Become A Sales Pro

When comparing people who are most successful at persuading, convincing or selling others on their ideas, products or services, I’ve found 10 characteristics that appear to be routine among them. Read through this list and see how many apply to you now. If you don’t find these characteristics in your current bag of traits, consider adopting them in order to hear “yes” more often in your life.

1. A Burning Desire to Prove Something to Someone: A professional in any type of business has a distinct reason for wanting to succeed. My reason was to prove myself to all the people who said I couldn’t do it. I never went to college, knowing that formal education wasn’t for me. My parents had castles in the air for me and were quite disappointed. My dad told me, “If you don’t go to college, you’ll never amount to anything.” That was my first motivational talk, and it kindled my desire to become the best and prove something to my parents. What are you trying to prove? And to whom? You must know why you’ve chosen your particular business.

2. An Interest in Others: You must truly be intrigued in other people and in making those people’s lives better if you are to succeed in business. You must get the hang of how to draw others out, making them feel important and getting to know them well enough to determine how you can help.

3. Confidence and Strength: Professionals radiate confidence and strength in the way they walk and talk and in their overall presence. They have great posture. They wear their clothing well. They use positive body language. If you’re not sure this is you, ask someone you trust to evaluate you and provide some suggestions for improvement.

4. Empathy: You must level your own self pride and need for success with warmth and sincerity. Your true interest in the happiness of the people you come in contact with creates bonds of trust that allow you to serve not only your prospects, but their friends, relatives and acquaintances that can be sent to you.

5. A Focus on Goals: If you’re serious about your business, you’ve set your goals and put them in writing. You know exactly what you’re striving for and when you expect to accomplish it. Knowing how your future will look helps keep you focused on doing what’s productive each day.

6. Persistence: Professionals plan their time most effectively to take steps toward achieving their goals. They rely on proven systems for planning their time and have learned effective time-management strategies.

7. Enthusiasm Through Difficult Situations: The past can’t be changed and the future can’t be controlled, so you must live for today, doing the best you can to make each day a day of accomplishment and fulfillment. When you encounter a difficult situation that’s draining your enthusiasm, lay it out clearly in your mind or on paper. Then step back from it and let your emotions shift to normal. Then take another look at the situation with a clear head. You’ll be pleasantly surprised in most cases that it really isn’t as bad as you thought.

8. A Positive Attitude: Keep yourself in a productive shell and avoid jealousy, gossip, anger and negative thoughts. Don’t allow negativity to steal your energy or tempt you to stray from your chosen course.

9. An Understanding that People Come Before Money: Successful businesspeople love others and use money as appose to loving money and using people. They understand the old adage that you have to spend money to make money, and that persuasion is a people business. They invest judiciously in things for the good of the people they serve.

10. An Investment in Their Minds: Business professionals are lifelong learners. Congratulations! I know you have this trait simply because you’re reading this article. Set a goal to be a lifelong learner, and you’ll never have a dull moment. Plus, you’ll achieve tremendous success in whatever you set your mind to studying!

Rapid Recovery Solution is a commercial debt collection agency.

Wiki Statute Of Limitations

Statute of Limitations on Debt Collection is the amount of time that businesses have to collect their debts by suing you in court and by other legal methods. Once the statute of limitations period is over, the businesses cannot sue you in court. However, the debt that you owe STILL REMAINS. Do not think that once the statute of limitations period is over, your debt will disappear. It will not! Businesses can collect their debts owed via other legal methods like a debt collection company.

We should point out that there are NO Statute of Limitations on the following types of debt owed: Child support due payments, Federal & Local state taxes, Parking fines, illegal fines & Federal Student Loans.

Each US Statute has its own statute of limitations periods. Generally speaking, here is the statute of limitations on the following types of debt: Auto Loans: Debt owed on auto loans generally expires in 6 years. Unsecured Debt: 3-6 years after the last missed payment by a consumer, or last tracked activity.

The moment you sign that debt agreement, for example a car lease document, a personal loan or other types of loans, the Statute of Limitations period begins. However, this rule varies state by state. Some states also allow the ‘adjustment” of this period. For example, a person living in Alabama has credit card debt of $22000 and does not make a single payment for 3 years. Now in the state of Alabama, the statute of Limitations period is 6 years. If that person travels out of the state of Alabama (say to New York) for 1 year, then his statute of limitations period STOPS up until he returns back to Alabama from New York. Upon his return to Alabama, this period resumes again (3 more years).

Also note that after 3 years of having not made a single payment on your debt, you start making payments again. This new payment automatically resets the statute of limitations period to 0.

We will now abbreviate the word statute of limitations as SoL. Consider another example:

You sign an auto financing contract on March 3rd, 2004 where the first payment of $300 is due on April 3rd, 2004. In April, you never make a payment towards your debt. The SoL expires on April 3rd, 2010 (assuming you live in Alabama where the SoL period is 6 years). Why April 3rd? This is because April 3rd was the last time you made a delinquent payment on your loan, or this was your last missed payment. The SoL period starts counting from your last missed payment.

Now assume you get a call from a debt collection company and instead of paying $300/month, they say you can pay just $150/month. You receive this call on July 30, 2008 (2 years have expired on the SoL period). This offer sounds pretty good to you and you indeed do make the payment! Hey! The SoL period at this point automatically resets to 0 and will run for another 6 years!

To recap, every payment you make towards credit card or personal loan debt resets the SoL clock. This resetting of the SoL clock applies only to unsecured debt and NOT secured debt. This is because in Secured Debt, the lender will simply confiscate your collateral (a pledged home, your car, etc) and will not have to deal with collection issues.

If your lender makes demands payment from you after the SoL period of collecting the debts is legally over, you might not have to go to court. The court will probably call off the case as soon as the Judge finds out that the SoL period is over. You should write up an “Expired Statute of Limitations” letter to your creditor and inform him that the SoL period is over.

Most people confuse the Statute of Limitations Period of Debt Collection with the SoL period for Credit Reporting. For instance, consider you live in Arizona where the statute of limitations period is 3 years. After 4 years, you can totally refuse to pay that debt and the court will rule in your favor. However, according to the rules defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), your delinquent debt will be shown for up to 7 years (since your last delinquent or missed annuity payment).

Rapid Recovery Solution is a credit debt collection agency.

Are You Being Haunted By Zombie Debt?

Like the phoenix that rises from the ashes, so does so-called zombie debt. A consumer may think it’s dead, but it keeps coming back to haunt.

“Zombie debt is a phrase to describe all debt that a consumer had forgotten about or never even owed that comes back to haunt them,” said John Monderine, of Rapid Recovery Solution, Inc.

Joan Baker has been tormented for years as collection agencies hassled her about debt that was not even hers to begin with. More than a decade ago Baker was the victim of identity theft and since then debt collectors have not let her rest.

“It is a nightmare. It won’t go away,” Baker said. “I had knots in my stomach. I was on the phone for hours.”

Baker reported a fraudulent $5,000 charge and still the debt collectors were persistent. When she refused to pay, they went after her credit rating. She would clear her name with one company but the cycle would start up again because her debt would be sold to a different collection company.

Baker finally reluctantly sued the aggressive collection agency for fraud five years ago. Baker was awarded $40,000.

Her experience isn’t an isolated one.

When Larry Randazzo missed a Verizon bill for 11 cents, it mushroomed into $4,000 seven years later.

Randazzo said the collector backed off when he made it clear that he knew his rights.

“If they are going after me, someone who has the resources to fight them, what are they doing to people who don’t understand their rights?” he said.

“I think what I did was make them aware that I was aware,” Randazzo said.

Almost all banks sell old debt. For example, a bank might sell a credit-card debt worth $10,000 to a debt collection company for only $100. Then, the agency turns around and aggressively tries to collect and whatever it receives is mostly profit.

This year more than $100 billion of “junk debt” is expected to be bought and sold on the open market, according to a report by debt collection advisory Kaulkin Ginsberg. A debt collection trade association said it polices its members.

“Once we determine that the complaint is against a member of ACA International, what we do is seek to work with the consumer and the debt collection agency to identify a solution,” said Rozanne Andersen, executive vice president of the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals.

How to Protect Yourself

First, ask for something in writing.

Consumers should be aware of the statute of limitations in their state. Most allot about seven years where you cannot be sued or have your credit rating destroyed.

“If a consumer believes that this debt that the debt collector is trying to collect from is past the statute of limitations, they should not pay it,” said Mauro.

Also, you should never let a collector debit your account because the money can often be difficult to get back.

Rapid Recovery Solution is a credit debt collection company.

Respecting Privacy

It is crucial that debt collectors have respect your privacy. According to the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act, collections agents cannot exchange information about persons that owe a debt. They can’t distribute a list of debtors to its creditor subscribers. They cannot advertise a debt for sale, or create a list of debtors to its creditor subscribers.

They cannot advertise a debt for sale, or compile a list of debtors for sale to others. They can’t leave messages with third parties asking the debtor to call them. The outside of envelopes sent by collections agents cannot indicate the purpose of the letter in any way. Postcards are strictly prohibited.

A collector is permitted to send mail in care of another person only if you reside at that address or if you get your mail at that address. If you share your address with others the mail should be labeled “personal” or private. The letter essentially can’t give any appearance alluding to the fact that it is a collections bill.

A collections agent that knows your name and telephone number and therefore can contact you directly is not allowed to contact your neighbors or family. If they can’t find you and they do call your family members or neighbors, the collector must identify themselves by name but not mention the fact that they are a debt collector.

They can’t tell others you owe money or speak to them about account details. They cannot contact the person more than once, can’t leave information about a the money on another person’s voicemail and they have to disclose the name of the collection agency but only if asked.

If you are being contacted by a collector looking for your former roommate, relative or neighbor, the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act says a debt collector can only contact you to determine the location of the person who owes the money. Only if the collector believes you have new information can they contact you again. If a collector contacts you repeatedly about a third party that can be considered harassment and you can file a complaint.

Mallory McGuinness-Hickey is an employee of Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles on debt collection and finances.

More than 200 Scranton taxpayers might have received a letter from a collection company they didn’t deserve. The notices are for unpaid garbage fees that may have actually been paid. According to officials, the garbage bill itself for 2009 could be to blame for more than 200 collection notices sent to city taxpayers in error last week.

They believe the issue might be the way the bills were folded into the envelopes. The bill comes along with a perforated line above a bar code that identifies the customer, but because a crease made by the folding of the envelope, a second line under the bar code was formed, causing people to pull the bill off without the bar code.

Bills without a bar code would cause a bank not to register the payment. The mailing house that Scranton hired to stuff the envelopes was blamed. If the bill was mailed to the bank, it would be the pay stub in their payment that goes directly into a lock box. Then the stubs are scanned and the bar code is read. After that the bank sends the town a list of those who had come through based on the bar code readings.

Representatives from the debt collections agency who sent out the letters say that they are taking every dispute from people who might have already paid extremely seriously. Company protocol allows consumers to dispute a notice within 30 days of receiving a collections letter. In addition, representatives said that no bill will be collected while they are still sorting out the issue.

The company look into each claim from people who said they had paid the bill and received the notice. Those that they think have paid will be absolved from their debt and will no longer get collections notices and will not be pursued by the collection company.

Mallory McGuinness works for a collections agency that works with a debt collection lawyer. She also composes articles on business and finance, the credit industry and collections agencies.