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Jim Logan

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Jim Logan

Biography

In two decades of professional sales, marketing, and customer service life - including executive management at both public and private technology companies, serving Fortune 100, government, and international markets -- the most influential lessons I've learned on life and business originated from my time in the US Navy.

ARTICLES BY Jim Logan

Mincing Words: The Definition of Cash Flow

Mincing Words: The Definition of Cash Flow

How do you spell cash flow? "Cash flow" or "cashflow"? Better yet, how do you define it?

Are You An Invoice Procrastinator?

This will sound ridiculous to a number of you. Most will think this is crazy. But some of you need this as a wake-up call. Invoice your customers. One of the simplest ways to increase your cashflow is to invoice your customers on time. On time is whenever the subscription period, delivery, or other agreed terms of payment are met. It´s as simple as it sounds — invoice your customers. I once worked with a company that was habitually late invoicing their clients. They are a good company, provide a great service, and are thoughtful people. They just can´t get invoices out

The Rising Cost Of Fuel And Its Effect On Your Business - Part 1

This is the first of a two post series on the effects of rising fuel costs and what small businesses can do to minimize the fall-over effects to their cash flow. Unless you´re living in a cave or are in grade school, we´re all too familiar with the rising cost of gasoline. My local station is currently charging $3.24 a gallon and it´s expected to go higher. There are a lot of reasons for rising gasoline prices. And every reason is more confusing than the next. But this post isn´t about the reasons for rising fuel costs, that´s a heady subject and

When A Payment Is Due Can Make A Difference To Your Cash Flow

There´s something that happens each month to most of the bill paying public, we send more money out the last two weeks of the month than the first two. Rent, mortgage, utilities, etc. overwhelmingly fall due at the end of the month. Depending on your product or service, you may not want your invoice competing with mortgages in the fight to receive your customer´s money. A better choice may be to compete for payment earlier in the month, being paid from the first month´s paycheck, not the second. Something I like to do is stagger my receivables, with some invoices

An Employee Just Quit. It May Be A Great Opportunity For Your Business

You can´t be in business for any length of time without having to face a change in personnel. People come and people go. It´s reality. And it´s often opportunity. When faced with filling an open position take a moment and assess your business and its capabilities as compared to customers´ needs and desires. You may find there is an opportunity to add a skill-set to your company, in the form of a replacement hire, which opens new streams of revenue for your company. For example, a web development company may have an engineer that decides to leave to pursue other opportunities,

Settlement Offers, An Option At The End Of The Collection Process

In my last post I wrote about the collection process. More specific, I wrote about the end of the collection process and the use of collection letters. In that post I mentioned a strategy to settle debt just prior to writing-off the account. Here´s the strategy I referred to. When you get to the end of the collection process and are ready to write the account off, every plan, practice, and policy you´ve had in place to work with your customer has failed. The odds of curing the account are beyond reasonable. So, what are you´re options? Some receivables can be turned over

Two Critical Elements Of The Collection Letter

Collections are a reality of business. And collection letters are a reality of an effective collection process. That´s an item we´re now dealing with at — writing the collection letter as part of a multi-step AR collection process. Collection letters come at the end of the process, a last notification and opportunity to service a seriously troubled account. At this point of the process invoices have gone unpaid, phone calls haven´t resolved the issue, and there are little options left to explore. We´re ready to write-off the debt and turn things over to a collection agency. Simply,

Collections, A Necessary Evil Of Business

We all hate collections, buts it´s a reality of business life. Not all customers pay or pay on time. Regardless of whether you´re mowing lawns, selling your time or selling multi-million dollar technology solutions, the reality is you´ll encounter AR problems from time-to-time. As a reality, the practical objective is not to eliminate it (AR), but manage it as effectively and small as you possibly can. How do you best manage AR? That´s the problem we´re now addressing with Guardian Medical Group, as part of the . The first part of solving any problem, AR included, is

Slow Paying Customers

There´s good news and bad news of winning a big deal from a big company — you won the deal"?¦congratulations, you probably won´t be paid anytime soon. Experian´s survey of 366,633 companies shows businesses of all size are extending the time taken to pay their invoices. Big companies are the worst offenders, taking on average 80.6 days to pay their suppliers - often smaller businesses. Ouch! This isn´t anything new. There are few surprises in this analysis. Except maybe one"?¦the problem is getting worse. Average payment times have lengthened over the last decade. And they aren´t likely to shorten anytime

When Do You Pay An Invoice That´s Never Due?

Most businesses have clear terms of payment, either negotiated terms as part of a formal purchase agreement or a specific date stamped on a mailed invoice. There are many businesses though that have neither — either the billing solution they use doesn´t support date specific payment information or an oversight has been made in preparing the invoice. Looking at a number of business and personal invoices nearby, I see a variety of payment dates — Due Upon Receipt, Net15, May 26, and one that as no date. The most powerful is the date specific payment due date — May 26. Why?