AB: All-Round Nice Guy

When you’re running a solo business, it’s hard enough job to separate your working life from your personal life - but when you add to that equation the constant task of invoicing and chasing up debtors, it might be time to call in a Bad Cop.

You all know the technique from the movies: the bad cop talks to the suspect in a threatening way, while the good cop plays the part of the understanding, apologetic soul, who’s trying to earn the respect of the suspect and keep the bad cop off the suspect’s back.

In regards to invoicing and chasing debts, the good cop/bad cop routine can be a great tool to allow you, the solo professional (the good cop) to continue your ongoing working relationship with your client, while a second person plays the role of the bad cop.

This second person or entity personally sends out your accounts, and follows them up in a consistent (and non-threatening!) manner - thereby delineating the roles between ‘you’, the understanding worker bee, who is unable to ’stop’ your accounts department from doing their job - and ‘them’, the financial side of your business, who is firm yet fair.

If, God forbid, the bad cop actually needs to play the role of bad cop, then in the initial stages, you can remain on the usual working terms with your client (especially with your main working contact within that client), while the two accounts departments communicate back and forth to reconcile their invoices, statements, and their differences in interpretations.

Ultimately, if disputes do arise, you will need to become personally involved - the presence of a person handling your accounts does not absolve you of your responsibility. Indeed, it actually requires you to take more care when entering your T&M billing information, as previous ambiguities that you could easily rephrase and reinterpret for your client on the spot, are now one more person removed. The use if a reliable business system or expert system, whether custom-designed for your purposes, or off-the-shelf, should make entering verbose descriptions of your time as straightforward as possible, and allow for easy output by your bad cop.

So where do I find a good bad cop?

1. Your spouse/partner.
If you have one on-hand, they’re the perfect fit: they know your business backwards and your clients personally; they know your current workload; they know how best to handle your slightly-less-than-prompt-paying clients; and, given compelling reasons, they might even be willing to do it for free.

2. Your bookkeeper or accountant.
Every small business or solo business needs a financial professional somewhere in the shadows, but maybe it’s time to bring them to the fore: either on a hourly- or commission- basis, outsourcing your accounts department should be a small price to pay for the benefits in your own productivity and client relationships.

3. Debt collecting agencies.
Yes, this is heavy-handed right from the start, but if you have a lot of small accounts always on the go, and a higher than normal percentage of them become bad debts, then it might make some sense. Apart from traditional Debt Collecting, they typically do ‘Business Process Outsourcing’ - almost exactly what we’re suggesting in this article.

4. Create a virtual bad cop.
If all else fails and you can’t find a friendly bad cop, you should be able to create one virtually, complete with a separate email address. Even if you already have a bad cop working for you, creating a new email address for accounts@mydomain.com.au will, at the very least, begin to delineate the different roles within your own business. Send out all accounts emails via that address, and reply to emails coming to that address in an efficient manner - even if the tone of the reply is a little less conversational than your usual tone - no need to be rude, just to the point.

In summary:
The metaphor of good cop/bad cop is a valid one, but probably a little too strong - nothing wrong with a little bit of overkill, ey? The purpose of the metaphor is to show you that you can always find ways to separate some of the roles within your solo or small business, and to remove distractions from your main goal - that of working professionally and productively with your clients.

Now go out there and be the good cop.

AB out