Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Dee Bowden with Collect the Cash. Welcome.

Dee Bowden: Thank you so much, Lee. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Collect the Cash. How are you serving folks?

Dee Bowden: Sure thing. So collect the cash is my origin story. So basically what I do is I work with and teach small business owners how to collect their unpaid invoices through a framework which is called four keys to collect the cash. Lee, I’m sure you and your audience probably have had that one client that you’re like, oh my gosh, it gives me the heebie jeebies when I have to think about having to go back and ask them for the money. So what my goal is, is to teach you and teach business owners how to go collect their unpaid invoice with confidence and know that they then that they deserve to be paid. I say it this way, collect the cash. The sale is actually not complete until the money is actually in your business bank account.

Lee Kantor: So let’s kind of dig into your back story. I mentioned it a little bit. Tell us how this whole thing came about.

Dee Bowden: Well, Lee, it’s a it’s an interesting journey. It goes like this. So approximately 20 years ago, I used to work for a small IT company outside of Boston, where originally from. I was there for you and your listening audience. It kind of goes like this. You know how you get hired by a company and they go, welcome aboard, here’s your cubicle or here’s your office, here’s your box and here’s your plant. Tongue in cheek. For me, it was, hey, welcome aboard. Here’s a cubicle. Here’s your box. And here’s a list of outstanding invoices totaling $8 million. I know, it’s like, wait, what? Yeah. That part. So I got I got told to go sit at this cubicle. Here’s your list of accounts. The salespeople had done a great job of selling IT services, you know, software licenses, all the things. But my, my, my colleagues who are senior collectors were not able to collect this out, these outstanding invoices. And so based on my experience with recovering money for government agencies, they’re like, okay, D we, we’re hiring you. We need you to bring that great government experience over here. Help us collect this money. So I’m a person of faith. I did my short prayer and then I went to work. And so basically I went to work and collected $6 million in 60 days while working part time Monday through Friday 48. Now, after hearing that, you’re thinking, oh my gosh, that’s amazing. That’s fantastic. That should have been like, yes, well, no. So what happened was the CEO of the company says, come downstairs, we’re going to have a chat. So I’m li I’m thinking me and my team, we’re about to get bonus checks because I’ve collected $6 million. My team has done really, really well. He comes downstairs and he says, listen, um, we’ve made an executive decision and we’re closing the company today and we’re letting 100 people go, including you right now.

Dee Bowden: True story. And so when I recovered from that, I was like, I went to work. I collected $6 million. The company closes, I lose my job. And then what started? They collect the cash journey was thinking about this. This could happen to small business owners if they don’t have processes and systems in place to to track their payments, track their customers, and most importantly, make sure they know when their money is coming in. And so, um, it really kind of took, took, took off when Covid came because I happen to love theater. So when Broadway shut down, I’m looking at Broadway and not just Broadway, but Broadway, all the sporting events, everything shut down. And I’m thinking, wow, there are small business owners that probably got their first contract with, say, you know, a sporting team or a Broadway’s Case. You’ve got vendors that finally get to sell their tchotchkes, their food, whatever. And those show because the shows, the shows didn’t happen, which means the revenue didn’t come in, which means unless they got paid up front and in full for everything, they didn’t get paid. And I just saw my story, uh, on the, on basically I say, you know, on fleek. And I thought, okay, nobody’s talking about this part of business, which is really important. And so, uh, thanks to my book coach who heard this story, she said, d yo, why is you don’t want to see another small business go out of business and you want us to win. So teach us how to win. And so that was the origin of how collective cash came to be.

Lee Kantor: So now when what’s the kind of the moral of the story? Is there a way to set up your business so that this doesn’t happen? Like you mentioned, being paid up front kind of solves the problem. Uh, but is that kind of, uh, feasible for most businesses?

Dee Bowden: It all depends, Lee. Because sometimes, sometimes you can get paid in full. If that’s if that’s your payment arrangement, like you can say before we’re going to do any work, we’re going to, I need, I need my payments done in full. But if you deal, if you have contracts, most people who have who have contracts usually are not paid in full. They usually they have a contract that’s awarded. They have a deliverable to, to, uh, give or serve, rather than they have to invoice their particular client, then they have to wait for payment. And so I teach that it’s important to track your, track your payments, and know how many clients you have and how much money is as outstanding to you. And so that when your payment, let’s say your payment was scheduled for 30 days from today, and if your payment doesn’t come in in 30 days, what’s your follow up plan to go to go basically engage that client and get your money?

Lee Kantor: So what is kind of that ideal follow up plan? Is there a standard, okay, this is how you do this.

Dee Bowden: Yeah. So I teach, I teach how to do this by, by a tracking system. So I’ll actually, if it’s okay with you, I’ll teach this. I’ll teach a lesson by how you bought your cell phone. Is that okay?

Lee Kantor: Sure.

Dee Bowden: Perfect. Okay. So Lee, thank you for coming into cell phones, phone company. What brings you in today? And normally you would say, you know what? I’m my phone is not working correctly. Um, I’ve had this issue and I say, well, Lee, before we can go any further, let me confirm that you’re a customer of cell phone company. Take out your driver’s license. You’ll scan, they’ll scan the barcode on the back of your phone. They’ll confirm that you are the. You are. You’re a customer of said phone company. You’ve been a customer for so many years. You’ve had your phone is whatever, iPhone, Android, whatever doesn’t matter. And then they’ll use it. Go like this. Lee, did you know you’re eligible for an upgrade? And you’re like, I didn’t come here to buy a new phone. I just want you to give me or help me fix my phone. The tracking system that I’m talking about through how you bought your cell phone is basically this there’s a sale, there’s a contract, there’s order entry, there’s order fulfillment, there’s accounts payable. The phone company will usually ask you, when do you want your bill, which is when they bill you accounts receivable, aka collect the cash. There’s a person in every phone company that’s collecting the payments every single day. Then there’s a section called notes for your listening audience. If they were going to track their payments, they would have a system that basically say the name of the customer, the contract number, if you have one, the dollar amount, um, the items that were sold when you supposed to deliver the product or the service, when you’re supposed to invoice your client, when you’re supposed to get paid in a section called notes, that’s basically a tracking system.

Dee Bowden: And that’s what I teach you, that by how you bought your cell phone because there was a sale for the for the for the phone you have now or the future phone, there’s definitely a contract. There’s order fulfillment where they went in the back and confirmed that they had ten phones that could give you one order entry. They put the new information onto your account. They want to ask you, Lee, when do you plan? How would you like to pay for this phone, debit, credit or cash? You’re going to make that transaction happen. You’re going to wait for these two magical words, transaction approved. And then you’re going to sign a new contract for the new phone. And then they’re going to transfer your data from your own phone to your new phone. And then you’re going to put everything in a lovely bag. And they’re going to thank you for saying, Lee, thanks so much for being a great customer of said phone company. The phone company had the every phone company has a tracking system. And what I described is what you. What you have is how you bought your phone. It’s the same, um, concept when you when you, when you look at your business, you have, like I said, the name of the customer, the contract number, the dollar amount, um, the item sold when you’re supposed to deliver it to them when you’re supposed to invoice them when you’re supposed to get paid. And I’m old school, I happen to believe in a section called notes because even though you can track everything, I believe you need to keep track of the conversations, the difficulties and resolution in the section called notes.

Lee Kantor: And then so like, say it’s hypothetically, um, I’m supposed to pay it off in 12 months and I pay $100 a month. Uh, that’s all there. And then so are most kind of payments nowadays, like recurring through a credit card.

Dee Bowden: Or some are, you know, it depends on it. Some are. Yes.

Lee Kantor: So so you’re helping when they’re not or if the credit card stops, um, paying like, like when do you insert yourself?

Dee Bowden: So companies come to me when, when they have a contract with, say a government agency or, or an, I’m sorry, an educational institution. And they’re, they’re, they’re, they haven’t been paid. So I’ll give you I’ll give you an example. So one of my clients is a professor and she actually did, had a, had a contract with a, with a school. And so she had been hired to do a set of trainings. And so she had been hired. They did the trainings, and then somehow her invoice never got processed for payment. So she reached out to me and she’s like, Addie, I need some help with how to, how to get my money because I’ve done the trainings. I have the contract. Um, I keep following up and I’m getting blown off. Can you help me? And I said, sure. So we basically, I taught her how to basically go do what do what’s called problem solving, which I said, we have to get the story behind what happened. So basically we had to find out how to do how was it, how was the contract set up in the system? Number two, where is the invoice? Is it still sitting on the person’s desk or has it did it get stuck in a system somewhere? And number three, we have to talk to the person accounts payable who can actually research and tell her or tell us where’s where’s your invoice in the system? Is it approved? Is it not approved? What’s the story behind it? What’s what’s holding up the payment? And then once we once we walk through that, she was able to get on the phone and ask ask several questions. And then in 24, 24 to 36 hours, she got her money. But she did that because we had. We. I gave her the right questions to ask and who to engage with to get to get the payment processed.

Lee Kantor: So is so what is kind of a mistake that some of these companies are making when they’re working with a large enterprise organization that has a lot of bureaucracy, or a government agency that has a lot of bureaucracy. Is it that they kind of lose track like they think the person they’re dealing with? Uh, once they sign the contract, then they think they’re done. But in actuality, there’s a lot more people who have to touch that contract in order for the person to be paid.

Dee Bowden: Exactly. You said I couldn’t have said it any better than you said it. Exactly. That’s exactly it.

Lee Kantor: So then then when you’re having people outside your contact that has to get involved that you’re not even aware of. Um, and then all of a sudden, here’s the day you’re supposed to get paid. It’s 30 days later, 60 days later, whatever it is. Um, and then you don’t get paid, you’re going back to your person and your person’s like, look, I, I’m done. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t control the check. You know, I did my part. So now you’re kind of on a treasure hunt to try to find all the people to kind of talk to.

Dee Bowden: Yes. Yes. Lee. That that is that is oh my gosh, you, you, you have said this, you set this up beautifully. And that’s exactly what happens. Because what happens is this a lot of times, you know, you get you land your contract and of course, you know, you get the contract, you have the deliverable. But what happens is, unfortunately, once the contract is signed and once you do your first deliverable deliverable, excuse me, no one usually explains to you that you also have to build a relationship with the person that accounts payable, because that’s the person who actually you submit your invoice to them, he or she has to process that invoice and make sure that it’s actually, you know, set up correctly in the system that it’s been approved for payments. And, and I think what happens is people get so excited about getting the contract, but they, they forget that it’s my tagline is collect the cash. The sale is not complete until the money is actually in the bank. One of the things that I feel like small business owners are not really good at is problem solving. They don’t know how to go back to your to your great example. They don’t know how to go back and do a treasure hunt. They don’t know how to go back and figure out, okay, I got my contract. Great. I set my deliverable. Great. I looked in the contract and it has this section on invoicing. I have to do the, you know, submit it to a portal, submit receipts, all the things they’re like and thinking, great, okay, I did all that and I’m thinking, yep, it’s set.

Dee Bowden: They don’t realize that after it’s submitted that you still have to follow up. You still have to make sure that it was it was received by the right person that it was in on time. Um, if there was a, if you got an email or a ding and said, oh, your, your payment is being held up for the following, uh, issues that they, either they or someone on the team has to go in and research and figure out what’s the disconnect, what’s the problem, what’s holding this up? And unfortunately, because we are, we move so quickly, we feel just because we submitted it and we did it, we’re done. No problems. But that’s that’s the part, that’s the part you just mentioned so beautifully. It’s a treasure hunt. And I think most people, most small business owners and most business owners in general don’t like to have to go back and do that because of course, they feel like because I did the work, I submitted the invoice, I should get paid to do it, and we’re done. But it’s not always like that. And where I come in is that I teach you how to become a really good problem solver because and if you don’t figure out how to untangle the disconnects, you’re not going to get paid.

Lee Kantor: And a lot of people are kind of hesitant to, you know, they don’t want to risk losing the account. There’s a lot of fear and there’s a lot of dislike of confrontation, uh, when it comes to this type of interaction around money. So I mean, that comes into play too. I’m sure the psychology of this.

Dee Bowden: Absolutely. And I’m so glad you said that because that’s one of that’s one of the things that I talk about a lot. I say it this way, as confident as you were to ask for the sale or ask for the business, you have to be just as confident as for the ask for the payments, because you can’t be afraid to go back and engage with your client, especially if you have a contract and you’ve done the work. And if you’ve if you’ve been managing that, managing that relationship correctly, it would be you’ve received the contract. You’ve, you know, done the work. You’re following up to make sure that if there were any issues that things have been addressed, you’re not waiting until, oh my gosh, let me just go ahead and submit this invoice. I’m just I’m not going to say anything to my client. No. The relationship that you that you got when you got the business, it’s maintained all the way through. It’s all the way through. When you did your first presentation to when you actually submitted your, your proposal for the work, then you got the contract, then you have your deliverable, then you have to invoice them. Then you have to do the work, then you have to get paid. And you are constantly making sure that if any balls have been dropped. And here’s the thing. If you’ve made a mistake, this is this is the part of facing your fears. Admit that you were wrong, say you’re sorry, and then ask. Ask how can we? How can we together course correct this so I don’t make I don’t make this mistake again or you don’t make this mistake again.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And that’s great advice for the listener out there. The business owner that thinks their sale ends at the. Yes. And it really doesn’t end at the yes. You really have to create this holistic system that that captures the whole process from the. Yes, all the way through the check being cut. Because if your process ends at the yes, there is invariably going to be issues at some point with the getting paid part. And if you don’t have a system that addresses that element of it, you’re going to be waiting for money. And that could really hurt your business.

Dee Bowden: Absolutely. And that’s and thank you, Lee, for saying that, because that’s why that’s why I created the cash, because I, like I said, I went to work for a small company and what happened to me and what happened to the company is something I don’t want to see again. And so I feel like what happens in business is that, of course, the sales are celebrated as they should be. And I feel like that’s that’s the part that everybody seems to focus on. Okay, I got to get a new sale. I got to get a new contract. I got to do this dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. But I’m like, okay, after you win the business, you have to make sure that you do the work or sell the product or whatever it is, but you also have to make sure that you have a tracking system in place. And what do you do if you if you if the payments are missed? Okay. Do you have it or do you have, uh, triggers or tickers set up on your account? So that’s okay. This account is due on this date hasn’t come in. Okay. Next day or are you, are you are you? How is your follow up system? So are you doing a call? Are you sending an email? Are you doing a text? Are you reaching out to your, to your, your client and saying, hey, um, just want to do a follow up.

Dee Bowden: I just noticed that, you know, my payment was due on this date. It didn’t come through. And then one of the ways I believe you do this is you do it not from a, you owe me the money perspective. It’s more like, how can we solve this together? I teach solutions based collections because I feel like a lot of times it’s not that they didn’t they didn’t plan to, they didn’t plan to not pay you. Balls got dropped. But if you approach it from, how can we solve this? It means, okay, I’m taking responsibility for noticing that my payment isn’t in. I want to sit down with you and figure out, okay, how can we talk this through? Because maybe there’s something that was missed. For example, let’s say the invoice was submitted. Um, the approvals went through, but somewhere in the system, because we deal with systems somewhere in the system, you know, as it was going through the workflow, there was a button didn’t get that didn’t get pressed.

Dee Bowden: Well, you wouldn’t know that unless you had a conversation that helped them work with them to figure out, okay, where is it in the system? And then the second piece is that, um, I feel like it’s really important for you not to be aggressive in your approach. I personally believe that it’s more solutions based, problem solving based, and it’s also expressing gratitude because the person I know this from, because of the work I’ve done, the work, the person that takes your phone call, that helps you untangle where your invoice is, one deserves respect too, I believe. I just believe in expressing gratitude because that person is is doing two things. One, they’re taking your phone call. Number two, they’re going into the system and untangling why you haven’t gotten paid. And number three, they’re taking time to teach you. If you made a mistake with how you submitted your invoice. This. These are the steps you need to do so this doesn’t happen to you. Again, I feel like that part of business gets it gets ignored because people feel like, oh, it’ll just, it’ll just, it’ll just, it’ll just take care of itself. And that’s not always true.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And there are a lot of people are quick to turn this into a, uh, adversarial situation when it doesn’t have to be, it can be very collaborative. Look, we’re on the same team here. I do good work for you. You’re my client. I want to continue doing good work for you. Help me solve this problem. That’s a much better kind of tactic, you know, giving each other grace rather than saying, hey, somebody’s screwed up. Fix it.

Dee Bowden: Exactly. And that’s. And you, Lee, you. I’m so enjoying this. You just summarize how I teach that. That’s exactly my approach because number one, I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve done it for several government agencies and obviously in the IT space. And I learned, you know, early on that being adversarial didn’t did not, did not bode well for me. What I learned was, okay, how do we collectively fix this issue? How do we collectively untangle this? And then also, like I said earlier, I, I really do believe that the person who takes your phone call answers your questions and helps you understand what mistake you made and gives you a chance to course correct it. And I’m old school, so I believe that if they tell you what you what you messed up on, take notes, write it down. Make it. I’m old school. Make a template. Make an example of it so that you don’t do this again. Because sometimes I mean, all of us, you know, when we’re when we’re in business, we, you know, we’re, you know, we’re solving, you know, solving the problem that we got hired for. We’re doing the things. And then sometimes we just drop the ball. And I feel like when somebody helps you understand where, where your disconnect is, one, it’s gratitude. Two, it’s take notes. Three, it’s I’m old school. Make a, make an example so that you realize, okay, we forgot the contract number or we forgot to include the receipt or we forgot this. Let’s, let’s, let’s set up an example so that we don’t do this again. And so that we, we make sure that our cash flow continues to come in on a consistent basis.

Lee Kantor: Right. Because I’m sure a lot of the times it’s just a miscommunication. It’s like you like to set up your invoice with this number scheme, and they like it with this number scheme or they have, it’s some little silly thing in hindsight, but it’s just the way that each of you like to do business. But until you’re on the same page, then it’s not going to work. So you just have to kind of get on each other’s same page.

Dee Bowden: Exactly. And that’s, and that’s, that’s so true because in, in, on the corporate side. And I, you know, I come from the government side. Yes. A, you know, there are systems on both. And so if you, if you miss something. So for example, because like I said, I come from the government space, if you miss putting the contract number or the task order number or, um, if it the invoice requires receipts or backup support, uh, I’m sorry, backup supporting documents. If you forget one piece of paper that can hold up your entire process for getting paid, people are like, are you serious? I’m like, I’m very serious. I mean, I’ve seen this for years. And so attention to details is another thing that’s really, really important. And I also feel like this, um, when you, when you, when you, when you win your contract or when you win your, you know, your business, one of the most most important things you could do is when you, once you, once it’s all the documents are signed, find out who’s the person that is going to get your invoice. Ask for a ten minute call with a call a meeting with them so we can go. Listen, Lee, this is deep.

Dee Bowden: Listen, I’m so happy to be, uh, working with you. I’m excited to have you as a new client. I want to make sure we get off on the right foot. Can we? I have a ten minute call because I just want to review how you prefer your your invoices, uh, submitted. So that one, I set this up correctly in the system. And two, I don’t cause you any headaches. I don’t, and I don’t, don’t, don’t make any mistakes. And it’s like, oh, you want to meet with me? Absolutely. I want to make sure I want, I want our relationship to start off on the right foot. So I’m asking you for direction on how to best do this because no one, I’m new. I’m new to your system. And I want to make sure that myself and my team, we understand this is the way that things are due. This is the process. This is the checklist. This is what you need. And so we could if we could go over that before we get started, I think that would help us serve you better and make sure that you get what you need and that we get paid on time.

Lee Kantor: Right? Like that ten minute call is going to save you headaches, grief and get you paid faster.

Dee Bowden: Exactly. Exactly.

Lee Kantor: So now let’s talk about collect the cash. Um, in terms of who is your ideal client? What is who is like you mentioned government. You mentioned it. Um, do you have a niche or do you have kind of a sweet spot in, in where you’ve worked and where you’re good at getting the money or, and teaching?

Dee Bowden: Yeah. So my sweet, my sweet spot is sorry, my sweet spot is for the small to medium sized, um, software companies and IT companies that are, you know, they’ve got revenue between 2 million and say ten. Um, their invoices are either 30 or 60 days past due. They’re the other companies that are scaling and they’re doing great, but they’re like, oh, we don’t really have a system and we need help with collecting this money because we’re, we’re getting the business and we’re growing, but we don’t we don’t have our systems in place to basically track this. So that’s one. And then two, it would be would be the consultants who are very similar to the story I told who are teaching either at, at, at universities or colleges and or doing other consulting work. And they’re like, okay, I’ve got the contract. Uh, but I did the work and I haven’t gotten paid and I’m not comfortable going back to ask for it. They’re my, they’re, they’re my favorites. Because a lot of times, it’s not that they haven’t done, they haven’t done great work. They sometimes lack the confidence. And so in order to in order to break this fear, we have to have. We have to have a conversation about why are you not confident to go back and ask for the money? Because I say it this way. As confident as you were to ask for the business, you have to be just as confident to ask for the payments. So once I can show you that the sale and the payments go together, that’s my sweet spot.

Lee Kantor: Now, who is kind of the your client’s client because that’s important too, right? Because the IT firms are working with the government. That’s probably perfect for you. But is there a certain groups that, um, that there that you can help them better with? Or is there a certain that are like untouchable where I do not want to work? If you’re collecting from this type of person, I’m not, that’s not what I do.

Dee Bowden: Yeah. Well, I, for one, I don’t well, I definitely don’t do, uh, consumer debt. That’s not, that’s not that is not my space at all. I mean, I, so the people who, you know, when people hear collections, they think, you know, medical bills, uh, boots on, right?

Lee Kantor: So you’re like B2B.

Dee Bowden: I’m definitely B2B and B2C. So yeah, if you’re in the B2B space, the B2B space, that’s, that’s my sweet spot, right?

Lee Kantor: Because, um, and like you said, that’s a different world, right? When you’re doing consumer debt. And, uh, I do, I, for me, that would be, I wouldn’t want to be involved with that at all.

Dee Bowden: No, not at all.

Lee Kantor: Um, but I can see where, um, when you get good at where you’re at. Uh, that’s definitely a need because those are accounts, it could be substantial amounts of money. And you know, those kind of situations where they don’t have a problem kind of delaying, you know, 30 days, turning to 60, 60 to 90, and all of a sudden it’s a half a year from when you did the work to when you’re getting paid.

Dee Bowden: Right. And if you don’t have a right and a good point, if you don’t have a system in place where you’re not tracking that, that’s kind of why I shared the story about it’s so important to have a tracking system. And your tracking system is, is however, you, however, you as the business owner need to set that up. My point is, is that you need to know how much money is, is, is two things. If you’re, if you’re dealing in contracts, how much is the contract worth? And then you know how much money is outstanding. Um, one of the things I’ll say is this, I mean, some small business owners have, you know, great capital and great cash reserves. So if they’re not paid in 60 days, I’m 30, I’m sorry, 60 days or 90 days, it doesn’t impact you. But for the other business owners that may not have huge capital or huge reserves. Getting paid, getting that money upfront, upfront, and or in 30 days. It matters because they’ve got themselves to pay. They’ve got staff to pay. They’ve got, you know, advertising to take care of. They’ve got, you know, the website and all the things. And so I stress the importance of tracking payments because one, what doesn’t get tracked doesn’t get measured.

Dee Bowden: That’s the first thing. And secondly, it’s really important to know that how are you going to plan your revenue? How are you going to plan your your cash flow? How do you plan for, you know, for example, we’re coming to the end of Q2 2026. So if you don’t know how much money is due in the next seven days, how are you going to plan for the rest of, you know, the rest of Q2 and then basically start projecting for Q3 and Q4? If you’re if you don’t address what’s owed to you now, this this will go from June to July to August and then keep going because you’re like, okay, I, I know they’re good for it. I don’t want to bother them. Know it’s the process is the sale is not complete until the money’s in the bank. You have to do the follow up. You have to ask the questions. You have to get really good at understanding that your sales process and your AR process go together, and you’re tracking your payments because that’s what you need. In order to run your business, you need revenue, you need cash, right.

Lee Kantor: And, and it’s one of those traps that if you’re in a high growth area and you’re growing like crazy, you may not notice it unless you have a good system in place.

Dee Bowden: Exactly, exactly.

Lee Kantor: So now do you have a story you can share? I mean, you mentioned that kind of the origin story about you being able to collect so much money in such a short period of time. Um, do you have a client story you can share that you helped a client recover some money or get, or help them kind of, um, get a system in place that helped them, you know, grow and get to a new level.

Dee Bowden: Sure. Absolutely. So one of my clients, uh, about a year ago, so she is a, she’s a professor that does training for universities. And so what happened was she had been hired to do. She had been hired to do, I think it was six. Six sessions of training. And so she had done the trainings. And what happened was, um, the person who brought her in said, yeah. Your contract is set up, you’re in the system, all the things. And then she realized that, okay, I’ve submitted, I’ve done, I’ve done six trainings, I’ve submitted my invoices and the payments have been here. And so she reached out to me actually on LinkedIn and said, hey, I need some help. And so we had, we had a call and I said to her, okay, tell me the story. Because basically I wanted to find out, you know, what happened. And she explained to me that she said, well, one of the things, um, she goes, I’m an introvert. I really don’t like, you know, confrontational conversations. I said, well, this isn’t confrontational. This is you were hired to come in and do these trainings. You were hired to come in and teach this, this, these, this staff how to do their job better. I said, okay, so what we’re going to do is this, we’re going to we’re going to start with the first key in my four key is problem solving. We’re going to find out what’s the story. So I said to her, we got to go back to the person that hired you and say, okay, let them know that your payments haven’t come through, but you want them to understand that you like working with them.

Dee Bowden: You want to continue working with them, and you want to make sure that we can untangle this so we can move forward. Second thing, my second key is customer service. I said, you have to tell you have to go find the person that accounts payable to find out who, who are they and explain to them what happened and that you can tell them that the contract was approved, the payments were approved. You just want to understand where is it in the system? Third key is gratitude. I told her, and I tell everybody, I believe in expressing gratitude for the person who takes your phone call, who helps you untangle your it, untangle your payments, and then helps you get that, get that payment. So then the fourth key is building relationships. I explained to her and I explained to my clients, you, you built a relationship to get the business. You have to continue to build that relationship all the way through. And so I said to her, we’re going to go back and go go through these four steps. And I said, you’re going to talk to a person and you’re going to ask them, can they can they check the system? Can they confirm that the payments were processed? And then when will it get paid? Well, she did those four things and then 36 hours, she actually got her. She got her payment. And the coolest, the coolest tribute she did to me did for me rather was she wrote a post on LinkedIn called Story Time and she talked about how in 30 minutes she got her money that had been hung up for over 90 days.

Lee Kantor: Wow. That’s amazing. And the impact is real. And, and I’m such a big believer in systems and processes. If you get that right, it solves so much, so many problems and relieve so much stress.

Dee Bowden: Absolutely, absolutely. And I’m so glad you said that, Lee, because I feel like that’s the that’s the part of business I feel like people are, aren’t really talking a lot about because, you know, if you if you like, look, if you look at look over the landscape, a lot of things are, you know, it’s, you know, AI, which is great, but AI is a tool. It’s also a system. Um, I feel like what happens is that because, you know, we start our businesses, we, we, we believe we can solve, solve this issue better than anybody else or differently all the things. And that’s fantastic. But if you don’t have systems in place, you don’t have, you have no way to know where things stand. And I think that’s why this this conversation is so important because yes, you can land your sales. Yes, you land the business, all the things. But knowing, knowing basically the state of your accounts, the state of your dollar. So you know that, okay, I’m expecting 10,000 are expecting 100,000 or whatever the dollar amount is this month that allows you to plan if you if you if here’s the thing, if you don’t know how much money is supposed to come in, how do you plan, how do you plan? That’s, that’s really, that’s really one of the, one of the important questions to ask is, how do you plan. And also, if you don’t have systems in place, let me say this. Don’t feel bad about it. Go figure out what you need to do to get the help to change that, so that you don’t end up spending the next six months of this year the same way you did the first six months.

Lee Kantor: So what is kind of that pain or the trigger point where people contact you? Is it something that happens is like all of a sudden they see their, their 90 days behind or like where, what’s kind of the, the typical aha moment that, that your next client is about to face where they should be calling you.

Dee Bowden: Great question. First time? Well, it’s actually it’s exactly what you said. They’re looking at they’re looking at their list of accounts and they notice, oh my gosh, I haven’t gotten paid in 60 days. And they’ll call, they’ll reach out to me and they’ll say, D, I need to book a call with you because I, I, I need I, this client matters a lot to me. And I, I don’t, I don’t have the strategy of how I’m supposed to engage them because of course, you know, I got the sale, but I didn’t think they think it all the way through and go, oh, I got I because I just assumed I was going to get paid. How do we, you know, how do we have this conversation? That’s the first time, second, second time, they’ll reach out to me and they’ll say, D um, I’m, I’m owed a lot of money and, um, I’m, I’m uncomfortable. I’m most of the time they reach out to me, they’re like d I’m uncomfortable. And I’m like, okay, well, we have to deal with your uncomfortableness, but we also have to come up with a plan. So that one, let’s, let’s figure out how did you get here? What system can we put in place was basically a tracking system that. How do we address this so that you don’t you don’t keep making this, keep making the same mistake again.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody needs help or wants to get a hold of you or your book, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Dee Bowden: Best way to connect? Well, first of all, let me say thank you for this opportunity. So the best way to connect with me is one. One is on LinkedIn. My name, Dee Bowden. The website for the book is collectthecash.biz/book. That’s w w w dot collect the cash.biz/book. If you get the book from me directly, I sign it for you and send it to you.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, Dee, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Dee Bowden: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.