Entrepreneur Diaries

Monday 31st March 2008

I got up at 8.30am today.

I am preparing for my meeting with Hamza of Encoded @ 1pm in Crawley. I did most of the preparation over the weekend, but, I am just making sure I haven't forgotten anything.

I have a couple of sales follow-ups to do, which I will do en-route to Encoded.

It's almost 11am now, so I am off to Crawley.

Had a great meeting with Hamza today - Encoded are definitely a company that are going places. They have a very impressive client list which includes: Disney, T-Mobile & The Bertram Group.

I got back from Crawley at 3pm and immediately set to work on gearing up to start work with Encoded on Thursday.

SKFF have also provided me with the information we required in order to start work with them on Thursday too.

Made a few sales follow up calls today - The Publishing Company (who shall remain nameless for now) are still interested in using our Outsourced Credit Control Service and we will talk again soon.

I have followed up all of the leads received within the last 2 weeks. I now need more leads to follow up - Hmmm, I feel another mail shot coming on.

That's all today folks - thanks for reading.

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---

Sunday 30th March 2008

I got up at around 9am today.

2 goals for today:

1. Go through my personal post which I have left unopened for the last 3 weeks.
2. Update my blog with new widgets and content.

I finished the above at 2.10pm. I am now off to Tesco's to buy some beers for this afternoons football

• Chelsea -v- Middlesborough
• Liverpool -v- Everton

As a Chelsea supporter, I hope that Liverpool either lose or draw, so that there is no chance of them catching Chelsea in the league.

Thanks for reading,

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---

Saturday 29th March 2008

I got up at 10am today - how naughty is that? Mind you, I didn't go to bed until 3am this morning, so I am not going to beat myself up too much! Having said that I didn't do any work last night - I vegged in front of the telly all night and whats more I actually enjoyed doing "NOTHING" To be honest, I think the extremely busy week had taken it's toll on me.

Anyway, woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning and am raring to crack on.

As always, I am looking at my "TO DO" list and planning my day. There are 3 things for me to complete today:

1) Prepare a Quotation & Close document for the recruitment company that I met with on Wednesday:

2) Gear up to start work with our new customers on Wednesday / Thursday next week

• Encoded
• SKFF Consultancy Services

Item 2 will take me the best part of 5 hours to complete, as, I will need to set-up the credit control processes, set them up in our software, put together standard letter templates etc.

I managed to do all of the above today and spent several hours updating my Blogs with new widgets etc. Mike from World Wide Creative (Our Web Designer and Web Marketing guru) very kindly changed our "header image" so that is is very similar to our website and Credit Control Blog branding.

I finished work at around 9pm.

Thanks for reading.

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---

Friday 28th March 2008

I got up at 9am today - I must confess, I am not obsessed with having to start work at 9am each day in view of the fact I always tend to work very late. For example, although I told you yesterday, I finished work at 5.30pm, rather predictably, I got fed up with relaxing and started work again at 7pm. I didn't finish until 1am this morning. I was updating both of my blogs - can you see the changes to the look and feel of the site? Does it look better or worse in your view - COMMENTS WELCOME!

Anyway, it's 9.40am now and I am just having a look at my "TO DO" list and planning my day.

10.00am - Graham Card phoned me with a debt collection referral. Debt Collection referrals are good and are our "bread and butter". Our main market is that of Outsourced credit control and Credit Control Training

10.30am - Just had a call from Pam (one of our credit controllers) to discuss a few issues and have a general catch up. I do not spend a lot of time in the office, it is important therefore for me to keep in daily contact with my staff and managers by telephone. We also have in place 2 managers - A Credit Control Manager (Louise Green) and an Office Manager (Sue Palser). All of the credit control staff report into Louise for credit control matters and to Sue for office related issues. I retain control through both managers and speak with them daily. All of our credit controllers work form a dedicated credit control process that I devise. The processes do vary on a client to client basis.

My roll as MD, is to win new business and develop new ideas - to be honest with you, I am currently spending all of my time dealing with new enquiries and sales conversion. I am thinking of employing some sales staff to help me.

Just completed my booking form for an advert in a book called "Essential Business Finance", published by the Sunday Times through Kogan Page Publishers. I got a fantastic deal from them. A full page colour advert with 2 pages of editorial, for only £2000. The actual advertised price for this package was £6950. Whilst I accept that £2000 is still a lot of money, I think the advert will do our brand a lot of good. It will also drive people to our website and should lead to a few more contracts. The book will be extensively marketed within The Sunday Times. Copies of the book will also be sent to every member of the IOD (Institute of Directors). So guys & gals, from here-on-in; no more buying the Sunday Sport, or The Mail on Sunday with the glossy freebie magazines! The Sunday Times is the way forward.

11.45am - Just had a call from Hamza of Encoded and he has decided to outsource his credit control to us. We are meeting on Monday at his offices at 1pm in order to finalise things. We are looking to start work with him on Wednesday/Thursday of next week. Needless to say I am extremely happy as we have managed to win 2 new contracts this week! Yippeeeeeee - I get very very excited after I have just won some new business. I asked Hamza why he gave the business to us rather than a competitor (that was also in the running) He informed me that he "liked our flexibility and he also liked the fact that we gave him names and telephone numbers of some of our existing customer so that he could speak with them directly about how great we are. Hamza spoke with Hazel from Avante Garde Publishing and she gave us a glowing reference" Hamza admitted to being nervous about the prospect of outsourcing his credit control to us - I told him that this was only natural and that within a few weeks he will be absolutely certain that he has made the right decision.

Encoded seems like a very exciting company to work with - in fact, they sell several products that are  aimed at the Debt Collection industry, so, I am sure we will end up doing business with them too! Go and have a look at their website.

Just made a few follow up calls to:

• SKFF Consultancy Services (This is the other new credit control customer we won earlier in the week - they are getting together the info we need in order to start working with them)
• Stern & Co (We gave them a web demo of our Sage line 50 Service last week and they are currently considering whether to go with us or to buy "all singing, all dancing" Credit Management Software - it's a "NO BRAINER" to me - would you prefer to spend £10K on a piece of software that looks sexy, but doesn't perform well, or would you rather spend a £1,000 or so and get something that works much better?)
• Breeze Magazine - Another new credit control enquiry from a couple of weeks back - still trying to pin them down.

Just had another call from Hamza (Encoded) he has an issues with a particular debt that goes back to October 2006. He went through the County Court Process and obtained a County Court Judgement in December 2007. However, he has still not received payment from the debtor - this is not an untypical scenario (please refer to my article relating to this scenario by clicking here). As a gesture of goodwill on our part (in view of the fact Encoded are a soon to be a new credit control customer) we have offered to deal with this matter for them completely free of charge. Our solution is to simply send the debtor a Statutory Demand for Payment. This will go to the debtors registered office address, with copies being sent to all of the directors home addresses. We will follow up on the phone to make sure the debtor knows what will happen if they choose to ignore the Statutory Demand.

2.30pm - I am off out on the road now - got a couple of people to see in Ashford.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend.

I plan to work all day on Saturday and chill out on Sunday (that's the plan, but then again, I will more than likely get bored and end up working most of the weekend!)

Thanks for reading.

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---

Thursday 27th March 2008

Got up at 9am today - feeling very tired and finding it hard to get going.

Got lots to do today though. Just looking at my "To Do List" and planning my day.

10.00am - I chased up our newest customer to supply the info required in order for us to set them up on our system and start working with them.

10.05am - I emailed my contact from the recruitment company in order to ask them for the information required in order for us to provide them with a quote.

10.10am - The recruitment company asked me if I had any contacts from HSBC that I could refer them to to discuss Invoice Discounting. We hey - HSBC bank is a member of my chapter of BNI - a nice easy referral for me! I also put them in contact with a Factoring Broker (who happens to be another old BNI contact of mine)

10.15am - I spoke with my Factoring Broker contact (Graham Card) and we had a great catch up chat. It turns out that he may also have a referral for me! As well as referrals, we also had a chat about about mutual referral opportunities going forward and we are going to meet up in early April to discuss things further. I have known Graham for around 6 years now and have given him around 3 referrals, which, turned into actual business for him - BNI does work!

12.00PM - Hamza telephone me (another potential customer) to inform me that he had researched the outsourced credit control market place and he has found another possible company to outsource his credit control to! He is trying to decide between us and them. We had a great chat and he asked me lots of questions. I think I answered his questions and re-assured him that we were the company he needed. He also mentioned that our price was good, not the cheapest, but he is not looking for a cheap and cheerful service, so he discounted those straight away. Hamza is looking for a quality service and this is precisely what he will get with us. As a way of adding credibility to our offer, I provided Hamza with the names of some of our clients along with their telephone numbers in order that he can make direct contact with them to satisfy himself that we are a quality company providing an excellent service. Hamza is going to think things through and will call me later today.

1.00pm - Trying to do battle with my Internet banking with Nationwide - my god it is annoyingly slow and rubbish. Nationwide market themselves as  "Proud to be different" It should be: Nationwide - "Proud to be rubbish". I got there in the end, but, it took me almost half an hour!

1.30pm to 2.30pm - Had to deal with some boring stuff for a while. Checking my purchase ledger and paying suppliers. In this sense we do practice what we preach. I am very keen to ensure that we pay our suppliers on time. In most cases, we pay them before the due date (aren't we good!). I could hardly run a credit control company and then not pay our own suppliers on time could I! It is important to have "great" relationships with all of your key suppliers - if you are good to them, they will be good to you too in return.

I also received a call from our largest customer to thank us for modifying and improving our service to them - it is always good to get feedback from your customers. We didn't do much really, we just made life a little easier for them. It was nice of them to phone and thank us.

Made a couple of sales follow up calls to a

• Publishing company, who are interested in outsourcing their credit control to us
• Chartered Accountancy practice based in The City of London who are interested in our Sage Line 50 Service. This will be a "big win" for us. Most firms of accountant's think they know everything about finance. It is refreshing to see that a large firm are willing to accept that they need help with their credit control. In addition to this, they will also have clients that may be having issues with their credit control and they will be in a position to recommend our services to them.

Had a couple of minor issues with our VOIP telephone system - I am able to access each handsets call data through a web portal - I couldn't logon on as the supplier had re-set the password and hadn't let me know. Anyway, all sorted now. We installed our "all singing, all dancing" VOIP telephone system around 3 months ago. The reasons we switched over to VOIP are quite simple:

• It is cheaper
• The call quality is better than a normal land line
• It allows us to link our Satellite office in Turkey into one integrated telephone system. When you call out Turkish office, it also means that you dial an Ashford Number beginning "01233"
• Call costs from Turkey to The UK are free of charge
• It has saved me an absolute fortune on "Call Centre Charges" Due to the advanced functionality of the VOIP system, it means we can handle more direct calls, thus saving on call centre charges (we were spending around £1,000 per month on our call centre, these have reduced to around £150.00 per month)

To summarise, we have a much better integrated telephone system, with the sort of functionality you would expect from advanced switchboards that would ordinarily cost you tens of thousands of pounds. In addition to this it has also saved me money - a great combination.

I am also able to monitor the number of calls that each of our credit controllers makes each day. I will shortly be introducing an incentive scheme based on the monthly number of calls each credit controller makes. In simple terms, the more calls we make the quicker our client will get paid. This will result in further improvements to their cash flow. This will ultimately encourage client loyalty and more client referrals. A sign of a good business, is the number of referrals you get from customers - needless to say we get lots of referrals from our customers.

If you are interested in looking at how a VOIP system could save you money and make life a lot easier, please enquire here

4.00pm - just put in another call to the firm of chartered accountants and ended up leaving another message.

4.30pm - We have been invited to advertise and have 2 pages of editorial within a Sunday Times Publication called "Essential Business Finance". This is very exciting for us and will no doubt raise our profile and get our Brand "out there".

5.30pm - Finished for today.

Another great and exciting day for me.

I will no doubt get bored watching telly later and my mind will drift back on to work and I will no doubt end up working away until the early hours...............

Thanks for reading.

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---

Wednesday 26th March 2008

I ended up working until around 4am this morning! I didn't therefore relish the prospect of getting up at 5.30am this morning to go to BNI.

I Got up at around 10am. I am preparing for my meeting with the Recruitment Company in London at 3.30pm today. I will need to leave home at around 12.30pm, If I am to arrive at the meeting on time. As well as having a face to face meeting, I will be demonstrating what we can do via a web demo. I think this is a very powerful way of getting the prospect excited about what we can do for them. You know what they say, most people relate more to pictures than words! (A picture paints a thousand words), Besides which if you happen to be selling a product or service that is not sexy or tangible, you need all the help you can get when it comes to closing a sale.

I have just amended my to do list for today and will make sales follow up calls whilst travelling to London this afternoon.

The meeting with the Recruitment Co went very well, They have been in business for just over a year and like most recruitment they currently factor their debts. The reason most recruitment Co's factor their debts is due to the fact the have to pay their temps on a weekly basis and will typically have to wait around 45 days (or more) to get paid by their customer. They are less than happy with their factoring company in the sense they do not undertake their credit control effectively. This means that a lot of their outstanding debt is over 90 days old. This will have a negative effect in 2 ways:

• Firstly, it will reduce the amount of finance they are able to draw down for their factoring facility, as factoring companies will exclude debts over 90 days old
• Secondly, it means that the recruitment company has to spend a lot of time doing their own credit control

Factoring companies are well known for not undertaking credit control properly. They are really specialists at providing invoice finance and that is what they should stick to, leaving Credit Control to specialist companies like ourselves.

The Recruitment co still needs a finance facility to help their cash flow, but, they want us to undertake their credit control.

We have suggested that they consider Invoice Discounting rather than factoring. This means they will still have in place a "factoring type" finance facility, although,

• We will effectively run their sales ledger for them and be responsible for providing the Invoice Discounting Company with the monthly reconciliation
• We will also undertake their credit control on an outsourced basis

This will:

• Save them money
• Save them time
• Improve level of credit control collections
• Maximise the amount they are able to draw down from their finance facility.

I got home at around 8pm and just chilled out and watched The England -v- France match. England's performance was encouraging but disappointing all the same.

Thanks for reading.

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---

Tuesday 25th March 2008

Got up at 8am today - raring to go and feeling good and positive, although, I didn't sleep very well last night - lots of things on my mind.

I will be working from home today.

I have sorted the issue with our Import Plus Software (see diaries Monday 24th March 2008). It was just a licensing issue. The supplier is very quick at getting back to me if there are any issues - it is all well and good when things are going well, but, a test of a good supplier is how quickly they deal with issues. I am pleased to say that this particular supplier is excellent.

Once of my staff (living in Turkey) has just advised me that they are unable to remotely logon to their computer in the office - must be network problems. Kieran (my son) should arrive in the office at 9.30 and he will sort this issue.

The "network" issue was sorted at 9.30am

Having a great day so far:

Closed my first sale at 10am - a new outsourced credit control customer (yippeeee !). This customer has a consultancy business that operates within the care sector

Almost closed another sale at 10.30am. We are at the negotiating stage - they are going to get an alternative quote. I've just e-mailed them to let them know why they should come to us rather than seek an alternative quote (this is a very powerful e-mail and will I am sure, swing it for us). This potential customer is a member of BNI (as are we) and this will also go a long way to making sure that we win his business (I will update you as soon as I know)

Closed another sale at 11am - a Debt Collection Client who wants to go ahead and use our Statutory Demand Service

My goal, is to close at least 3 sales today (I will update you on my progress later in the day)

11.30am - Just followed up another potential credit control customer and he has decided to keep it "in-house" for now. He has basically given his staff a good talking to and told them that if the credit control situation does not improve within the next 2 months, they will outsource it to us. I have made a note in my CRM package (Sage - ACT) to follow up on 29th April. The business owner is firmly of the opinion that his in-house solution will not work and he has admitted that he will more than likely outsource it to us. As a decent boss, he is giving his staff a chance to prove him wrong - I will keep you informed of developments.

13.15pm - I just e-mailed a contract & Service level Agreement to our newly closed sale along with information required in order to commence working with them later this week. That is the good thing about us. Due to the way in which we are organised, we are able to start working with new customers almost instantaneously. Our customers report to us that this one of the many reasons they choose us over our competition.

13.57 pm - Ever hungry for new business, I am now researching Franchised businesses on the web. I will not mention names, but, I have come across a very well known Design & Printing franchise with over 150 branches in the UK. I have a very nifty bit of kit called "Cardscan" it allows me to drag and drop all contact data from a website directly into my Cardscan Database. My Cardscan database is basically a local database of all of my contacts. This data is also backed up on a web based database. the on-line database will also periodically -mail all of my contacts asking them to update their contact data. if they wish to opt our of future mailings they can do so. This way, you are only mail mailshoting people that want to hear from you, thus increasing the likelihood of making a sale. The other great thing about Cardscan is it can be easily synchronised with Outlook or other popular CRM packages.

If I had to manually type this information into my database, I anticipate that it would have taken me at least a whole day (if not longer). It would then take me another few hours to prepare and e-mail a mailshot by mail merging data etc. Using Cardscan, it will only take me around 2 hours to copy the data from the franchised prospects website and send the mail shot! Not only does this save me time, it allows me even more time to follow up prospects by telephone and this of course is where the real sales are made.

15.18PM - Just finished scanning 168 names, addresses, telephone numbers & e-mail addresses from the large print & design franchise from their website into my database. It took me around 1hour & 20 minutes. Just about to synchronise them with my CRM package and mail shot them all.

16.04pm - Just finished and e-mail shoted the large print & design franchise - not bad for just 2 hours work!

16.10pm - Followed up 3 x new prospects - 1 is away until tomorrow, the other wants me to to call them tomorrow and I left a message for the last to call me back.

Just starting to work on my BNI 60 Second script for tomorrow. I belong to a Business by referral group called BNI. My chapter is the Ashford Chapter. If you own your own business and are looking for more business (why wouldn't you be) you should come along to BNI. I have been a a member for around 6 years now. networking is a wonderful way to grow your business. BNI accounts for around 60% of our turnover each year. Not being a member of BNI for me would be like committing commercial suicide.

Anyway, back to my 60 second script, at BNI each week each member gets a "60 second slot" to tell other members about their business and about the referrals they are looking for. For example, if you knew somebody that had problems collecting money from their customers, you would refer them to us, or, if they just wanted help in collecting an old outstanding debt, we could help them with our debt collection service. I am currently making brief notes about the points I wish to raise tomorrow in my 60 second slot.

17.08pm - Just got a call back from another hot prospect (A recruitment company who are currently factoring their debts and whom incidentally are less than happy with the factoring company's credit control performance - no surprise there then!) [factoring companies should stick to what they are good at - advancing monies on sales and leave specialist credit control companies like us to undertake the credit control]. Anyway, I have a meeting with the recruitment company tomorrow at 3.30pm in West London. I absolutely love face to face selling - it is one of my biggest strengths.

I am going to sign off for today - I've had a fantastic day and am already looking forward to tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---

Monday 24th March 2008

Had a very late night last night - watching DVD movies in bed.

I got up at around 10am and went shopping to Tesco's in Park Farm - it was open this time.

Life for me is quite difficult at the moment, My gorgeous wife, Sally and my equally wonderful daughter, Kayleigh moved to Turkey in November 2006. This means that as well as running a business, I also have a house to run too. My sons - Kieran & Liam live with me in Ashford, Kent and they do help me out, although life can be quite tough at times. There always seems to be lots to do, but no time etc.

As you can imagine, I miss my wife and daughter so much. I go to Turkey every 6 to 8 weeks and spend time with them. I am fortunate in the sense that my business functions without my being involved in the day-to-day running of it. I am a proper Managing Director, in the sense that I spend all of my time growing the business, looking at new technology, researching our competition etc.

Sally has been very supportive to me since starting the business. Although, she lives in Turkey she still works in the business doing Credit Control for one of our largest clients.

Anyway, back to my day. Sue, another of our Credit Controllers, is on holiday for 2 days, so, I need to make sure that the rest of the staff pick up on her work in her absence i.e deal with incoming phone calls and chase our clients debtors for payment. You cannot afford to "not chase" customers debtors for payment. It is important to ensure that debtors are followed up diligently. Were we to simply not chase the ledger for a couple of days, it would have a negative effect on our clients cash flow and we can't have this.

I also had an annoying issue with a piece of Software (Import Plus) that sits on the back of Sage Line 50. For some reason it is not working? I think the temporary licence has run out. I therefore had to e-mail the supplier and ask them to advise. I hope the issue is easily resolvable, as, without this software, we are not able to function properly. For more information on how we can show you how to get the best out of Sage Line 50 from a credit control perspective, please visit our website. The methods that we use to undertake credit control in Sage Line 50 will save you  lots of money and lots of time

The rest of the day was spent dealing with e-mails and updating and re-organising my "To DO" List.

This week is going to be a very busy week for me (no change there then). It looks as though, we will be starting work on 2 new credit control contracts. This means I will be spending lots of time setting up the new customers and devising new credit control processes etc. I also have around 20 sales prospects to follow up from my pipeline.

We really are growing at a rapid pace now - 7 years of very hard and intense work is beginning to finally pay off.

Many Thanks for reading.

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---

Sunday 23rd March 2008

Got up at 10am today - a well deserved lay in.

Did virtually no work today.

Tried to go shopping at Tesco's in Park Farm, but it was closed.

Came home and watched a DVD until about 1pm and then turned over to Sky Sports 1 to watch the Man United -v- Liverpool game. I was hoping that this match would end in a draw. I am an avid supporter of Chelsea and this would have been the ideal result. It would have meant that Chelsea would have been in shouting distance of the top of The Premier League. It also would have meant that Liverpool who were in 4th place would not have made much progress towards toppling Chelsea from 3rd place. Alas, it wasn't to be - Man United thrashed Liverpool 3 - 0.

At 3.30pm, Chelsea were playing Arsenal at Stamford Bridge. I am pleased to say that Chelsea won 3 - 0! Man United remain in top spot and Chelsea move up to 2nd. It looks a as though Man United will win the league, although mathematically, there is a chance Chelsea could still pull through.

I had rather too many beers whilst watching the match, so I slept off my excesses after the match and simply watched telly for the rest of the evening.

Many Thanks,

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---

Saturday 22nd March 2008

I got up at around 11am today (very unlike me to lay in so late)

I was very eager to crack on with my new venture - creating a new blog entitled "Entrepreneur Diaries" to keep track of my daily progress towards my goal of success and happiness. Notice I say "happiness" as opposed to "wealth"

The first thing I did was to purchase the Domain name - www.entrepreneurdiaries.co.uk

I then logged onto my computer at work to check my e-mails.

I composed a new e-mailshot to tell everyone in my contact list (circa 2,000 business contacts) about a new "FREE CREDIT CONTROL" offer that had just been put on our website (see copy of mailshot below)

------------------------------------------------------------

Dear ............

In order to improve our position within the outsourced credit control market place and to capitalise on our current growth, we are making you an unbelievable offer!

For customers that sign up for our outsourced credit control service, we are giving the first month of credit control completely free of charge.

I know what you're thinking:

• What's the catch? (THERE ISN'T ONE)
• Where's the asterisk? (THERE ISN'T ONE)
• Where is the "unable to read small print that is impossible to read without a 1000 times magnification magnifying glass"? (THERE IS NO SMALL PRINT)

This is a genuine offer.

For further information on all of our services, please visit our website

------------------------------------------------------------

It is very important to send out regular mail shots/e-mailshots. I probably send out around 2 per month. On average, I pick up around 6 new contracts per year off of the back of our e-mailshot campaigns. Putting this in perspective - it adds around £40-£100K to our turnover each year.

Incidentally, if you do send out a lot of mailshots by post, we can show you a way to save an absolute fortune on your fulfilment & postage costs. If you currently do all of your own mailshots, the true cost of the exercise will be around £1.00 per item, when you factor in

• Cost of paper
• Cost of ink
• Cost of envelope
• Cost of your time to sign, fold & stuff the envelope & to take to the post office
• Cost of stamp

I pay no more than 40P for each item of post and that includes all of the above costs. If you are interested in saving in excess of 60p for each item of post that you generate, please enquire here

I spent the rest of the day (until around 1pm) updating my website, my business blog & my new entrepreneur diaries blog

I am off out into the "Real World" at 3pm today. I am off to my brothers house for dinner with the family!

Many Thanks,

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---

Thursday 20th March 2008

I got up at around 8am and decided to actually go into the office (in New Romney) rather than working from home.

As usual, before leaving for the office, I switched on my PC at home to look at what was on my list of things to do that day.

Kieran (my son, who worked for me) and I arrived at the office at around 9.20am. On arrival at the office I was greeted by Sue (one of our credit controllers).

I sat at my desk and decided that I needed to look through all of the paperwork on my desk that I had not dealt with since coming back from Turkey 3 weeks earlier. There was nothing urgent to deal with. I posted a few invoices onto our purchase ledger, dealt with a VAT return for another of the companies I had set-up but not yet stated trading through.

Pam (another of our credit controllers) arrived at around 9.30am and made me a welcoming cup of coffee (always good).

Sue then announced to me that we had received another enquiry through our website from a potential new credit control customer. I tried phoning them, but there was no answer. I made a note to give them another call at 11am.

In view of the fact today is the day before Good Friday; I announced to the staff that I was going to take them all out for lunch @ The Ship Hotel, in New Romney High Street (I can be very nice sometimes).

Today was actually a very exciting day for me, as in the previous 2 weeks we had received an unprecedented 10 new credit control enquiries through our website. I was on a high. Still at the back of my mind though were the 2 customers we had lost 3 weeks prior (one of the losses was due to something very stupid that I did and the other was due to a change of circumstances). We have never lost a client due to poor service.

2 weeks ago, I was concerned that we were going to have to make a member of staff redundant - I mean losing £40K's worth of turnover is a very big loss to sustain. Cutting staff numbers seemed to be the only way out! I did not relish this prospect at all. I was honest with the staff and told them than unless things improved, we would have to consider redundancies

I telephoned our newest enquirer (Hamza) and explained how we could help him, discussed benefits, costs, process etc. I promised to e-mail him further details and a quotation by the end of the day.

I took the staff for lunch at 12.30pm and then went home to work on my quote for Hamza. I finished and e-mailed the quote to Hamza at 4pm.

At 5pm, Hamza phoned me to say that he had received the quote but had a few more questions for me. I answered his questions and I know that he will become another customer of ours. He is going to think about it over the weekend and will call me on Tuesday to inform me that the contract is ours (yippee). I will meet with Hamza at some stage next week to close the deal. I think he wants us to start work with him on Monday 31st March.

I am now absolutely knackered. The last 2 weeks have been manic and have taken their toll on me. I finished work and had every intention of lying on the settee all night relaxing in front of the Telly, but, in typical Jamie Style, my relaxation was constantly interrupted. This meant, I was constantly getting up from the settee to make a note of ideas and things I needed to do within the coming weeks.

I seem to live my life around "Lists of things to do"

Ah well - that is business for you.

Many Thanks,

Jamie - Credit Control Solutions Ltd  ---Making your cash flow ---