I believe that credit professionals should consider adopting some or all of the following New Year’s resolutions:

1. To look for ways to release orders, not for excuses to hold orders pending
2. Resolve to return calls the same day you receive them
3. Resolve not to waste your time with vendors soliciting your business on the telephone
4. Take steps to become more of a generalist, and less a credit specialist
5. Volunteer for special assignments
6. Call delinquent customers sooner rather than later
7. Invest in yourself in the form of professional development; for example resolve to learn how to become a better public speaker
8. Consider becoming more active in your industry credit group – perhaps by becoming an officer in that group
9. Place accounts for collection as sooner rather than later, for example - as they stop communicating with you
10. Be more proactive managing credit risk
11. Look for more balance between your work commitments and your and home life
12. Do a better job of communicating problems with the sales department
13. Be more customer oriented and customer focused, and make sure the people working with you adopt the same philosophy
14. Make deduction resolution a priority, not an afterthought
15. Become a mentor if appropriate, or seek out a mentor if one would help your career development
16. If you make a bad hiring decision, don’t compound the mistake by keeping them simply because you find firing someone stressful
17. Resolve to leave on time [meaning earlier than usual] at least once a week
18. Be creative in looking for ways to make more sales more safely
19. Stop trying to eliminate credit risk, and concentrate instead on controlling it
20. Take time to document you achievements and accomplishments
21. Don’t take the job home with you…what you do is not who you are
22. Work harder at prioritizing your work
23. If you have a weakness in a particular area [as an example in customer financial analysis] resolve to address that problem this year
24. Learn to differentiate between things that appear urgent, and tasks that are actually important
25. Look seriously at acquiring at least one type of credit automation software this year
26. Be more proactive [and less reactive] to work related problems and situations
27. Delegate more work, and do so more often
28. Dress better than the norm in your office
29. Throw away your to-do list, and start with a must-do list
30. Don’t forget to thank your subordinates and co-workers for their help
31. Find out what management wants and expects from you, and then figure out how to give it to them

Happy New Year!

Michael Dennis is the author of “Credit and Collection Handbook” available at www.aspenpublishers.com. He is also co-author of the Covering Credit Bulletin. Email ccnewsletter@coveringcredit.com to subscribe.