Meet Dee Bowden | Creator/Author of Collect the Cash

Decide, Commit, Focus and Succeed

This 4-part framework is what I used to launch Collect the Cash and change my life.

Deciding is the 1st part of the framework. When I decide, it says that I am making a necessary change for the better. I trust the process and the follow through is worth the sacrifice.

Committing is the 2nd part of the framework that says after I make the decision, I am choosing to stick with it and see it through. It may have some challenges, but the challenges will show whether my decision was worth fighting for and showing up for consistently.

Focusing is the 3rd part of the framework that says that I have a plan for how I am going to reach my goal, I intend to concentrate on this one area until it is completed.

Succeeding is the 4th part of the framework that says that I have achieved the goal (s) I set for myself and along the way I added some additional steps

• Be Passionate
• Work Hard and keep going
• Be good at what you do or know
• Stay committed to the process
• Push the Limits and Expand your horizons
• Serve others Be a giver  
• Create new ideas and share them
• Be Persistent
• Express Gratitude
• Take time to celebrate the wins.

About eighteen years ago, I worked for a small IT firm outside of Boston, where I am originally from. They hired me as a part-time collections specialist. They had $8 million worth of sales on their books but not in the bank. Every time I say that part, I must pause because that is a lot of money. We are talking about a small IT firm, with less than 100 people. The sales team did extremely well, making $8 million worth of sales in software licenses and everything IT. The company billed for the services, but in the part where I come in, which is collections, they never did collect the cash.

I was given a list of accounts, and I am a believer, so I said a short prayer that said, “God, I don’t know what happened that they had this much money on the books, but not the bank, but I need you to show me how to resolve this.” After my prayer, I went to work and what I know about business-to-business collections, also known as Accounts Receivables, is that they are four things: Problem-solving, Customer Service, Gratitude, and Relationship Building. This was a huge problem that had not been addressed; if it did not get addressed, it would be a bigger one. Now, as great as that is, this part of the story was life-changing for me and what made me create Collect the Cash! I recovered $6 million while working part-time in 60 days (about 2 months).

The CEO says, “Listen, I want everybody to come downstairs, and we’ll chat. We come downstairs, and he says, “Listen, I want to thank everybody for your time. I appreciate all your services, but we have made an executive decision. We are closing the company today; You’ve got thirty minutes to get your stuff and leave the building. This happened two months before the holiday season. So, after I picked myself up off the floor, I was stunned, “What happened here? Because even though I recovered 6 million dollars in unpaid invoices, and the company had a team of collectors, something else was wrong. More things happened inside the company than just recovering the money. Still, the fact of the matter is that there was that much money on the books, not in the bank, and I produced this saying Collect the Cash: “The sale is not complete until the money is in the bank.” From that experience, I realized that many small and medium companies get so focused on the sale, the next contract, the next product, and the next one that they neglect the back-end processes. I created Collect the Cash to teach small business owners that B2B collections are necessary to stay in business. All the old and owed money is not lost but can be recovered. You need a strategy to collect the cash.