel like with the extra daylight, we’re getting out of winter’s grip. Not that this winter in my neck of the woods has been so terrible, but it’s not one of my...
