00:04.350 --> 00:14.130 Shawn Smith: I'll kick it off. My name is Shawn Smith, I'm the owner of Dedicated Commercial Recovery. We're based out of Minneapolis, we're primarily a commercial 00:14.130 --> 00:25.290 collection agency that does full nationwide legal, we're "cradle to grave" service provider. I'm going to talk about setting up policies and procedures for 00:25.290 --> 00:37.770 professional level internal department. I think a lot of this room is really good at giving money away. But quite frankly, if you can't get the money back, I don't 00:37.770 --> 00:55.380 think you're going to be here when the dust settles. I think a common issue is that we're, as funders, you are so focused on how can we sell more deals, the problem 00:55.380 --> 01:03.390 you're gonna run into is when the house is on fire, if you don't have the fire extinguisher set up, it's not the right time to go to the store, then and try to 01:03.390 --> 01:12.690 figure out which fire extinguisher you want, which one works best. Right? And that's a big common issue within this industry is it's so focused on writing deals that 01:12.690 --> 01:23.280 are not focused on their back end process. A lot of the things that you're thinking internally, because you don't emanate from our area, actually make our job a 01:23.280 --> 01:32.940 lot harder to get your money back. And it's very counterintuitive sometimes. So one of the first things I'd say is, when you're working with a collection 01:32.940 --> 01:44.580 agency or an outside law firm, you want to be setting up policies that make our job easier to get more money for you. If there's conflict, there are a lot of times 01:44.580 --> 01:53.130 it's your internal department that is really doing that. And you need to be collaborating with your third-party agencies, not just treating them like a 01:53.130 --> 02:01.230 subordinate and do whatever is told because you're hurting yourself mainly because your background isn't in 20-30, Mark, how many years of experience do you 02:01.230 --> 02:01.380 have? 02:01.450 --> 02:02.290 Mark LeFevre: 36 years. 02:02.360 --> 02:11.900 Shawn Smith: Right. So you know, that is a very common problem, you have someone with 36 years of experience being told how to do it, and you're costing yourself 02:11.900 --> 02:19.580 money. So one of the first important rules of setting up shop is don't set up policies and procedures and working with your third-party agencies that are 02:19.580 --> 02:28.610 actually costing you money, because you're telling them how to do the job they specialize in. And that's like us coming in and telling you how to fund when you've 02:28.610 --> 02:39.860 been doing it for 20 years, right? Now, the idea is, you know, you have to set up an internal process, and I like to call it either be a waterfall process or 02:39.860 --> 02:49.430 whatever that is, but it is a these type of accounts, you know, we're talking about first payment defaults. That account is going to be handled differently. There 02:49.430 --> 03:01.100 may be a guy who's communicating with you, and, you know, all of his payments are bouncing, but he's still communicating that those are two very different plans 03:01.730 --> 03:09.920 for how you handle that account. Do you have a process set up? Does your team executing on that process? Because typically, if I asked you as a funder, if you 03:09.920 --> 03:25.790 have any idea? Nothing. Like crickets in that. So you know, let's say I talk about is within that waterfall process? Are you protecting yourself? For your brand 03:25.820 --> 03:37.610 and what you want to see happen? Because every one of the funders has a different idea of how it should be done. What they want to do, when they want to do it. 03:37.820 --> 03:47.450 When is that account go to an attorney? What is it go to an agency? How long does it stay there? Does it get placed with someone else? Does it get purchased? 03:47.450 --> 03:58.250 Everybody has a different idea to do that. And I would say that the majority of the MCAs that we work for, which is over 60 different MCAs don't have those 03:58.250 --> 04:11.360 processes documented set up their internal team, you know only really the the big guys are doing that. And when the market shifts, and your default rates go 5, 8, 04:11.360 --> 04:23.810 12. And that becomes a bigger issue, you want to have things set up in place. So you know, I really wanted to touch on just, you know, setting up that process having 04:23.810 --> 04:30.650 a document and we're going to go a little bit more into depth with Mark and Kimberly. So I'll turn it over to Mark and we're going to just to set the precedent, 04:30.650 --> 04:38.780 we're going to just going to talk about a few topics, then we're both going to jump on or all three of us are going to jump on on a couple topics together and then 04:38.780 --> 04:45.110 we'll do Q&A at the end. And then the big thing is we're going to be at the back of the room and this is done and we'd love to take your specific questions 04:45.650 --> 04:48.380 then. So, Mark, turn it over to you. 04:48.600 --> 05:01.650 Mark LeFevre: Hi, everybody. Before going over this, it's a business policy I've had sound profitable growth. Shawn was speaking being sound developing a 05:01.650 --> 05:14.340 policy, this is what we do having policy in place, flexible, not in stone, okay, this guy did this, I have to do this, this is the first payment default, I have 05:14.340 --> 05:23.370 to do this, it's time to take him to court, it's time to put them to collections. There's a whole slew of things that you have to do. And have experience to do 05:23.370 --> 05:34.020 it and watch what happens, make mistakes with it, tweak it, that becomes a part of your business, that's being sound. Now, once your sound, a direct result has been 05:34.020 --> 05:46.890 profitable. Now, that's not running your business sound, and doing all that, and then just say, yea or nay to profit, it's a direct result. Then when you have 05:46.890 --> 05:58.530 profitability, then you have growth, whether it be company growth, personal growth, you pick it. But if you start with being sound, it'll lead to those two. 05:58.560 --> 06:08.940 Now I've looked at the measure of internal department results. That's another thing being sound if you've got a group of collectors. Do count how many calls they're 06:08.940 --> 06:18.690 making, do you have phone reports? Do you record their phone calls? Do you have results? Okay, they've made 50 phone calls, out of those 50 phone calls they get 4 06:18.690 --> 06:29.040 payments. There's different ways of accounting for what's going on. The way I think to determine is, what results are you getting to start with? I've got five 06:29.040 --> 06:38.010 people on the line, I'm not getting the results that I want. Now, there's phone systems out there that you can monitor phone calls, you can record phone calls, check 06:38.010 --> 06:45.600 with your attorney as far as giving notification or a beep on the line that you're recording the call and monitoring it. But that helps a lot because it keeps 06:45.600 --> 06:58.380 track of your call count. 120 phone calls a day you should get my opinion 15 - 20% commitments. And what you do with those commitments, how you close them will 06:58.380 --> 07:10.050 determine what happens with those each and every time. You can track it. Okay, I've got those 15-20 commitments, and 6, 7 of them are postades. What am I 07:10.050 --> 07:20.460 gonna do in locking down the others? Am I just telling the guy my looking to get them off the phone? Am I listening to what he has to say? How am I locking it 07:20.460 --> 07:28.620 down? You could listen to what the guy says. At that point. You say, Okay, let's make sure we have a complete understanding of what both you and I just 07:28.620 --> 07:40.860 agreed to. Tell me what it was. While I said on Friday, no, no, no, that's not what you said. On Thursday and go over it until it's repeated and he knows and 07:40.860 --> 07:52.800 understands. Okay, chances are that once again that will pay without a problem. Your follow up will be "Hey, look, we had an agreement what happened?". Also, 07:52.800 --> 08:07.530 you look at determining whether you should use a collection agency or law firm. Collection agencies and law firms are both needed. They work hand in hand. Use 08:07.530 --> 08:15.900 a collection agency for first payment default. You guys, Shawn said you've got somebody that says hey, look, I've run into a problem. Some that you can verify 08:15.900 --> 08:23.550 they've had problems with business, you've already looked at three months worth of bank statements, you see the problem, you've lowered payments to see if that 08:23.550 --> 08:35.280 helps. If that turns around, it comes back on track where they're making their payments, and becomes a good customer and even open to a second or redo loan. That's 08:35.280 --> 08:45.750 what you want. But if you see somebody that keeps giving you the runaround, I'll pay you, I'll pay you, I pay you, and don't. Then you need to take a look. Let's 08:45.750 --> 08:53.220 get it with a collection agency. Here comes the credibility of collections. I'm gonna turn you over a collection agency, I would say "I'm gonna turn you over 08:53.370 --> 09:02.580 for collections If it's not taking care of". Tell them on Tuesday, given till Thursday, on Friday, that account goes to collections. He's got eight invoices on 09:02.580 --> 09:10.410 his desk, and he's talked to eight different people. And somebody's gonna send them another letter and send them another letter. You told him on Thursday, it goes 09:10.410 --> 09:22.950 in Friday, he gets a call Friday, right? Then he knows that you're serious about getting your money, you have credibility in your collection efforts. When you turn 09:22.950 --> 09:40.950 it over, there's a dichotomy of characteristics. Again, with the first default, bad checks, disconnected phone numbers, skip ad business, new owners, landlord calls 09:40.950 --> 09:54.630 you and ask you "Do you know where they're at?". Keep an eye on that. And there might be some in house stuff that you can come up with yourself and determine hey, 09:54.630 --> 10:04.380 these are the certain policies. But remember, if you're setting these things up for policies, be flexible. Nothing is put in stone. Kimberly. 10:05.140 --> 10:13.480 Kimberly Raphaeli: All right. Hi, everybody. I'm Kimberly Raphaeli, I'm General Counsel at AMA Recovery Group. We are a collections agency, third party, we 10:13.480 --> 10:22.750 work just on merchant cash advance, we take no other commercial collections matters. We tailor our process just to MCA. So if you're a funder, and you have 10:22.750 --> 10:30.400 questions, I'm happy to talk to you after the talk, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about whether you should, because I'm a lawyer, whether you should use a 10:30.400 --> 10:40.660 collections agency or a law firm. It obviously depends entirely on the circumstances of the individual file that you're working your individual merchant. If you 10:40.660 --> 10:52.540 have a hard default of fraud. And you need to get them on more than just a contractual default, but a civil fraud that says things along those lines, you may be 10:52.540 --> 11:01.270 considering your law firm. If you've got just someone who's been NSF'ing, you've got them back on payment plans, they defaulted, again, like Mark said. That's 11:01.270 --> 11:12.070 when you might need some depth and breadth in your collections. Talented folks with 30-40 years experience who can jump in there and pull it up by the bootstraps 11:12.100 --> 11:21.490 and go out and find your merchant. That's we say, reach out and touch them. You guys are busy, you may have one person dedicated to collections, you may have nobody in 11:21.490 --> 11:32.200 your shop dedicated to collections. So you may be taking valuable resources away from your funding servicing operation, to go out and collect files that 11:32.260 --> 11:39.820 may be quickly on their way to death's door. That's when you want to get it out to your third party collections agency. And maybe not just one agency, you 11:39.820 --> 11:47.110 know, you may not want to put all your eggs in one basket, you may want to have more than one agency, because they may have a different approach. But getting 11:47.110 --> 11:56.770 it out to your agency quickly, while the merchant still viable is really important. I know a lot of funders feel like if they hold on to a file, I will get them 11:56.770 --> 12:06.790 back on payments. You know, I know my merchant best. While that is true, you do know your merchant best, allowing a third party agency to do what they do best 12:06.820 --> 12:15.040 on the servicing side, you know, really reaching out touching the merchants skipping them down, finding their numbers are disconnected the bit they claim 12:15.040 --> 12:23.620 they're not operating, let your agency go out there and do all the hard grunt work. Comb the resources that we have available to us because we pay for special 12:23.620 --> 12:35.200 services that will allow us to go out and find merchants much more easily. So let us do that work for you. A law firm can be great for taking a very 12:35.200 --> 12:43.870 difficult merchant, let's say you have someone who first payment default numbers get disconnected. Businesses just gone. Maybe it was a sham business, 12:43.870 --> 12:55.480 maybe it was just, you know, a show that send it straight to your law firm. That's a great, that's a great resource for them. If you have a COJ, you're 12:55.480 --> 13:04.000 internally debating, okay, what should I do? Do I file this COJ, do I not file a COJ? Obviously, if you go on the side of filing, you're going to be going to your 13:04.000 --> 13:15.130 law firm. But like Shawn said, make sure you have your fire extinguisher ready because if the COJ ends up with zero hits on your bank account, then you need your 13:15.130 --> 13:24.550 third party agency on speed dial to pick up that file on the back end. And then do the really hard grunt work of collections. That's where you have your back end 13:24.550 --> 13:33.730 collections expertise. Other things to consider on your COJ there was a talk earlier on it today. So I'm not going to duplicate a lot of what you heard. But there's 13:33.730 --> 13:44.500 a lot of risk associated with filing COJ's right now. There's reputational risk. It's kind of a one hit wonder in some ways. You do have all of your post 13:44.500 --> 13:53.020 judgment remedies, not just garnishing a bank account. But for the most part, that's what you've got your COJ for. Is to go out, hit that bank account and then move 13:53.020 --> 14:03.460 on. Oftentimes your law firm isn't communicating with the merchants, you know, if you get it over to your collections agency, communication starts day one, 14:03.640 --> 14:12.430 they're calling that file multiple times a day, the law firm may never actually talk to your merchant until their bank accounts are frozen. So those are just some 14:12.430 --> 14:28.690 things to consider. You know. Let's see what else do I have here. As COJ's become, I think more written with controversy. There's obviously all the state and 14:28.690 --> 14:36.760 federal like legislation that's in play right now that we may see some major changes. COJ's, I don't think they're ever going to completely go away. But they're 14:36.760 --> 14:44.740 going to be such significant guardrails that if that is your only collections technique, I think it's a little short sighted. You need to be prepared, like Shawn 14:44.740 --> 14:53.200 said, for this changing environment that's ahead of us. The way we play now is probably not how we're going to be doing business on the collection side in five years. 14:53.440 --> 15:02.680 So having your back end collections agency ready to go maybe more than one of us retained, to hit your collections effort, I think is going to be really 15:02.680 --> 15:03.220 critical. 15:05.220 --> 15:14.460 Shawn Smith: I would definitely agree with your choice of two agencies competing, and I have clients for the only use us. And if I'm giving them optimal advice, you 15:14.460 --> 15:22.320 have to make sure that the two are competing against each other, that they're getting the top rates. And I'd further advocate that you should be tracking them per 15:22.320 --> 15:32.010 batch, which is per month, and how they're liquidating. And then sharing that information, not this specifically company name. But like, you know, agency, 15:32.010 --> 15:38.550 one, two, and law firms can be in that as well. And then sharing that data with the people you're working with, because then they know where they're performing. 15:38.550 --> 15:48.000 And if they want more account, so when we compete, and we know what each other's numbers are at, we can specifically try to dial in and tailor to your accounts 15:48.090 --> 15:58.320 to increase our liquidation rates. And that is something where this industry with it being so emerging, I think, is, is not working hard enough on 15:58.320 --> 16:08.040 their sophistication on the back end to be able to do that so that they can have a lot higher liquidation rates. We're going to touch on a couple other topics 16:08.040 --> 16:19.380 here. One is just vetting a third party agency or attorney, and some of the things you should be looking for. You know, I'll start, you know, we're really 16:19.380 --> 16:31.650 passionate about brand protection, and how we do business. You know, what are you okay with? How much are you willing to extend your reputational risk? You 16:31.650 --> 16:38.430 know, are you looking at their Google reviews? or looking at their Glassdoor? Looking at their Better Business Bureau, it's important to look at who you're 16:38.430 --> 16:46.080 doing business with, and that you feel comfortable with that? Do you see him at these events? Do they know what's going on on the hill and in the States, you 16:46.080 --> 16:55.200 know, how involved are they? Because they're going to know where there might be a landmine in one state or something, you know, something going on. And I think, 16:55.200 --> 17:04.680 when you see companies here investing in this association of people, they're going to be a lot more in the know with what's going on. They're meeting with 17:04.680 --> 17:09.300 industry professionals on a regular basis. Is there anything else you would touch base on. 17:09.510 --> 17:19.590 Mark LeFevre: Yeah, I believe that this country is built on competition. Two agencies, yes, I can have seen that. If my clients are using me as one agency, I 17:19.590 --> 17:29.550 refer them to us three, every 90 days, drop the lowest performer and replace him with another. That keeps all three in a competitive way, and producing the best 17:29.550 --> 17:32.880 return on the dollar. I've never been dropped, 17:33.690 --> 17:36.840 Shawn Smith: You might run out of people every 90 days on that third one, though, I'm just saying. 17:36.480 --> 17:44.190 Mark LeFevre: But the thing that Shawn said about vetting, in the very beginning, I just have a way to get in this competitive business. And what people are 17:44.190 --> 17:56.730 looking for is be accredited. IACC, we're a member of. To become a member, they go through you check out your paying your trust account, and so forth. It's kind 17:56.730 --> 18:06.060 of a rigorous process, but it's a good Association to belong to. So you keep up with the business and what's going on in the industry. Now getting certified 18:06.060 --> 18:19.200 is a different story. We're one of the 29 in the world that are. It took six or eight months for an independent accounting firm, to go through our books, go through me 18:19.980 --> 18:30.990 to make sure we remittent payroll, no lawsuits, no regulatory complaints, I should be clean as a whistle. That to me, that's good to go to our client and 18:30.990 --> 18:41.100 ay, I don't know, I don't know who you're doing business with. Are they licensed, bonded insured, boned and insured in North Carolina, which is a trap, Arizona, 18:41.100 --> 18:47.460 I think it's a felony to collect in Arizona without a license. But you've got to know who you're dealing with. 18:47.461 --> 19:00.180 Shawn Smith: I think it's very common that agencies not involved in this association, let's just say as much are playing licensing roulette. 19:00.630 --> 19:01.170 Kimberly Raphaeli: For sure. 19:01.290 --> 19:11.280 Shawn Smith: And they're trying to fly under the radar on those states and collect. And we're investing 10s of thousands of dollars in licensing and accreditation, 19:11.490 --> 19:19.440 and things like that and making sure that we're handling the trust funds correctly. Those type of things that some of our competition is not. Do you know 19:19.440 --> 19:24.630 that? Do you know what to look for? Do you know what states they should be licensed in? Because commercial and consumer are different things? What level of 19:24.630 --> 19:32.070 bonding? What level of insurance? Do you know those things? And we're the people to talk to about that can help make that clear for you. 19:32.970 --> 19:42.090 Kimberly Raphaeli: I think part of vetting your agency to obviously MCA is a small, small area of FinTech. I mean, it's not small, it's big. We're big, right? We're 19:42.090 --> 19:53.520 a big group, but word of mouth is important. I think MCA is pretty collaborative with syndicating, and what have you. You know, ISOs and brokers that are working 19:53.520 --> 20:03.300 with funders, so find out who your friends are collecting with. Making sure they're getting remittances. It's as crazy as it sounds, some agencies 20:03.330 --> 20:10.950 who shall remain nameless, may not actually send you a remit. I mean, it's possible they take that money and run. There are bad actors in every industry. So making 20:10.950 --> 20:16.920 sure that your collection agency is actually going to send you the remit of what they collect is really, really important. 20:17.740 --> 20:20.920 Shawn Smith: That happens more frequently then people would believe. 20:21.000 --> 20:31.500 Mark LeFevre: I'm adamant about remits. I am, when I first, 15 years ago, became a member of the IACC. They had the room were in DC, where the owners and managers 20:31.500 --> 20:41.490 and so forth, and they introduced the new members. And you tell a little bit about yourself and that and they pointed me This is Mark LeFevre with 20:41.490 --> 20:48.540 Kearns Brinen & Monaghan. And I stood up and I said, thanks for having me. Thanks for bringing me the IACC remit to your clients are all running out of business. 20:49.770 --> 20:50.490 That's all I said. 20:50.930 --> 20:54.380 Kimberly Raphaeli: Yeah. Should we moved on to working with your agency? 20:54.660 --> 21:04.200 Shawn Smith: Yeah. And so the last thing we'll touch on is just, you know, once you've transmitted the account to your agency, just some things to help work with them 21:04.200 --> 21:16.470 more efficiently and effectively. You know, being clear up front with the results you're looking for. Expectation is unbelievably all over the table in this 21:16.470 --> 21:25.200 environment. And it's something where we want to make sure you have proper expectations. We've done, do a lot of upfront communication with expectations. Getting the 21:25.200 --> 21:29.790 accounts over issues, things like that. You know, 21:30.170 --> 21:40.190 Kimberly Raphaeli: Like, for example, you know, are you looking for just lump sum settlements? Let's say 50, 60%, 70%. Be honest with your agency, that that's what 21:40.190 --> 21:48.230 you're after? Because if not, you know, they may be setting you up on a payment plan. And, you know, I mean, some payment plans can be a slow death. So making 21:48.230 --> 21:56.600 sure you're really clear with your agency, how long you're willing to do payment plans for, is if there's dollar amount associated with it. Can you give your 21:56.600 --> 22:07.220 agency some bearer level settlement authority, so they can just take care of files for you in exactly the manner that you would want within a certain parameters 22:07.250 --> 22:14.600 so that they can be churn and burn. When you've got a merchant on the phone, you have a very small window of time to make a deal. And you could lose a lot of 22:14.600 --> 22:24.020 valuable, you could literally leave money on the table by having to go back to the funder, say, Hey, we got this deal, but you know, he's talking to two other 22:24.320 --> 22:31.940 MCAs, because you've been stacked 10 ways to Sunday. So we've only got a small amount of time to accept this deal client finally says yes. Funder says yes, you go 22:31.940 --> 22:39.950 back. Merchants no longer talking to you, they've gone dark. So giving your agency some authority to make some quick decisions on your behalf with parameters you're 22:39.950 --> 22:48.530 comfortable with is hugely important. And I would say the more aggressive, the better. Our interests are aligned with yours. We're never going to take a cut 22:48.530 --> 22:56.510 rate deal if there was more money to be made. You know, we only make money if we get the highest dollar. So just remember that giving your agency a lower 22:56.510 --> 23:04.550 settlement parameter does not necessarily mean less money for you. It gives your agency a lot of power to make deals on the fly when you've got merchants on the 23:04.550 --> 23:06.860 line. And that cannot be overstated, I think. 23:07.310 --> 23:14.720 Shawn Smith: Don't incessantly counter your agency on every deal. You're going to lose money, because those people are going to go and settle while they have 23:14.720 --> 23:23.750 money. We see it all the time. We've got a $30,000 settlement up and they're like we want 31-5, you know, I mean, like, what do you do? 23:23.750 --> 23:26.030 Kimberly Raphaeli: In one lump sum not two. like No, just take this. 23:26.030 --> 23:35.030 Mark LeFevre: Yeah. If you haven't talked to the guy for four months? A good thing you could do with your agency as well, to show transparency, my agency has a 23:35.030 --> 23:46.970 portal, 24/7 you can go in and look at your portal, look at your accounts, see what's being done. Look at the notes, pull reports. So you're more of a Hey, look, 23:46.970 --> 23:55.190 I need to know this information, boom, it's on your screen, instead of having to call somebody listen to their opinion and such. I don't think it's you need to 23:55.190 --> 23:59.210 micromanage all of it. It's just good to see. So you can account for what's going on. 24:00.290 --> 24:10.670 Shawn Smith: You have to clearly communicate with your third party agencies. If there's a problem, we're gonna we'll adjust. But we need to know about it. You know, I 24:10.670 --> 24:17.540 mean, if there's whatever the issue. When you're when you're getting your remittance that you don't like your report you want in a different format, whatever the 24:17.540 --> 24:25.850 case is, we're typically going to be able to meet that but every single funder has a different way of doing this. We need to know your expectations needs to be 24:25.850 --> 24:33.890 committed now if we don't make those changes that's on us. But clearly expressing your satisfaction or dissatisfaction just realizing that it's a process when 24:33.890 --> 24:42.020 you start with us to get that dialed in. Because we're doing what we think most people liked the best and that be you may have a different style like Kimberly was 24:42.020 --> 24:50.330 saying as far as now we want more settlements and now we're not concerned with the the payment stream or vice versa or we're concerned with pay rate because we know 24:50.330 --> 24:53.690 liquidation rate is going to follow that or whatever the strategy is. 24:56.750 --> 25:02.870 Kimberly Raphaeli: To circle back to kind of something that Shawn led with when we open the session. If you're going to the trouble to set up your shop, you're doing 25:02.870 --> 25:11.030 your own internal collections, you've got and like I said, you know your merchant best. Convey what you know about your merchant to your agency. You know, it's one 25:11.030 --> 25:17.330 thing to just send a placement over your agency, you've got your contract, most of your underwriting file, bank statements, all those things are really, really 25:17.330 --> 25:25.790 helpful. But if you take the time to put in an email, this merchant says he's going through a divorce, his wife's taking them for all of his money, he has nothing 25:25.790 --> 25:34.790 to pay, tell us that because we can start from there and move the conversation forward and not waste valuable time hearing the same story over and over 25:34.790 --> 25:43.040 again, that's bought the merchant time up until this point. That's why you have us here is to sort you know, circumnavigate some of those issues that have been 25:43.040 --> 25:44.420 plaguing your team internally. 25:44.600 --> 25:53.060 Mark LeFevre: Two things that will collect an account best. One, is your application because it has information. Information collects money, 25:53.240 --> 25:53.780 Shawn Smith: It's power. 25:54.000 --> 26:00.180 Mark LeFevre: You have no, don't know who the landlord is, you don't have any vendors, you don't have any suppliers. You have nobody to talk to to get their side 26:00.180 --> 26:09.750 of the story. That leaves you be able to do half you have to dig up rest, and not even getting the information that you need. Secondly, is how you close a 26:09.750 --> 26:17.760 loan, how you just drop in money on the table and get way. So you can go to the next one. It's how you close it, make sure the terms instead of up front, how much 26:17.760 --> 26:27.750 it is, when it's going to come out what to do if it's going to default. If you got somebody who does three or our defaults, and you don't hear from. It's a problem, 26:28.560 --> 26:37.470 and when you talk to them, you've fixed the problem first. We have defaults never heard from you so far, and so on. This is what we expect when Okay, not a 26:37.470 --> 26:47.670 problem. You can pull the default or you can pull a payment on Friday. That's not what I'm calling about. I'm calling about the default. And using let us know 26:47.700 --> 26:55.560 or did you contact us and say this is what's gonna happen. Okay, well, that I could take care of it on Friday. Now I understand. 26:57.630 --> 27:04.470 Shawn Smith: So we have a we have a small time for questions. We have a mic running the room. Does anybody have any specific questions that they really want to 27:04.470 --> 27:07.140 point out? We have a mic come in right here. 27:10.890 --> 27:18.360 Attendee: What would you say would be the number one tip or tips that you would suggest to people working in the collection agency? 27:18.810 --> 27:19.170 Mark LeFevre: Wow. 27:20.490 --> 27:24.480 Shawn Smith: Internally or with a third party like your internal person collecting? 27:25.620 --> 27:26.790 Attendee: No, I guess we're a third party. 27:27.150 --> 27:29.580 Shawn Smith: Like number one tip and working with a third party? 27:29.760 --> 27:30.120 Attendee: Yeah. 27:30.450 --> 27:32.010 Shawn Smith: The faster you get them the file... 27:32.010 --> 27:33.750 Attendee: Not working with working as 27:33.840 --> 27:35.730 Shawn Smith: Oh, as a collector? 27:35.760 --> 27:36.090 Attendee: Yeah. 27:37.320 --> 27:46.200 Shawn Smith: For me, it's, it's how you treat people. So much of my business is easy to collect, just because quite frankly, someone on the East Coast beat the snot 27:46.200 --> 27:55.890 out of them. And we just treat them like a human being and work with them. And I think a lot of this room could keep more accounts in house and get things 27:55.890 --> 27:57.570 collected if they treat people better. 27:59.400 --> 28:06.840 Kimberly Raphaeli: Yeah, I mean, I think that our motto is follows similarly reach out and touch them. It doesn't have to be cutthroat, you can do it in a 28:06.840 --> 28:16.200 responsible, measured way. And remember, you know, we constantly talk to our collectors about this. You're dealing with CEOs of companies, they may be small 28:16.200 --> 28:24.420 companies, three, five people, but you need to talk to them, like their CEO, you know, you don't berate them and treat them like their children, you know, you treat 28:24.420 --> 28:32.310 them like an adult who was capable of making this decision to enter into a merchant cash advance in the first place. What can we do to get you back on track? I 28:32.310 --> 28:36.510 mean, I would say leading there's, Shawn and I think are very similar in that way. 28:36.900 --> 28:44.310 Mark LeFevre: I think it's important, Shawn and Kimberly said, but when you speak with him, of course, treat him as an adult. Make sure there's understanding 28:44.310 --> 28:47.580 expectation up front. But ask for accountability. 28:48.000 --> 28:49.200 Kimberly Raphaeli: Yeah, for sure. 28:49.230 --> 28:54.120 Mark LeFevre: They have accountability of what's been happening, or what what happened, and how we're going to fix it. 28:55.500 --> 28:59.760 Shawn Smith: They have the velvet, but know that it's wrapped in a hammer if we can't work with them. 29:00.630 --> 29:06.600 Attendee: Follow up on top of that, when would you I guess, get tough? And how would you, you know, approach that? 29:07.440 --> 29:15.450 Mark LeFevre: I would, if I'm speaking with somebody, and I've heard more than one time that they we're going to take care of it and so forth. And it's going to be 29:15.450 --> 29:23.220 taken care of by a certain day, and it hasn't been, then I'd send somebody out there the next day. I want pictures of the building, I want to interview 29:23.220 --> 29:30.270 principals, I'm looking at licensing on the wall, I want to talk to vendors, I want the landlord to meet me out there, I'll see whose property out there is his. 29:30.390 --> 29:33.300 Whose property belongs to the debtor. And that's just the start. 29:34.350 --> 29:41.460 Kimberly Raphaeli: And the same somewhere with us. I mean, that will give you a couple broken promises one broken promise really because you've already broken the 29:41.460 --> 29:48.480 promise to our client, the funder in the first place. And after that, it's it's your you've got to be accountable. So now's the time you got to make the 29:48.480 --> 29:57.870 payment today, or we're going to send it to our legal counsel because remember, we can also send it to external legal as well. And you know, a lot of times 29:57.870 --> 30:06.690 that'll do the job. Not always but you do have to be tough. There's a difference between being tough and measured, and I think being overly aggressive and 30:06.690 --> 30:13.530 getting yourself into some trouble, because like one of the earlier panels were saying, you know, this is commercial, you know, FDCPA, the Fair Debt Collection 30:13.530 --> 30:23.130 Practices Act doesn't apply. But as a lawyer, I'll tell you, UDAP is very real. And it's something that the funder should take into consideration. How you treat 30:23.130 --> 30:27.060 people is every bit a part of fairness, and the law. 30:28.080 --> 30:34.800 Shawn Smith: Were situation specific on that. But we really push first called money and getting something up front to show their real as part of that accountability 30:34.800 --> 30:41.400 piece that Mark's talking about is that there's nothing that speaks louder than your actions, like put some money down. I don't care if it's 200 bucks, like show 30:41.400 --> 30:43.080 me that you're real now. 30:43.530 --> 30:43.980 Kimberly Raphaeli: Yeah. 30:44.010 --> 30:48.630 Shawn Smith: And then that, you know, now you have them recommitting to you. 30:49.320 --> 30:55.410 Mark LeFevre: Imagine if you can't, if they can't meet their commitment, if they keep telling you this and telling you that you have to chase them around. 30:55.740 --> 31:08.550 Husbands, wives, Imagine, if Sunday, Monday morning breakfast, PI shows up on your doorstep and knocks on your door. I don't know about you, my wife, I'll be 31:08.550 --> 31:16.830 sleeping in the dog house for a few weeks. But it's just it's you have to know what securing. I want to picture the house. I mean, come on, I've been out and 31:17.040 --> 31:27.990 seeing a house, it's not worth 20,000. You really got to look at where you stand, as far as being able to collect the account, at that point. 31:29.100 --> 31:34.890 Kimberly Raphaeli: And you know, there's some strategy to like, you know, Shawn saying, okay, so you've got a merchant that's in some real dire straits, maybe in the 31:34.890 --> 31:42.240 businesses out of business, and they're paying on their personal guarantee. You're getting 200 bucks in a month? Well, nothing, do it on a temporary basis, do it 31:42.240 --> 31:52.440 for 90 days, get the stream of payments coming in, get their commitment, see where they're banking, they probably change banks, right? And then you can you 31:52.440 --> 32:00.780 know, potentially, that gives you some some leeway when you're talking about COJ's or going with your law firm and getting getting a judgment going after that bank 32:00.780 --> 32:04.200 and garnishing, you'll only find that but putting them back on payments, even if it's small. 32:05.770 --> 32:11.680 Shawn Smith: All right, times up. I want to thank Sean and the whole deBanked crew for allowing us to come up here and speak on a subject that we're obviously very 32:11.680 --> 32:19.870 passionate about. And we think this industry desperately could continue to refine and do a much better job and they're working with third party 32:19.870 --> 32:28.780 vendors, which will result in more success for them. And Mark and Kimberly, thank you for joining me up here and we'll be in the back shortly after we get un-mic'ed 32:28.810 --> 32:35.560 to to answer any more in depth questions and we'd love to discuss more in depth how we can specifically be of help. So thank you for your time. 32:35.650 --> 32:36.250 Mark LeFevre: Thank you guys. 32:36.280 --> 32:36.730 Kimberly Raphaeli: Thanks