You Cannot Lose When You Know Your Opponent’s Playbook!
What would Belichik do if he could go into every game knowing the plays of his opposition and when those plays were to be used?
It doesn’t take a genius to realize he would win every game.
In any battle situation or contest if you know what the opposition has planned you have a marked advantage. If a general went to battle once a week for a decade and before each battle he could sit in on the planning session of the opposing force, he would feel like a Second Wind workout strategist. We are experts on banking, the SBA, creditors, and most of all the plan a creditor uses as the borrower moves into default and cannot pay.
A creditor no matter if it is the SBA, a bank, a credit card, or any other lending institution has only one plan to handle a defaulted loan. Liquidate the collateral and then attack the guarantor. They pursue the borrower legally and use the court system to try bleeding a stone. They will take your house, your car, and anything else they can attach to legally, not caring if there may be another, better way.
Today I had a conversation with an aggressive creditor. This creditor was irate! The client had been avoiding his calls, using his assets and not making payments. In addition the creditor drove to the location to recover collateral and the client had locked the door and told him to go to hell. This is a tough situation. As much as I would like to say, “Hello my name is Adam Gleason, I am working on behalf of (client). Let’s work to some reasonable resolution.” That line will not work. People get emotional and make bad business choices and this creditor hung up on me as soon as he heard the client’s name. Even if I had said we want to pay in full it would have probably been the same result.
In this case it took a few calls to get the gentlemen to not just hang up on me and I had a single opportunity to give myself enough time to work with this creditor and save my client. I used the knowledge of the creditors playbook and I also opened my strategy up a bit to the creditor so he felt trust by receiving trust. Most importantly though was my demonstration of the knowledge of not only his options, but his plan of action moving forward. I did not leave room for the creditor to speak while I laid out his entire strategy for his review and compared it to my own. I showed the detrimental aspects of what he was planning to do and where my plan would not only work, but yield a much better result for his financial situation.
This is powerful in ways you cannot understand until you are facing naked aggression fueled by emotion and have to logically turn the creditor to your side. It is next to impossible unless you posses some very specific traits and information;
You have to be fearless, the creditor is going to be mean and very rough while he verbally assaults you and your client.
You have to be responsive and conciliatory to a degree with the creditor. Your client not only defaulted, but has now denied the creditor his access to collateral that he has every right to take, this does not mean give in to what the creditor says, but tapdance around and make them feel good about your input and you being in the situation.
Most of all you must have information and be an expert on the creditors plan of action. This let’s you lay out the whole deal and the creditor realizes you will not only work with him, but that his plan will net him significantly less than your new proposal.
If you have a debt issue, you should call Second Wind Consultants or visit our website at www.secondwindconsultants.com and read the blogs. Our expertise is apparent and flagrant.
