How to protect your profits when big customers pay late

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|. landing the big whale, that large customer who puts an uPward kink in your sales and gets You buzz in the marketplace. You worked hard cultivating that relationship and now they want to give you a trY.

You ask your credit manager to set them up on an account and she comes back with a less-than-stellar report: Your prospective new customer has a somewhat spotty credit record and chronically pays everyone slowlY' Do you turn away the business? You don't have to.

The key is to make integrated sales and credit decisions, not separate ones. Dealers know their cost of goods well and are often precisionlike in understanding how to give price breaks and still make positive gross margin. However, most dealers