Collector - May 2015

By Rick Doane, IFCCE

president’s

Sustaining Growth

While the first quarter often brings success, true results come from your leadership the rest of the year

The first quarter of the year is over and all of us, as owners, know one thing coming into the second quarter: don’t be fooled by the early success.

My father started our company in 1974 when I
was 12 years old. Every year since then I would
review the numbers with him and we would
dream about the success we could have if we
could duplicate the type of recoveries we
obtained in January through
March for the remaining part
of the year.

Americans as a whole have been paying down their debt from January to March, due to several reasons, for as long as I have been in the business. But we now enter the part of the year where the weather starts to get better (no, I really mean it—even this year!) and people start to think about family vacations and summertime. This is when your employees need you the most.

We as leaders need to make sure that everyone understands the basics. We know, all too well, that the rest of the year is when we are paid to lead our group.

There are so many factors that ultimately affect our recoveries. Some are things we cannot change, like consumers wanting to spend (perhaps above their means) as opposed to continuing to pay down their debt.

But some things we can do something about. As I said, the weather is getting better and this has as much of an effect on our employees as it does the people we call. It’s crucial to engage our employees on the importance of coming to work each and every day, even when that first day of truly beautiful weather (it’s coming, I swear!) shows up and we are hit with so many personal-day calls.

In a 20-day work month, one day is 5 percent
of your month. Poof! It doesn’t take a rocket
scientist to realize that if too many employees call
in, we are not going to fare well.
Spring seems to change people’s mindset. We
start to think about anything but work, including
beaches, boating, picnics, outdoor concerts, days
at the park, weekend trips to your favorite
amusement parks (OK, I have twin 13 year olds!),
gardening, fishing—well, you get the idea. It’s no
wonder we have to be on the top of our game.
We, as owners, need to stay focused on the basics
and remember to inspire our people to succeed.

I had the honor to sit at the head of the table and run the March ACA Board of Directors meeting. I don’t know how my predecessors kept the meetings down to one or two days, or got anything done, when we had a more than 75 members on the board.

The board is currently made up of 17 members, and they are all very committed to their tasks. We vet every subject so we know each type of member has been represented in their views on a particular subject. I am proud of what we have accomplished so far, and there should be some great ideas coming out in the days that follow.

One of the items I have been making headway on is the speed of the board’s decision-making process. Our committees are now giving us a much better look at their recommendations and the financial impacts, so we don’t need to send a good idea away for “cost analysis.” This should allow us to deliver more to members quicker than in the past.

Another issue that was discussed at the board meeting was Operation Choke Point. Under this initiative, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Department of Justice are reportedly intimidating financial institutions from offering financial services to certain licensed, legally operating industries the government doesn’t like—including debt collectors—in an attempt to choke off those industries from our country’s banking system.