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Successful collectors of business debt seem to possess a fairly consistent set of skills. But one skill stands out as perhaps the most valuable attribute of good collectors, who may not even realize they possess it: the mastery of negotiating. Like all collection skills, it can be developed with the help of some clear thinking, discipline and, above all, practice.
I grew up thinking of negotiations as high-pressure battles between adversaries, as in labor-management disputes over collective bargaining agreements (remember them?). In the 1980s, a host of self-help books flooded the market, offering negotiation strategies to "get what you want," and to become the virtual master of others in daily life. Neither of these images seemed relevant to the kind of collection contact my creditor clients and I make every day, and we never thought of ourselves as negotiators.
About 10 years ago, a psychologist friend hired me to collect some fees owed to his practice group by a corporate healthcare plan. I made a few routine calls to the insurer's payables office, then escalated my contact to the management level... and the account balance was quickly paid. This involved no mystery or heroics-just ordinary collection work. But my friend was impressed and asked me to share my "collection...