Strategies to Fight Effective Debt Crisis

By Debtfreeleague

Surveys and research studies in several developed and developing countries have revealed that there is a small yet significant percentage of population that suffers from the stress of debt loans. The surveys show that the families take a loan for personal purposes and then fail to pay back the premiums and loan amounts every month. Today's era is highlighted by high inflationary conditions and successive recessions. Companies are often confronted with the idea of how to downsize its employee list and how to do it in a subtle manner. As soon as the job goes out of hand, the means to pay back the debt reduce further pushing the person into remote levels of depression and stress. This is where debt reduction companies and debt reduction programs conducted by several companies come into the picture. Here are some useful tips that you could use to fight your debts and handle your credit card settlements effectively.

Engage in a debt reduction program

These programs are usually organized by debt settlement companies to attract those who are stuck with a high debt loan to pay back. This is basically a negotiation session where the credit along with the collector will be present to discuss ideas on how the debt can be reduced for you to pay back. A counseling session will help you in understand what kind of a debt relief option you would want to go for. Here, the settlement company will first analyze your returns and financial figures to assess the situation. The second step is when you stop making payments to the creditor but instead open a trust fund account where you will be depositing monthly savings. When the savings reach the loan amount, they are transferred to the creditor's account. The debt reduction program can give you a huge relief from stress and tension.

Do not panic The thing that you should never do during a debt ridden stage in life is panic. When you panic, you lose the state of your mind and you end up making a lot of wrong decisions, resulting in anything but more debt. When you realize that you have a huge debt to pay back or a credit card settlement pending for years, you need to sit down and think wisely. Panicking can only make things worse. Take the help of debt experts.

Snowball method of debt reduction

This is a method that can often be employed to clear debt loans. In this method, you are first advised to arrange your debts from those with lowest balance to the one with the highest balance. After paying the minimum premium on all your debts, start by making an extra payment on the one with minimum balance. As soon as the debt is cleared on the first one, go to the other. This is a method that works with credit card settlements as well. These are three user friendly tips that can restrict debts to a significant level where it would not trouble you anymore. Having an organized list of the debt payments and premium will help in balancing accounts and eliminating treachery.

Effective Interviewing – 5 Steps

By Sahzaidi

Most managers conduct job interviews without any structure or strategy or method. I am also guilty of this on many occasions because I felt it was going to be quite easy to assess the job applicants. Now I know that I was wrong. Without a strategy and methodology, you end up selecting a person based on an overall impression and intuition rather than a diligent scrutiny of the applicant's abilities and potential. This can often lead to the wrong person in the job. So how does one ensure better selection?

Well, there are no guarantees of course but here are 5 things you can do to ensure the odds are tilted in your favor. …

1– Write down your Questions Beforehand

Without prepared questions, you are almost certainly going to forget some things you wanted to enquire about from the job seeker . You are also likely to deviate from your agenda based on how the conversation flows. Thinking about questions during the interview is Ok but it isn't a substitute for a prepared list.

2- Probe Technical, Functional and Personal Areas

You must make it a point to address all these three following areas in your questioning:

Technical: these will be skills related to the work domain and expressed as nouns such as finance, sales, operations etc

Functional: these will be typically people handling skills and expressed as verbs such as organizing, planning, communicating, delegating etc

Personal: these will be essentially personal qualities expressed as adjectives such as ethical, professional, team worker etc

3- Use Behavior Based Interviewing

Ask candidates to describe past experiences or situations that can help to provide some clues about their competence in each of the three distinct areas above ie. Technical, Functional, Personal.

So for example to assess the Technical component, a behavior based question to a person being interviewed for a sales job might be:

"Give me an example of a time when you were able to acquire a new client. How did you identify and then approach the client? "

An example question to assess to assess the Functional component might be:

"Please tell us about a situation where you had to get your team to put together a conference? How did you plan this and how did you delegate the tasks? "

The answer to this question might reveal some clues about the candidates organizing and delegating capability.

For the Personal category, the question might be:

"Can you provide an example of ethical behavior that you demonstrated during a situation involving one of your colleagues"

4. Experience is King

Applicants will present different various credentials in their CV and interview to impress. These will include academic qualifications, courses attended, languages spoken, certifications and so on. But remember – these are all important and need to be considered however experience is what will really matter. Unless you are deliberately looking for a freshie, relevant experience has to be at the top of your scoring sheet. There is no degree or certification or course invented yet that can substitute for real life experience.

5. Differentiating and Open Questions

Asking the following kinds of questions and assessing how applicants answer these can sometimes reveal insights about the applicant's preparation, confidence, maturity and communication skills.

"Why should we hire you? What is your greatest strength?"

"What is your greatest weakness?"

"What did you not like about your former organization?"

In the question above, we want to see how professionally and tactfully the candidate handles this question.

"What do you know about our organization?"

"Are there any questions you want to ask us?"

The Simple Solution

Not long ago, it was my pleasure to help a medical practice with a thorny issue in their partnership group. There was one partner, a skilled surgeon and talented physician, who was not really playing 'by the rules.' In this case, the 'rules', by non-written but well understood agreement, were that each doctor in the practice would manage his/her practice for the greater good of not only the patient, but the practice. Another way of saying this would be the time honored concept of 'rising water floats all boats'.

This particular doc had over time developed his practice as though it were a walled off compartment within the group, and did things like using physicians from other practices to assist him in surgery rather than keeping those funds inside the group. He also recruited administrative workers away from their responsibilities and set them to work on personal projects. The doctor marketed his practice as though he was solo and independent, and was frequently hostile and disruptive during partnership meetings.

Clearly, things were headed in an ominous direction. The physician partner who contacted me sketched out a doom laden near future in which they might well face the lengthy and incredibly expensive and painful task of de-partnering Dr. X. He was tired, angry, and even despairing. They had been recommended to me by a financial consultant to the practice who suggested a coaching intervention as last resort before they started dialing lawyers' phone numbers.

After I heard the story, I asked a question I was almost embarrassed to ask, because it seemed so simple, so obvious, I just knew the doctor would laugh at me for asking. But I have learned in 30+ years of consulting with people and their problems that so very often, the simplest, most obvious solutions are the ones most often overlooked.

"Has anyone asked Dr. X to stop doing these things?"

Dr. Y looked dazed for several seconds while he collected his thoughts, then said, "No, not in so many words..."

I went on to propose that Dr. Y and I meet with X after a list of grievances had been compiled. We would then meet with X, explain to him the nature of the meeting, explain to him that the goal was to avoid de-partnering, and keep the practice intact to the benefit of all.

Y was stunned at the simplicity and ease with which the problems were addressed, X was humbled and thankful that such trouble had been taken in his behalf, and corrections were soon to follow. They never had to file a suit or retain a lawyer.

Was the outcome perfect? No, not by a long shot. X continued to need reminders and dialog from Y, continued to use outside assistants from time to time, was still difficult in meetings when he felt threatened, but in general, the outcome was positive enough that no lawyers were called and the practice remained intact.

Point of the story? To me it is this: wherever humans gather together in mutual effort, whether it is family, community, workplace, or nation, most will cooperate to the greater good, while some will diverge. This always causes problems which the majority must address somehow. Often, these problems will require highly complex, difficult to reach solutions.

But it never hurts to start with the most painfully obvious intervention and work upward from there. It may be that at some time in the future, Dr. X will once again become a problem for his partners, and will require another intervention. And if I am called back, I will once again start with the simplest solution, the most overlooked one, and ask the partners to sit down together and try to work out their problems before resorting to more exotic solutions.

CRM Success by the Numbers - Part 5: 0-Sum Game

CRM Success is not a zero-sum game. By definition, in a zero-sum game, the sum of the winnings and losses of the various players is always zero. Basically, it's winner-take-all.

In contrast, if the CRM Success game is played right, everyone wins. The attorneys get more Clients, the firm makes more money, the Clients get better service, and the Marketing Department and CRM manager get to keep their jobs. The problem is figuring out how to play the game… especially when there are no written rules. This is where some game strategy can come in handy.

While CRM can't be everything to everyone, it can help some key law firm constituencies with some challenging issues. On a good day, CRM can be pretty effective at improving communication, coordination, Client service and business development – things that all seemed to be important in the law firm the last time I checked. In fact, I bet if you asked almost any attorney in the building if any of those things is on their "important-stuff- I-need-to-do" list, at least one of these things is somewhere near the top.

But those same attorneys would never be able to tell you how CRM can help them – because most of them have no idea what it does. Some of them don't even know what it is. But that’s ok because it’s not their job to know. It’s ours...