Here’s the scenario:  A member of your sales team makes a cold call to a potential customer.  The customer greets the sales person with enthusiasm.  This seems to be the easiest sale the sales person has ever made.  There’s absolutely no sales resistance, no objections and the customer’s order is large enough to well exceed the sales person’s goals for the month.  In the euphoria of it all the sales person thinks they are really on their game and pat themselves on the back.  The customer even wants to know if the sales person can ship today. 

But what’s wrong with this picture?  This isn’t the usual chain of events that takes place to win a customer.  Could it be the customer is well over-extended as their current supplier has now cut them off and they are just looking for additional credit to keep their business going?  Don’t fall into the trap.  If you get a new customer or you start to get unusually large orders from established customers be cautious.  Make sure the people you are doing business with have the ability to pay you.

Another caution is accounts receivables from longtime customers.  Someone can be the best paying customer for years and all of a sudden from nowhere, they start to fall 60 – 90 days behind with their payments.  You need to have weekly reports from your accounting department so your delinquency rate doesn’t go out of control. 

Don’t become the bank for customers who are having financial difficulty.