I believe that credit professionals should consider adopting some
or all of the following New Year's resolutions:
-
Resolve to return calls the same day you receive them
-
Don't waste your time with vendors soliciting your business on
the telephone
-
Take steps to become more of a generalist, and less a specialist
-
Call delinquent customers sooner rather than later
-
Consider becoming more active in your industry credit group -
perhaps by becoming an officer in that group
-
Place accounts for collection as soon as they stop communicating
with you
-
Be more proactive managing credit risk
-
Look for more balance between work and home life
-
Do a better job of communicating problems with the sales department
-
Be more customer oriented
-
Make deduction resolution a priority, not an afterthought
-
Become a mentor if appropriate, or seek out a mentor if one would
help your career development
-
If you make a bad hiring decision, don't compound the mistake
by keeping them simply because you find firing someone stressful
-
Resolve to leave on time [earlier than usual] at least once a
week
-
Be creative in looking for ways to make sales more safely
-
Stop trying to eliminate credit risk, and concentrate on controlling
it instead
-
Document your business related accomplishments
-
Invest time in your own personal and professional development
-
Don't take the job home with you...what you do is not who you
are
-
Work harder at prioritizing your work
-
If you have a weakness in a particular area [as an example in
customer financial analysis] resolve to address that problem this
year
-
Learn to differentiate between things that appear urgent, and
tasks that are actually important
-
Look seriously at acquiring at least one type of credit automation
software this year
-
Be more proactive [and less reactive] to work related problems
and situations
-
Delegate more work, and do so more often
-
Dress better than the norm in your office
-
Throw away your to-do list, and start with a must-do list
-
Don't forget to thank your subordinates and co-workers for their
help
-
Find out what management wants and expects from you, and then
figure out how to give it to them