80 | HOW TO WRITE A BUSINESS PLAN
understands and can improve critical
business factors:
Credit Manager, XYZ Company:
Managed a credit department of ten
people, consisting of an accounts
receivable section, a billing section,
and a delinquent accounts section.
Reorganized both our collection
department and our credit-granting
process to accomplish the following:- Collected $200,000 in delinquent
accounts that had previously been
consigned to the “unlikely to ever
collect” category. This was a result of
my decision to keep in closer contact
with customers. - Reduced accounts receivable from
an average of 90 days to an average
of 38 days, considerably below the
industry norm, again primarily by
getting to know our customers better. - Reduced bad debt losses from 4% of
sales to 0.5% of sales in two years
by streamlining the credit applica
tion process and credit checking
procedures as well as requiring our
sales reps to personally vouch for
customers’ creditworthiness. Main
tained the 0.5% loss percentage in
the following years. As part of this,
we successfully brought 15 lawsuits
with no new staff.- Through sales conferences, news
letters, and frequent phone contact,
worked closely with the sales force
to ensure that new accounts were
creditworthy. During this time, XYZ
sales grew from $3 million to $7
million.
The following two resumes—Jim
Phillips’s and Sally Baldwin’s—share two
important attributes:
• knowledge of the particular business
the individual wants to start, and
• specific business accomplishments.
In this respect they are somewhat
different from many typical job application
resumes. For example, a potential employer
might be concerned about whether your
independent personality will fit in well in
a job environment, where these resumes
focus on concrete accomplishments.
Jim Phillips wants to start a retail
computer store. Here’s how he drafts his
resume.