THE SALESMAN AS BILL COLLECTOR
Copyright 1998 Stuart Daw
(originally appeared in Canadian
Vending, February 1998)
"He
grabbed a large butcher knife and headed for the end of the counter, intending
to round the corner and extinguish us."
"A sale is never
complete until it has been paid for." These are the famous last words of
the accountant to the salesman, to which the salesman would like to retort,
"I sold it, you go and collect it."
One school of management says the salesman
made the sale and should be responsible for collecting. And because most
salesmen don’t get paid for an uncollected invoice, it is in their best
interest to do the collecting personally so customers’ passions will not be
aroused by some office bureaucrat dunning for payment.
The opposite school says salesmen should
concentrate on selling and besides, given their personal stake in adding
volume to the territory, they are the worst ones to handle either credit
granting or money collecting. All they should do is say to a new customer as
they hand over a credit application, "I’m sorry, but there’s a person
at the office handling credit. I’m sure you’ll qualify if you’ll just
take a moment to fill in this confidential form."
Either way the key is to set a policy with
resect to any customer and hold to it. If you give 30 days credit and then let
the first invoice slip to 60, the customer can’t escape concluding that 60
days are your real terms as proven by that invoice, and it’s hard to argue
out of it.
Fuzzy cheeked youth hits the
road
I recall my early years as a
fuzzy cheeked youth running up and down the streets and back alleys of Toronto
selling coffee to foodservice outlets. What a carefree and happy experience it
was, especially when the customers all paid cash. For that’s the way it was
at the old coffee company for which I was employed. The owner’s son was the
controller, and his job was cashing in drivers and administering the credit
policy, which was...like... "you can’t have any."
That’s right, everyone was
C.O.D I was the only salesman for that family owned enterprise at the time,
was given all of its 100 foodservice outlets to look after, and was charged
with the responsibility of growing the business too. But if I suggested to the
controller that a new customer wanted credit terms the answer I got was, in
effect, "credit, what the hell is that?"
In fact the no-credit policy
was so strictly enforced that if a driver brought back a C.O.D. invoice signed
for, I was summoned back to the office that afternoon to get the invoice and
go collect it. "Stchurritt," as he would call me (my name is
Stuart), "a C.O.D invoice is a contract saying cash has been paid, even
if it’s signed by someone, so get out and get the money before it’s too
late." This dubious interpretation of the law was excellent training in
sensitive salesmanship, because the restaurateur, likely temporarily away from
the cash register when our driver had arrived, would be unpleasantly surprised
at my arrival.
"That awful woman"
But there were some funny
moments too. I recall the time late in the day when I called the office only
to hear the dreaded order: come back to the office and get the invoice for
that awful woman at the Apex Lunch (the name has been changed to protect the
guilty). Now this really was no lady in the common understanding of the term.
And when I appeared at her lunch counter and asked for the money, only 20
bucks or so as I recall, she said, "Don’t be silly, if I had 20 bucks I’d
open another restaurant."
Back at the office next day I
sheepishly admitted failure to collect, to which the controller bellowed,
"What kind of a woman is she, anyway?" Thinking I’d try a little
levity, I replied, "Frankly, she’s a high-class Lady of the
Evening." To which he shot back, "WELL TELL HER TO GET BUSY!"
Then there was the time when I
was "training" Larry Pappas (a senior executive at Heritage in
Ontario today). By that time the company had relaxed its credit policy ever so
slightly, but the controller had reached terminal anxiety over a restaurant
that had an outstanding bill. So I drove Larry to the place to demonstrate the
masterful art of collecting. After a protracted discussion the proprietor
angrily took out a blank from his checkbook and filled it out for the entire
amount.
I knew we would never sell this
guy again so instead of just taking the check and bowing out gracefully, for
some reason the facetious side of me came to the fore and, putting my hand
over his, much like an appreciative parent might do, I said "You’re
going to feel good about this later."
As Larry recalls the incident
today, the man screamed in a broken accent, "If I was my father I would
kill you; in fact I think I will kill you." He grabbed a big
butcher knife and bolted for the end of the counter, intending to round the
corner and extinguish both of us. Larry and I backpedaled out the door and
raced down the street without looking back. We circled the block, jumped into
the car and streaked off unscathed.
And so, salesmen of the world,
don’t be afraid or embarrassed about the question of payment. If you get off
to the right start by being frank with a new customer, you can think of
Humphrey Bogart’s famous Casablanca-ending line to Claude Raines, "I
have a feeling this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
© 1998 Stuart Daw
