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Debt ReliefSmall Business Financial obligation Collection Letter Writing
by:
Joel Walsh
Writing a financial obligation collection letter is one of the most important skills of any small business owner. Do you have what it takes to get the money you’ve earned?
I have a confession: I'm a business writer who's let clients get away with not paying me--a immense sign of failure of my writing abilities. You see, I ne'er
knowing one of the most important writing skills for any self-employed person or small business owner: how to write a financial obligation collection letter.
Debt collection letters--an summary
"Debt collection letter" in the singular may be an oxymoron, since unfortunately, one is seldom
enough. You should have a series of letters to send to defaulter clients, each one becoming a little more insistent. Here are several ideas for a five-letter series.
1. Don’t do your 1st letter look like a collection letter at all. Do it a friendly note. You’re more likely to get money from person who thinks of you as a partner than a dun.
2. If that 1st letter doesn’t get a response--and normally it won’t--send another the next week that’s more pressing and directly asks for the money. Express your concern that you have not been able to contact the client. Ask if he or she is all right, and if he or she is having any trouble paying.
3. The next week, if you still have not gotten a response, send a letter referring to the payment terms in the agreement you and the client originally ready-made (you did have several kind of written agreement, even as if it was just on the back of your invoice, right?). Mention the effect this nonpayment is having on your cash flow, and that your business’s cash flow is just as important as theirs.
4. Still no response by the next week? State plainly that you are asking for the money for the final time before referring it to collections. Include a copy of the entire agreement between you and the client.
5. If you still have not detected
back from the client, and are confident that you do not just have a problem with their contact information, call a collection agency—in fact, you may have wanted to have gotten a collection agency from step one (more on that below).
More Tips for Booming Financial obligation Collections
Tip: Don’t wait to start asking for your money.
If it’s been a week since the payment point passed, it’s been a week too long. Send out that 1st “reminder” letter today. Don’t hesitate to send these letters as little as a week apart from each other. The longer your bill goes unpaid, the less likely it is you wish ever see that money again.
Tip: If you’ve been causing email, try causing paper.
For any reason, there are folk who take a paper letter more seriously. There’s besides the real chance that your emails actually are not acquiring through reliably, or are ending up at the bottom of an overflowing Inbox.
If you do send email, do sure it’s digitally signed. A digital name proves that you sent the email to the specific recipient. In fact, you mightiness want to do sure all your emails to clients and prospects are digitally signed, to have solid documentation of everything you said, and everything they owe.
Unlike with regular emails, the date, time, “to” and “from” fields can’t be forged, so the email has legal standing, even as more than certified mail. Piece web-based email programs cannot send digitally signed email, there are third-party services that wish let you send hundreds of digitally signed emails from a desktop email program for only a few dollars a month.
Tip: Follow up your financial obligation collection letter with a telephone call.
As any collection agency wish tell you, telephone calls are useful if your person has neglected the collection letters. But with caller ID, Caller Block and voice mail - if folk don't want to take your calls it is hard to reach them. This technique could be especially effective in the case of person with whom you cognize wish answer their own phone.
Of course, your writing skills won’t go to waste: you need to do sure you have written
what you want to say. You should take the same attitude and touch on the same points as your letter. Any you do, don’t let yourself get sidetracked, and don’t be embarrassed. They’re the ones who are putt you out.
Don’t cognize your deadbeat’s telephone number? Try looking up the “Whois” record of the business’s website, which normally has the owner’s telephone number.
Does all this sound like too more work?
If you’d rather be writing proposals than collection letters, there are small business collection agencies that wish take on financial obligation for as little as $20 each. After all, your client had enough sense to go to you rather than doing your specialty themselves. Shouldn’t you have as more sense once
it comes to your financial obligation collection letters?
Just about the author:
Joel Walsh is a regular contributor collection-agency-information.com See all his articles on small business financial obligation collection: http://collection-agency-information.com[Web publication requirement: use "small business financial obligation collection" as anchor text/visible link text for http://collection-agency-information.com]
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