Newsletters

In This Issue
- Personal Guarantees: How They Can Help
- June ICEL Meeting: Make Changes or Get Left Behind
- Credit Function
- You Don't Know What You Don't Know
- May Recap: No One Makes It Alone
- Spotlight: Susan Archibeque, CCE, Nicholas & Co.

Looking Ahead

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Personal Guarantees: How They Can Help

by Carolyn Thompson, Meadow Gold Dairies 

During my May industry credit group meeting, someone mentioned using personal guarantees as a way to open an account. I thought about my company policy and when using a personal guarantee is required to establish an open account.

First let's talk about what a personal guarantee is and what you want a guarantor to provide when guaranteeing an open credit account with your company. A personal guarantee is a promise made by an individual to personally repay the company debts in the event of default by the business. Personal guarantees are a way for businesses to protect themselves and their stockholders against unscrupulous business owners, as well as run-of-the-mill business defaults. It tells the credit grantor that the business owner is serious about their business and about repaying their debts. One of the downsides to personal guarantees is that even if a business owner is extremely careful in paying their business debts, unforeseen events can still prevent a business from making payments as promised. When the owner is unable to cover the debts personally, the lender can obtain judgment and secure payment through seizing the guarantor's assets. View full article

June ICEL Meeting: Make Changes or Get Left Behind

We are experiencing rapid and drastic changes in our professional and personal lives. I would dare say, probably more so than ever before. Technology and business models are changing on a daily basis. Jobs are being redefined. We are doing more in one day than in two days, maybe even a week. Therefore it forces us to make changes or we get left behind. How do we adapt to these changes? How do we handle the challenges that come with change? How do we hold ourselves accountable to change? How do we move forward with these changes? These are interesting and thought provoking questions. Flynn Chivers, Plant Manager for Nestle Foods, will present us with some tools, ideas and expertise to help us adapt and change in today's world.

Credit Function

by Sandra Brown, Schmidt Sign Service 

The credit function in any company can and should be a significant sales related responsibility, because it is the management of a major asset, accounts receivable. The chief credit officer needs to be sales oriented when evaluating the risk of selling to a potential new customer. Yet, there also needs to be a high degree of certainty that the customer will pay supplier invoices.

The barriers between sales and credit are crumbling. The era of the credit manager as a "lone wolf", making unpopular decisions without fear of repercussions, is gone. In the new business environment, there is a greater tendency to want to use sales people as surrogate collectors, but there are problems and risks inherent in doing so. Sales people are not trained as collectors. Further, in an effort to preserve their relationships they will tend to underemphasize the importance of credit. View full article

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

by DeAnna Leahy, CCE, Sunroc Corporation 

"Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know." Daniel J. Boorstin

NACM Professional Certification Program
The NACM professional certification program is respected and appreciated among credit management professionals. Certification offers the participant important benefits such as: expanded knowledge of every aspect of credit management, expanded career opportunities, heightened professional recognition, and professional standards of excellence.

Learn more about the NACM National Professional Certification Program on the NACM Business Credit Services Education page. 

NACM and ICEL Scholarships
NACM Business Credit Services and ICEL offer members scholarships for classes, educational conferences, and/or professional designation exam fees.View full article and scholarship application forms. 

May Recap: No One Makes It Alone

by Shanna Sorge, CBF, Easton Technical  

This month we heard from Judge Andrew Valdez on the "Power of Mentoring." Andrew A. Valdez is a judge at the Third District Juvenile Court in Salt Lake City, Utah. A native of Utah, Valdez is a graduate of the University of Utah Law College. Prior to his appointment to the bench in 1993, Valdez was a captain in the US Army JAG Corps and trial counsel with the Legal Defenders Association, Homicide Division. Andrew A. Valdez is committed to helping troubled young people and has developed a court based mentoring program partnering with community based educational schools. His nonfiction book, No One Makes It Alone, is a true story based on his life.

What is mentoring? We all have a need for insight that is outside of our normal life and educational experience. The power of mentoring is that it creates a one-of-a-kind opportunity for collaboration, goal achievement, and problem solving. Mentoring is a developmental partnership through which one person shares knowledge, skills, information and perspective to foster the personal and professional growth of someone else. View full article

Spot Light: Susan Archibeque, CCE

by Janae Jeffs, CCE, Muir Enterprises 

I would like to re-introduce to some of our newer ICEL members, a long-time supporter of ICEL and NACM - Susan Archibeque, CCE. Susan has been in ICEL for more than 15 years and is part of the Food Industry Credit Trade Group. Susan is the Credit Manager of Nicholas & Co. where she has worked for 10 years. Prior to working for Nicholas & Co. she worked for ConAgra for 23 years.

Susan holds a BS in Business Management from the University of Phoenix. ICEL has been lucky enough to have Susan as a speaker at our ICEL meetings. She has also been a speaker and been on many panels for NACM. Susan has been an instructor for NACM for our designation classes. On the national level Susan has been a presenter at Credit Congress and has written many articles for our own local Credit Line and for the NACM National Business Credit magazine. She even had an article published in the Wall Street Journal. Susan won a writing contest for the Credit Research Foundation (CRF). She enjoys being a part of NACM and has been elected to NACM's board three times.

Her hobbies are scuba diving, snowmobiling, and more scuba diving. Susan has dived in some very exotic places. She is part of the Basque Association of Salt Lake and is very involved in that great organization. She is married to a wonderful husband Phil, mother of a son and daughter and a grandmother of two.

Interested in writing an article for the Excellence Newsletter?

The Credit Line Staff want to hear about the topics and issues you want information on.  If you have an article idea or would be interested in writing on a particular topic, contact us (801)433-6116 or GBevan@nacmint.com   Information & guidelines for submitting articles.