Session Descriptions

Sessions 19035–19044 are valid for .15 CEUs and CCE recertification points.

19035. How to Collect the Debt and Keep the Customer
Speaker: David Osburn, David L. Osburn & Associates LLC
This presentation provides essential tools for identifying high risk and problem accounts. It also stresses the use of ethics in collecting and recognizing potential problems with an account. Communication skills are reviewed, in particular handling unexpected events, such as economic factors or fires and positive ways to state what is normally considered negative. Five disciplines of communication are presented to help cultivate your abilities. Additionally, this session assists you in measuring the quality of your written communication.

19036. A Best Practice Guide to Managing Bankruptcies: Before and After the Filing
Speaker: Hal Schaeffer, CCE, CEW, D&H Credit Services, Inc.
Bankruptcy proceedings have become quite contentious and the fight for what remains, increasingly aggressive. Despite the changes in the law many creditors continue to receive letters demanding that they return payments received prior to their bankrupt customer’s preference action filing. So, not only do creditors have to absorb significant losses when their customers seek bankruptcy protection, but they are also told that they have to return money collected from the debtor 90 days prior to the bankruptcy filing date. Added are the expenses of locating documents, travel and time for depositions and court, attorney costs, expert witness fees and court costs. The preference process can be extremely confusing and the tactics used intimidating for creditors. The ability to crunch the numbers and interpret the results is more important than ever. The speaker explains in this seminar: timely steps you can take to reduce the size of your potential preference exposure; what you should do as soon as you learn a customer has filed for bankruptcy protection; what you should do when you get a preference demand letter; how recent court decisions can impact the way you defend your firm; and how to defend against an estate’s preference demand…and win!

19037. Leading, Guiding and Directing Others
Speaker: Kurt Weiland, Jefferson Smith Training and Consulting
When was the last time you, or someone around you, observed, “We’re living in a ‘Dilbert’ cartoon.” We need leadership skills now more than ever, but we grow frustrated because we don’t have those skills. Among other things, this session explores: two leadership models (good leaders and bad leaders), two leadership imperatives (what leaders must do), and leadership keys (three areas for self-examination).

19038. Bulletproofing Your Credit Department: Part 1 of 2
Speakers: Wanda Borges, Esq., Borges & Associates, LLC, Bruce Nathan, Esq., Lowenstein Sandler PC and Val Venable, CCE, SABIC Innovative Plastics
(Part 2 is offered in session 19048.)
A customer defaulting on a payment is not the only enemy of the credit department. From the time a customer first applies for an open account until after the money is in the bank, there are opportunities for things to go wrong. There are also many opportunities to make sure things go right, particularly at the inception of the relationship with the customer. In this interactive session we will discuss some steps credit managers can take in all aspects of managing the customer relationship to take advantage of opportunities while the relationship is going well and avoid, or lessen, the pitfalls when the relationship sours. Bring your questions and lessons learned to share with the group.

Part 1 of this topic focuses on establishing good credit policies and practices while there is a good relationship with the customer. This includes: obtaining and maintaining accurate credit files (starting with the credit application, terms & conditions, loopholes and keeping your credit file clean); antitrust issues surrounding trade references and discussions; protective devices, such as guarantees, security interests, consignments, letters of credit, and credit insurance; elements of proper collection techniques and documentation, including document retention and safeguarding personal information under the Red Flag Rule or state statutes; and acceptable payment devices.

19039. Teaming With Sales
Speaker: Toni Drake, CCE, TRM Financial Services, Inc.
Find out how you and your company can score big when credit teams with sales! This session shows you how to: establish a winning relationship with sales, communicate the playbook, formulate a game plan before the sale, prevent a fumble in the collection process, avoid penalties when interacting with sales and get the touchdown with the customer. Get involved with this interactive session and help both credit and sales win!

19040. Doing Business With Minority Business Enterprises
Speaker: Jim Fullerton, Esq., Fullerton & Knowles, PC
In the current recession, private construction activity has fallen off. Meanwhile, federal stimulus money increases construction in the public sector. Public procurement may be the only game in town. Public projects often require or promote minority business participation. Minority business enterprises often lack the experience or financial strength of more traditional players. Contractors and suppliers must be creative and flexible to capture public work and increase minority participation, while minimizing the chance of default and avoiding insolvency issues. What kind of arrangements can contractors and suppliers make that will be recognized as legitimate minority participation, but still provide the security necessary for manufacturers and suppliers to supply materials at their best pricing? We will explore the role of payment bonds, joint check agreements, guarantees, assignments and escrow arrangements in public projects.

19041. FAQ on Credit Card Processing
Speaker: Rudet Fountain, United TranzActions
Are you currently accepting credit cards but, despite your best efforts, can’t control the costs? In this session, we discuss the cost saving measures that you should have in place. Through open discussion, the most frequently asked questions are addressed, including: Can we charge our customers a convenience fee when they use their card? Can we store the card data? These questions and many more are answered by industry experts and your peers.

19042. Doing Business in Brazil:
2 of 5 in a Special International Track Speaker: Octávio José Aronis, Aronis Advogados
(#19030: Canada, #19053: South Korea, #19066: China, #19075: Chile)
Designed by FCIB for NACM, session two in a special international series focuses on Brazil. Sessions in this series explore the due diligence efforts needed to conduct in-country business. They will feature an analysis of the unique attributes of conducting business and detail the remedy options available when collection actions are needed.

19043. How to Make Crucial Conversations Work for You
Speaker: Byron Sabol, Sabol International inc.
(This session is offered again in session 19065.) Have you ever been involved in a face-to-face discussion where the stakes are high, opinions are strong and emotions run rampant? How well you handle these conversations impacts your reputation and can even make or break your career. While you may find yourself working with unreasonable colleagues, providing input on sensitive subjects, disagreeing with someone, or persuading an emotional stakeholder to your point-of-view, these conversations can work to your advantage—when you know how to handle crucial conversations. This presentation demonstrates how to resolve disagreements, build acceptance, and overcome resistance while communicating face-to-face in a dignified, professional manner.

19044. Hijacking the Global Economy: Terrorism,
Corruption and Traffickers
Speaker: Chris Kuehl, PhD, Armada Corporate Intelligence
The life blood of crime is money and the vast sums of illicit cash that whirl through the global financial system every day compromise the system we all work within. This session details the extent of the threat and explores how it affects the credit world. Whether one does global business or not, the scale of the criminal financial world is such that everybody is affected and dealing with it becomes everybody’s challenge.

Sessions 19047–19056 are valid for .15 CEUs and CCE Recertification points.

19047. A/R Credits: The Recent Target for Unclaimed Property Auditors
Speaker: Valerie Jundt, Thomson Reuters
This session delves into escheatment concerns, most specifically, handling A/R credits. Val instructs attendees on proactive best practices that will help avoid the worst case scenarios, and offers true stories, which she shares as incentive. In the session, she also presents recent state enforcement efforts, litigation and legislative updates. Resources, tools and systems to help achieve compliance and best practices are addressed as well.

19048. Bulletproofing Your Credit Department: Part 2 of 2
Speakers: Wanda Borges, Esq., Borges & Associates, LLC, Bruce Nathan, Esq., Lowenstein Sandler PC and Val Venable, CCE, SABIC Innovative Plastics
(Part 1 is presented in session 19038.)
A customer defaulting on a payment is not the only enemy of the credit department. From the time a customer first applies for an open account until after the money is in the bank there are opportunities for things to go wrong. There are also many opportunities to make sure things go right, particularly at the inception of the relationship with the customer. In this interactive session we will discuss some steps credit managers can take in all aspects of managing the customer relationship to take advantage of opportunities while the relationship is going well and avoid, or lessen, the pitfalls when the relationship sours. Bring your questions and lessons learned to share with the group.

In Part 2 of this topic, we discuss ways of dealing with a distressed debtor, identifying warning signs, taking preventative steps, such as obtaining a standby letter of credit or put to secure your claim, exercising contractual and UCC rights, tightening credit terms, terminating unfavorable long term and other executory contracts before bankruptcy hits, protecting state law lien rights, setoff rights, and PACA and other Trust claims, anticipating a 503(b)(9) claim, alternatives to bankruptcy, and how and when to pull the plug and enforce your rights.

19049. Training the Workforce
Speaker: Kurt Weiland, Jefferson Smith Training and Consulting
The future belongs to those who train. An untrained, or undertrained, workforce will cost time and money. (Think of what would happen if your mother had never trained you to tie your shoes. You’d still be tripping on the laces.) This session presents methods for developing and delivering worldclass training. It gives you the future.

19050. The UCC Sale of Goods and the Battle of the Forms
Speaker: Jim Fullerton, Esq., Fullerton & Knowles, PC
How do you win the “Battle of the Forms” when electronic and facsimile mail is sent back and forth discussing a sale of goods? When do you have an enforceable contract? Will the terms in your quote or the terms in the purchase order control? Understand the terms the UCC adds to your contract automatically unless you “otherwise agree.” Learn to limit your liability to a return of the purchase price and get a waiver of express and implied warranties. When do you have the right to stop shipments and demand adequate assurance of payment? What are your rights to cure any default in your performance or to reclaim your goods if the customer defaults?

19051. Diving Deep Into Ratios
Speaker: George Schnupp, CCE, Anixter, Inc.
In this session, the relationship that exists between financial statements and how they are related to each other is covered. Ratios are utilized to draw on the interrelationship of these statements in order to gain a better understanding of management’s ability to compete on margins, utilize their assets, manage leverage and generate cash. There will be a deep dive into the four categories of financial ratios: profitability, turnover, leverage and cash.

19052. Got Champions? Transforming Contacts Into Advocates
Speaker: Byron Sabol, Sabol International inc.
(This session is offered again in session 19074.)
While most professionals have a network of business colleagues and associates, few people know how to maximize the value of these relationships. This session is not the typical “How to develop a network.” Instead, this interactive session demonstrates seven proven steps for developing advocates. Advocates are “champions of your cause,” individuals who go above and beyond the call of duty on your behalf. Advocates say great things about you to their own influential contacts, while opening doors for you to new meaningful opportunities. Cultivating advocates is one of the most effective means for career-minded professionals to: (1) Advance their personal and career goals; (2) Reduce the time needed to meet key decision makers; (3) Influence others to their point-of-view; (4) Generate new business in less time; and (5) Increase their sphere of influence. In today’s complex and challenging business environment, these Seven Proven Steps place audience members on the direct path to greater business, career and personal success.

19053. Doing Business in South Korea:
3 of 5 in a Special International Track
Speaker: Kyle Choi, Bluestone Law International
(#19030: Canada, #19042: Brazil, #19066: China, #19075: Chile)
Designed by FCIB for NACM, session three in a special international series focuses on South Korea. Sessions in this series explore the due diligence efforts needed to conduct in-country business. They will feature an analysis of the unique attributes of conducting business and detail the remedy options available when collection actions are needed.

19054. Protecting Your Company From Credit Fraud: Unlocking the Secrets of Small Business Risk
Speakers: Mary Kathryn Jarcy and Jessica Ford, Experian
Credit managers face a myriad of challenges and know that now, more than ever before, they must identify these challenges in order to have a positive impact on business performance and increase their organization’s bottom line. Some of the challenges associated with small businesses, however, may be harder to understand due to a lack of proper tools and resources to validate a business or gain insight into its overall financial health. In this session learn how to: identify credit and fraud trends and how they affect your business; leverage new tools to enhance your business and reduce risk; learn how credit and fraud trends differ for businesses versus consumers; and understand the overall health of businesses in the U.S.

19055. An Advanced Look at Microsoft Office Excel 2007
Speaker: Sheri Tingle, TrainUp.com
(This session is repeated in session 19068.)
In this advanced-level session, attendees work with complex formulas, as well as lookup functions such as VLOOKUP, MATCH and INDEX. In addition, participants learn about data validation and database functions such as DSUM. Also, direction on how to work with PivotTables and PivotCharts, how to import and export data and how to query external databases is provided. Finally, attendees are taught about the analytical features of Excel (such as Goal Seek and Solver), running and recording macros, and sharing Excel data via the Web.

Speaker: Chris Kuehl, PhD, Armada Corporate Intelligence
Now that we are well into 2011 we must all have moved well past the recession and are simply wondering what to do with all our money. Chances are that this will not be the case but we will have dealt with new issues by this time. We will discuss how close inflation now seems to be and what has happened to the deficit. Is the job market improving and how fast, but most of all we will look ahead to figure out what the rest of the year is likely to bring.

CONCURRENT EDUCATIONAL SESSIONS
Sessions 19060–19068 are valid for .15 CEUs and CCE Recertification points.

19060. Antitrust Issues: U.S. Department of
Justice Tougher Than Ever
Speaker: Wanda Borges, Esq., Borges & Associates, LLC
While some may claim the U.S. recession is over, these are still troubling economic times. Often the task of the credit executive is to determine how to continue to sell to financially troubled companies yet protect their company from financial loss. It is understandable that credit professionals might want to compare notes but those types of discussions can lead to antitrust violations, knowingly or unwittingly. Federal lawsuits over the past several years include the phrases “participating in meetings, conversations…,” “agreeing… to charge,” “exchanging information,” “combination,” “conspiracy.” Credit executives, today more than ever, need to know what can or cannot be done, what can or cannot be discussed, when and how credit terms may be adjusted, and what is now covered under various antitrust statutes. This session addresses the basis of these statutes and how to keep from putting a company’s hard-earned money at risk by running afoul of the nation’s antitrust regulators.

19061. How to Effectively Plan, Measure
and Track Cash Collections
Speaker: George Schnupp, CCE, Anixter, Inc.
This session stresses the importance of creating historical metrics or trends that enhance the accuracy in setting collection plans as well as providing excellent monthly estimates. The forecasting of cash collections is a simple exercise that should be performed throughout the entire credit and finance organization. Your credit team should be engaged in the annual and monthly cash forecasting process. The session covers the annual cash forecasting methodology along with monthly estimates and quarterly re-forecasts.

19062. Impact of the Business Cycle on Credit Risk
Moderator: Al Carmenini, CreditRiskMonitor
Panel: Ed Bell, PhD, CBA, CICP, W.W. Grainger, Inc., Nick Chiros, CCE, Airgas, Inc. and Camilo Gomez, PhD
The last couple of years have shown us the sharp edge of the business cycle, with record number of defaults and bankruptcies taking place. This presentation will show how commercial credit risk was impacted by the different stages of the last business cycle. It will also consider practical ways to incorporate the business cycle in credit risk evaluation and in the development of automated credit models.

19063. Preferences 101
Speaker: Deborah Thorne, Esq., Barnes & Thornburg LLP
This session provides a basic knowledge of what you need to know to defend your company against a preference case. It presents you with necessary knowledge of what the trustee needs to prove to make a case against your company as well as the defenses that you can assert. Deborah Thorne, who works with companies throughout the country in defending preference cases, teaches you how to analyze your company’s risk at the beginning of a bankruptcy case using your own staff. She also discusses the latest developments in preference defense cases. The session is geared to beginners but will also provide an update for more experienced credit professionals.

19064. Banking Issues in Modern America
Speaker: David Osburn, David L. Osburn & Associates LLC
This proactive session explores the important role of “the bank” in the economic life of any business. The recent banking “crisis” is reviewed, including “how we got here,” new bank capital requirements, changes in FDIC insurance, how a bank’s financial health is assessed (including the CAMELS rating and “Texas” Ratio), and bank “risk rating” services. Additionally, the traditional function of the bank is examined, such as how a bank actually operates, makes a profit and creates money. The session also addresses the various departments of a bank, including operations, lending and trust departments. Included within the lending area is a review of consumer, mortgage and commercial lending, loan grading, problem loan work-out negotiations and potential lender liability. Finally, through case studies, this presentation illustrates how to effectively work within the structure of the bank and reviews important banking regulations.

19065. How to Make Crucial Conversations Work for You
Speaker: Byron Sabol, Sabol International inc.
(This is an encore presentation of session 19043.)
Have you ever been involved in a face-to-face discussion where the stakes are high, opinions are strong and emotions run rampant? How well you handle these conversations impacts your reputation and can even make or break your career. While you may find yourself working with unreasonable colleagues, providing input on sensitive subjects, disagreeing with someone, or persuading an emotional stakeholder to your point-of-view, these conversations can work to your advantage—when you know how to handle crucial conversations. This presentation demonstrates how to resolve disagreements, build acceptance, and overcome resistance while communicating face-to-face in a dignified, professional manner.

19066. Doing Business in China:
4 of 5 in a Special International Track
(#19030: Canada, #19042: Brazil, #19053: South Korea, #19075: Chile)
Designed by FCIB for NACM, session four in a special international series focuses on China. Sessions in this series explore the due diligence efforts needed to conduct in-country business. They will feature an analysis of the unique attributes of conducting business and detail the remedy options available when collection actions are needed.

19067. Tackling Business With Tact
Speaker: Debbie Lundberg, Debbie Lundberg, inc.
(This session is repeated in session 19076.)
Ever wonder how it is that you think you say the same thing as someone else and yet your message is perceived differently? Do you get the sense that some people do not value time and meeting agendas or know about time commitments and agendas? This session offers participants the opportunity to look at successes and challenges in their roles, and learn about some back-to-basics for professional behavior that have either been forgotten or sadly, never introduced. Session attendees will participate, and have a refreshed or new approach to business occurrences like email, meetings and other happenings in the workforce. Learning ways to disagree without offense and being considerate of others while sharing ideas are some of the expected results from this presentation.

Speaker: Sheri Tingle, TrainUp.com
(This session is an encore presentation of session 19055.)
In this advanced-level session, attendees work with complex formulas, as well as lookup functions such as VLOOKUP, MATCH and INDEX. In addition, participants learn about data validation and database functions such as DSUM. Also, direction on how to work with PivotTables and PivotCharts, how to import and export data and how to query external databases is provided. Finally, attendees are taught about the analytical features of Excel (such as Goal Seek and Solver), running and recording macros, and sharing Excel data via the Web.

CONCURRENT EDUCATIONAL SESSIONS
Sessions 19070–19077 are valid for .15 CEUs and CCE Recertification points.

19070. Bankruptcy War Stories: Practical Lessons Learned From the Trenches (What the Textbooks Don’t Tell You)
Speakers: Bruce Nathan, Esq. and Kenneth Rosen, Esq., Lowenstein Sandler PC
This unique and insightful program provides credit professionals with a rare glimpse into the development of strategy to maximize leverage and results in dealing with financially distressed customers. Presented in a relaxed and entertaining “story” format, attendees hear restructuring and bankruptcy counsel with more than 60 years of combined experience recount some of their most fascinating cases advising credit professional clients in high-stakes battles with customers that are spiraling towards or already in bankruptcy. The consistent theme of each of these stories is how knowing your rights and responding appropriately can make financial distress situations more predictable and manageable and also how the business and financial reality can impact the legal outcome. From these stories, attendees learn real-life lessons that can be immediately applied in their own business to give their company leverage in negotiations with customers and turn a potentially bad situation into one where you are in control. Among the topics that will be discussed during this informative session are: Obtaining critical vendor status and the debtor’s assumption of your long-term supply or services agreement, dealing with preference risk, retaining the debtor’s business during the Chapter 11 and using UCC remedies, such as stoppage of delivery and adequate assurance rights, to reduce credit risk on a troubled account.

19071. Credit, Cash and Collections Management
Speaker: David Osburn, David L. Osburn & Associates LLC
This session examines the role of both credit and cash within a business and highlights the importance of cash flow versus simply cash. Various credit principles are covered, along with some fundamental financial statement analysis models, including both traditional and cash basis cash flow calculations. Additionally, a brief review of legal issues relative to credit is presented. The session concludes with an overview of some important collection techniques and negotiation skills for collecting cash via the phone or in person.

19072. Those Difficult Collections After a Judgment
Speaker: Lynnette Warman, Esq., Hunton & Williams, LLP
Getting a judgment can be the easy part of litigation. Collecting on a judgment can be the real challenge. Attendees in this session are presented with leverage points that can aid both client and counsel in tackling a difficult collection after judgment.

19073. Reducing Capital Costs by Optimizing
Your Receivables
Moderator: CJ Wimley, SunGard
Panel: Joe Prudente, Future Electronics Corporation, Steve Strong, Google, Brenda Jalowiec, Nidec-Motor Corporation, Paul Runko, Neopost USA, and Fred Voccola, FGI Risk Services
One of the single largest assets and sources of cash for a company is its trade receivables. As a result, trade receivables are often viewed as part of a company’s capital structure. One of the keys to leveraging this asset is to have transparency into your receivables portfolio via daily access to detailed information. Companies and lenders can then apply sophisticated modeling to appropriately evaluate risk which allows them to leverage key instruments, such as receivables backed loans, securitization and factoring. To properly manage the risk associated with this source of funds, companies must make use of credit insurance, strategic risk based collections and first/third party claim processing. From this session, learn how sophisticated risk modeling, daily visibility and process automation can help corporations maximize the cash generated by their trade receivables in conventional and non-conventional ways. Discussion will include how companies are obtaining credit data, analysis and modeling, and presentation back out to credit insurers, banks, factors and asset based lenders. The panel, comprised of credit managers, directors of credit, and credit insurance and asset based lending experts, will also address leveraging trade credit data and how corporations can improve their ratings by presenting credit data in a more holistic and digestible manner.

19074. Got Champions? Transforming Contacts Into Advocates
Speaker: Byron Sabol, Sabol International inc.
(This is an encore presentation of session 19052.)
While most professionals have a network of business colleagues and associates, few people know how to maximize the value of these relationships. This session is not the typical “How to develop a network.” Instead, this interactive session demonstrates seven proven steps for developing advocates. Advocates are “champions of your cause,” individuals who go above and beyond the call of duty on your behalf. Advocates say great things about you to their own influential contacts, while opening doors for you to new meaningful opportunities. Cultivating advocates is one of the most effective means for career-minded professionals to: (1) Advance their personal and career goals; (2) Reduce the time needed to meet key decision makers; (3) Influence others to their point-of-view; (4) Generate new business in less time; and (5) Increase their sphere of influence. In today’s complex and challenging business environment, these Seven Proven Steps place audience members on the direct path to greater business, career and personal success.

19075. Doing Business in Chile:
5 of 5 in a Special International Track
(#19030: Canada, #19042: Brazil, #19053: South Korea, #19066: China)
Designed by FCIB for NACM, session five in a special international series focuses on Chile. Sessions in this series explore the due diligence efforts needed to conduct in-country business. They will feature an analysis of the unique attributes of conducting business and detail the remedy options available when collection actions are needed.

19076. Tackling Business With Tact
Speaker: Debbie Lundberg, Debbie Lundberg, inc.
(This session is an encore presentation of session 19067.)
Ever wonder how it is that you think you say the same thing as someone else and yet your message is perceived differently? Do you get the sense that some people do not value time and meeting agendas or know about time commitments and agendas? This session offers participants the opportunity to look at successes and challenges in their roles and learn about some back-to-basics for professional behavior that have either been forgotten or sadly, never introduced. Session attendees will participate, and have a refreshed or new approach to business occurrences like email, meetings and other happenings in the workforce. Learning ways to disagree without offense and consider others while sharing ideas are some of the expected results from this presentation.

19077. Office 2010: New Features, A
Look Ahead
Speaker: Sheri Tingle, TrainUp.com
This presentation covers those features of Microsoft Office 2010 that are new to the Office system, with dedicated time spent on new features of each application. In Word, attendees learn to use the Navigation pane and apply new text effects. In Excel they use sparklines, filter data with slicers and create a PivotChart. In PowerPoint, organize slides into sections, edit movie clips, apply animation effects and learn how to broadcast slide shows. The focus in Outlook is on managing email conversations, creating Quick Steps and using the People Pane. In Access, attendees are shown how to use the tabbed document window, create Lookup list fields, and use the data type gallery. In addition, attendees find out about ribbon customization and Backstage view and how to save a file as a PDF.