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Overdue Advice is the podcast about cash flow strategies to grow your business. Each episode covers an aspect of credit management and accounts receivable. "Legal Collections (and How to Avoid Going to Court)," "Debt Doesn't Die: Estate Collections," and "How Professional Collectors Recover More," are just a few areas covered with rare industry insights. There's no show like it!
Host Bryn Griffiths talks with guests including published authors, veteran collectors, accounts receivable trainers—and Brian Summerfelt, the CEO of MetCredit, North America's leader in ethical business debt collection, to examine all sides of debt recovery. Most importantly, you'll learn how to improve your business' cash flow—and put an end to bad debt forever.
Bryn Griffiths:
Hey, everybody. My name is Bryn Griffiths. Times are changing quickly for many people and also for more and more companies. So it's essential to understand the direction that things are going now and how does that change the way companies operate and how does it affect the employees, plus how could it affect their cash flow situation? Joining us on the podcast today is Martin Hunter, managing partner of Ergo, a company that specializes in helping CEOs achieve operational excellence. Hey. The last time we talked, our podcast topic was about keeping CEOs up at night. You know, that was a huge, huge show for us.
Bryn Griffiths:
We talked about HR, supply chain issues, operational challenges. But that was a while ago. How much is, how much has it changed out there? You talk to people in the world.
Martin Hunter:
That I live, Bryn, is the, the impact that we were just talking about the impact of the industry changing at a pace that most people can't keep up?
Bryn Griffiths:
Right, right.
Martin Hunter:
Let's talk about some of the latest things. When you talk about robotics, for example, right, there's little things. There's. There's a plant in China that has no more human beings in it. And so what did they do? They turned the lights off and then turned the heat off.
Bryn Griffiths:
Wow.
Martin Hunter:
So you think about it, right, when you say you got no more humans that you need, so therefore you don't need light anymore and you don't need heat anymore. So they increase their profitability because they were able to do that. Right? So that means that with a, you know, lessering of the population, most of the world, the GDP is increasing. So people are getting richer and richer, and so they're eating more steak, eating more protein, and everybody wants to buy their own house. They want to have enough room for everybody, and they don't want to mow their lawn. So at a certain point, you have to create some automation in the lesser value jobs because there is no way in hell, at the pace that we're going in regards to growth and development and innovation, that the human being and, and the richness of, of the, of the people that we can bottom. We saw it during the pandemic. We saw it, you know, 10 or 15 years ago in Fort Mac, nobody wanted to work at Tim Hortons, so they had to close Tim Hortons because they had no labor.
Martin Hunter:
Now the labor issue is, is, is still functioning and still increasing in, like, trades. Like it's unfortunate in North America because we see trades as a lesser value job, which is not true, right? And it's like, oh, garbage collector is, is a you stop garbage collection for a week. See what happens.
Bryn Griffiths:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Martin Hunter:
See what happens, right? So there is no bad job. But what happens is that, you know, as you and I get older and richer, I don't want to model one. And therefore you have kids to mow your arm, but your kids are off to school, they're off to sport. You're like, that's a higher value activity for them and rightfully so. So who. So now there's a company called Lawn Sheep, I believe in California, right? So they've got basically lawn roombas. So instead of having four guys on a crew of lawnmowers and landscaping, they've got one guy and he's got three machines and he does more technical management than actually mowing the lawn. So companies have to learn to invest in their employees and teach them advanced skills.
Martin Hunter:
So there's, you know, you see, that's the kind of philosophy and you think of how, you know, in the broader spectrum of things, there is, you know, as much as people want to have a nationalist mentality of we want to do everything here in Canada or the U.S. or anywhere else, right. At a certain time, fiscally, it just doesn't make sense, right? So you look at China's advancement. There's no way you can compete. No matter even if you put your, you're manufacturing In Canada, the U.S. there's just no way you can compete. Their robotics are just so much in advance.
Bryn Griffiths:
So CEOs are doing what they have to do for their bottom line. But this would be a concern for me if I was an employee, especially if I've been throwing things on credit cards and I've been living the high life when really I couldn't afford it, that type of thing. So the direction that the CEOs are going with the company, I get that. I also saw some stats on Canada's GDP lately. Says we're just way, way, way behind most of the planet. And that's concerning. This all adds up to the fact that at some point it's not going to add up anymore and people are going to be scrambling. Are you hearing that?
Martin Hunter:
Yes, absolutely. I mean, if you, if you think that you can survive on old mentalities, right, you're going to be left behind. And, and so same thing with schools, right? We're talking about AI. You know, my wife was saying, well, don't teach the boy how to do AI. I said, quite the opposite. I'm teaching him how to do AI with his homework so that he's in, in advance because you can't get away from it if you don't know how to use AI then. And so the schooling system is behind as well.
Bryn Griffiths:
Right.
Martin Hunter:
And so the point I'm trying to make with all of this is that you as an individual, regardless of where your job is today, if you attach yourself to union values and old school this, and I've got a job this, and I'm an employee that, at a certain point, if Canada stays in that way without increasing productivity, it's going to crumble. It's going to crumble. And so people have to learn to be better and learn.
Bryn Griffiths:
The biggest concern I have always, even doing what I'm doing now is I don't want to be functionally illiterate within five years because you still got bills to pay, you still have to bring in some cash, you've got to put food on the table, that type of thing. But I just find right now maybe we're a little lax in the way we go at things in Canada in particular and the fact that we don't see what's coming. And that's important that we stay ahead of the pack here, is it not?
Martin Hunter:
I wouldn't even say ahead of the pack. Just keeping up with the pack.
Bryn Griffiths:
Okay, sure.
Martin Hunter:
You don't have to be the number one industry in this. You don't have to be number one industry in that. All you have to have is a profitable mindset. And when you have good profits and this is what, you know, this is how it can relate to credit. And credit is that, you know, you, to have a balanced business, you have to be able to live with the ups and downs of the economy and how you, how you add value to the economy. And so as much as people think that, you know, blockbuster, we add so much value and then crumbled.
Bryn Griffiths:
Right.
Martin Hunter:
That's why you have to have a healthy line of credit to be able to absorb that kind of movement in, in, in the, in the economy. Well, a lot of, a lot of Canadians have let go of that as well. Right. A lot of. I think I read like a lot of Canadians can't afford a 400 emergency spend in a month or something like that.
Bryn Griffiths:
That's crazy, huh?
Martin Hunter:
Right. And I don't quote me on that number, but that's what, what I, I.
Bryn Griffiths:
Actually think your number's a little high. I think I heard $200. Any way you slice it, it is not good. Right. So it's concerning.
Martin Hunter:
So you have to have a tiered approach. And. Right. This is, you know, this, I'm, I'm bringing back my risk management, crisis management, emergency response that I learned back in the army and, and in Health Canada, is when you function, when you, you build your family with risk in mind, meaning, okay, okay, everything's rosy. But what, but what if, what if, then what, then what? And I think Warren Buffett says it best when he does, you know, evaluation of investment, he goes, okay, then what, then what? Then what? Right. So now you can get upstream and downstream of whatever the, the situation is. So, you know, what keeps CEOs up at night is will I survive?
Bryn Griffiths:
Yeah.
Martin Hunter:
You know, in my current business model, what do I need to change and how will it impact my teams, my employees? I think that most CEOs are people friendly. I would not say that all of them are employee centric, but they are, they are employee. They actually care about the human beings that they, that they employ. And to lay people off is never a good thing as long as you're, you're a decent human being. Right.
Bryn Griffiths:
Well, one thing that concerned me recently was a past prime minister suggested that budgets balance themselves. And I just, I felt a shudder go down my spine because I'm thinking, well, wait a minute, that's the government saying that. But I know at my house it doesn't work like that. And anybody else's house, it doesn't work like that. Budgets are essential to making sure that you stay on the right financial path. Am I out to lunch thinking that way?
Martin Hunter:
I mean, we run our family on a monthly budget. And I mean, I, I feel that I've got a, a healthy lifestyle. Right?
Bryn Griffiths:
Yeah.
Martin Hunter:
And I'm always frugal. And we plan our trips. Like my daughter is in New Zealand right now, and it was 5,000 plus spending allowance. And so we started maybe a year ago saying, okay, how are you going to figure this out? Right, how can we help you? But you got to lead it. Right. And so she started budgeting, says, okay, I can do this, I can do that, I can do big sales, I can do a little bit more of this. And so now you're seeing your child with that, that strategy. Okay, I've got a budget.
Martin Hunter:
How much can you spend a day? Because that's a key thing is what's your spending limit per day or per week? Right. And so little things like that that a lot of people don't. And it's important to use your credit in a way that does not change your lifestyle. You have to change your Lifestyle to adjust your credit.
Bryn Griffiths:
Right.
Martin Hunter:
If that makes sense.
Bryn Griffiths:
No, totally does. The thing is, CEOs for the longest time have worried and worked very hard to make sure that everything works out at the end. People, the employees, people that I know, people that you know, I'm pretty sure they just kind of roll along with the river for the most part, and they don't think about it. What are you hearing out there? Because you're plugged in. What are you hearing from CEOs, what are you hearing from the average person in terms of making sure that they understand that, yeah, times are a little tough. They've always been tough in some respects. But we've got to get our brain set changed a little bit, do we not?
Martin Hunter:
It's, it's behavioral based and a lot of, a lot of CEOs that I help out. Right. So as, as an independent operating partner, and I say independent because a lot of operating partners associate themselves with private equity or venture capitalists. I'm independent, so I work with people from the Middle east, from Singapore, from Asia Pacific investing firms. And so this, the companies that we bring forward to build, scale or optimize, I always encourage the CEOs to bring a little bit of added value to personal life. So don't just think as your employees. As employees, we'll say, how can you help? You know, is there a budgeting thing that we can do? So if a, if the morale is good, so I do this talk called the power of morale. If the morale is good within the organization, then you've got, got singularity of purpose and therefore profit and then revenue and consistency and all that good stuff.
Martin Hunter:
So if you're worried about your budget at home and you don't know how to do it because you were never shown how to do it or provided with the wrong behaviors, right. Then, you know, if you want to be a really great CEO and have an employer brand, then help the people at home where it matters, right? A lot of these young kids, I see young kids, I'm 53, I'm 65. Younger generation this year.
Bryn Griffiths:
The same categories as the young kids, quote, unquote.
Martin Hunter:
Yeah, these, these, these, these younger adults, you know, they've been provided by their family and not had to make any budget, right. And so they go in either in a business or at home and they go spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. Well, hold on a second. Like money does not grow on trees. So you have to kind of be. And it's a little bit shocking to the next generation. So we try to, we don't try. We.
Martin Hunter:
We educate our kids to be frugal and then put the money aside for experiences. Because assets is not. Is not necessarily Assets should work for you. You shouldn't work for the assets.
Bryn Griffiths:
Right. The other one, too, is teaching those on the home front that there's got to be a CEO at home, too. Can't just be one at the office. You've got to have a CEO on the home front to keep everything moving along with purpose there.
Martin Hunter:
So every Sunday night, my wife and I, after dinner, we do what's called a wap W A P. Okay, A weekly action plan.
Bryn Griffiths:
I got you.
Martin Hunter:
We look. So we look at the week and we go, okay, what are you doing? Where are we going? What are the kids doing? How do we share the workload? Oh, I've got a big meeting there. Oh, I've got an interview here. And then, okay, so what are we having for dinner? Okay, Is that something? Okay, budget wise, where are we? What needs to get paid? Right? And so we go, okay, this needs to get paid. I mean, I say we. You know, in my household, my wife is the one that kind of is the CEO of the organization. She runs it like a company.
Bryn Griffiths:
Right.
Martin Hunter:
But doesn't want to believe in. In that. But that's the same thing. We go with a budget. And every year in December, my wife and I go away, and now we're thinking about inviting the kids. We go away for a couple of days and we have a strategic session. What do you want to do next year? Okay, well, I want to do this, and the kids are going to do that, and the kids are going to do that. How much money do we need to do this? How much money? What's our investments? What are investments doing? And so now, last year, the kids, this past December, the kids were interested, and so now we're thinking, okay, the kids are old enough to participate in our Hunter family strategic session for the up and coming year.
Bryn Griffiths:
You see, I think, and I will say this because I'm the older of the two of us here. I just never learned this stuff in school. I was never taught it, and I don't think my folks ever worried about it. And everyone says, well, these are tough times now. I think they've always been tough times. The key is, how do you find your way through all of it?
Martin Hunter:
I find it funny when people say, now they're tough times. When we move from the east coast to Montreal, I. I make a joke of it. I said, you know, we went from poor to poo. We couldn't afford the R at the end of poor. Okay.
Bryn Griffiths:
Yeah.
Martin Hunter:
I remember my father having to make himself mustard sandwiches to go to work. Like a piece of bread, just mustard in the middle. And off he went. And then you go back in his time, you know, his father, my grandfather died in second World War. His mother, my grandmother couldn't take care of three kids. So my father was the middle child he went to, he went to the orphanage. And so don't say that this is hard times. Like everybody's got a roof unless you're in war stricken country, if you're in, you know, Syria, Middle east, whatever, we're getting shot at.
Martin Hunter:
And South America where you can't survive or Africa. Like come on guys, you got in North America, there are social services and systems in place. And don't get me wrong, I don't think that we're perfect, but there's a lot of abundance in here, right? And our, our, our level of distress is a lot higher. And it's caused by assets, not necessarily by physical constraints. Right.
Bryn Griffiths:
When it comes to credit, one thing that we should address is the fact and the importance of having a good balance sheet. Right. Sometimes it's so overlooked on the home front. I know it's seldom overlooked at business because you live and die with that, but on the home front having a good balance sheet is essential. Don't you think you're going to disagree with me on that one?
Martin Hunter:
No, it's not that it's essential. I disagree with the term essential.
Bryn Griffiths:
Okay.
Martin Hunter:
It is not essential to survive. It is important to understand.
Bryn Griffiths:
Okay, gotcha.
Martin Hunter:
You don't have to be, you don't have to be a CPA or CMA or CEO to understand a balance sheet. Right? All you have to understand is that to be able to, to be able to survive in your later years, you have to build up assets so that the asset starts paying you off. Unless you want to work for the rest of your life and just rely on the government for checks, you have to build up assets to a point where you rely now on those assets to pay you. Right. It's kind of like a peak and then it goes back down, right? Yeah, I squirrel money away, squirrel money away, squirrel money away. I've got a pile of, of nuts and assets. Now I can start picking at the pile to be able to survive, right? So it's important. You don't have to be an expert, but you have to understand the benefits and the pitfalls of, of having a good balance sheet.
Martin Hunter:
Same thing with cash flow management. A lot of People you just have to make more than you spend. You know, over a period of time. There are days where you're going to make less than you make or you're going to spend more than you make happens. But on, but on a quarterly basis, monthly basis, annual basis, you have to earn more than you spend.
Bryn Griffiths:
And the folks that meant credit hear all these stories all the time and are very helpful with their advice. They can give advice. Right. You can be ahead of the package in, in this particular regard. It's just a matter of recognizing it faster than, than before it's too late.
Martin Hunter:
When, when I like now, Net Credit has, has, has been my representative for two, for two situations where I had to use them to collect.
Bryn Griffiths:
Right.
Martin Hunter:
And their methodology was, was the fact of coming in with kindness and respect and, and not you owe me, you owe me, you owe me. They were very kind in that approach as well. So. And it would be good if, if other people, if you feel that you're going to be in that situation, you know, that's where catching it before, before you get hit by the train. Right? Yeah.
Bryn Griffiths:
So once again, clarify for me. Budgets do not balance themselves.
Martin Hunter:
They do not. Mom does.
Bryn Griffiths:
It's a good way to put it. Yeah, it takes, it takes hard, hard work. Hey, tell everybody what you do.
Martin Hunter:
Oh my goodness. What do I do? I am a, an independent operating partner. So what does that mean? Is that when companies get to a certain point, roughly 50 million in revenue, or they're on the path of explosive growth, oftentimes they get in a position where the founder, owner, CEO, team, they're kind of like it's choppy waters. I don't necessarily know. I'm looking for expert advice. I'm looking for seasoned veterans. I don't know how to build, scale or optimize my business to get to the next level. And so oftentimes they'll either look at private equity VCs, family offices, and they're looking for either some type of, of cash injection through equity, through loans or something like that.
Martin Hunter:
But then they look at them, they go, well, you don't necessarily have the know how, how to do it. You need to have an operating partner.
Bryn Griffiths:
Right.
Martin Hunter:
And so that's what at Urgeo we do is we really help the portfolio of business either from the investor side that say, hey listen, we need a solid operator to kind of help these CEOs. And on bottom up is where the independent comes in is I like to have diverse portfolio of businesses. I like impact, I like circularity, I like waste, like to to battle waste. And I like profits and performance. So we took on, we've been taking on projects that have that impact business. So post consumer waste technology, then we've got, we've got AI, we've got data centers, we've got. What else do we've got? We got hydrogen. So that's what I do.
Martin Hunter:
So any companies that's kind of 50 million plus around the pathway to 50 million either in revenue or profit and they're like, oh, I, I don't know, this is kind of troubled water. And then we call ourselves kind of the, the, the business merchants of the, of the new age. Right. Back in the day you needed a good captain to lead a good crew to bring your product from India to back to Europe, right. And so you set sail to kind of go buy stuff. So you took the money from the investors, went to India, Africa, somewhere else, you worked with the crew, got all the products and then brought them back on the journey and then helped them sell and stuff like that. So we take care of both of the investments and the company, therefore we put that together in a project. And one of the things when you talk about balance sheet is that the, the situation is oftentimes when we take on these projects we can really integrate them and roll them up.
Martin Hunter:
So there's opportunities for cross business in our projects. So that creates a little bit more prosperity and kind of tackle the, the up and coming variables of the business.
Bryn Griffiths:
Diverse, important diversity. Hey, you use the term choppy waters, that might be the name of this episode because there's choppy waters everywhere. You got to find a way to sail through it, right.
Martin Hunter:
You can't, you can't control the ocean. What you can do is, is ride the currents properly. So if you've got your finger and it's multi dimensional, right. So multi sensor, multi sensory as well. You got to be able to watch the horizon, you got to feel for the wind, you gotta figure out what day it is. There's so many variables that you have to take care of that it's the same thing at home or at business. You can't just think, oh well, life is all grand, nothing's gonna happen. Right.
Bryn Griffiths:
How dangerous is procrastination at this time? You might, that might be another episode.
Martin Hunter:
Procrastination is the new smoking, I think. Right? Yeah, I'm. It's not even procrastination. I think it's self doubt and with, you know, doomsday scrolling and everybody is a superhero and you know, behind social media, don't get me wrong I think there's benefit to social media, but everything staged. I'm a superhero. I'm a CEO of my business, I'm a this, I'm a that. Like let's be. The term chief executive officer is not the chief everything officer.
Martin Hunter:
So, you know, if you've got a business of three people and you make a million bucks or 2 million bucks, you know, you're the owner, you're not the CEO. So stop kind of. And with this Dragon's Den and stuff like that, it has hyped this, this term entrepreneur to a point where I, I believe. And then for the employees, you know, there's this sense of fear of losing my job with AI and stuff like that. If you just become a little bit more courageous, become a little bit more curious and say, okay, what's out there? What can I do? Spend. And it's all behavioral based to spend 30 minutes a day instead of scrolling, hey, what's my next step? How am I going to do this? Maybe journal, maybe write something and say, okay, how do I get out of my debt? How do I pay my debt? How do I make sure I don't get debt? Right. If we're talking about credit as a, what's my next job? Instead of bitching and complaining at your boss that he or she is not listening to you, make your own path. Right.
Martin Hunter:
Intrapreneur within the business.
Bryn Griffiths:
This is the second time I've talked to you, so I think I already know the answer to this question, but I'm asking it anyway. You an optimist or a realist?
Martin Hunter:
Expectancy.
Bryn Griffiths:
Oh, oh, there's a good one.
Martin Hunter:
So it's more of a positive expectancy okay. Than optimism. Optimism can be seen as something derogatory, like, yeah, the world is rosy.
Bryn Griffiths:
Yep.
Martin Hunter:
But I am happy. Go lucky. I mean, I feel comfortable in my skin. I feel that I've got the skills. So if I look at attitude, skill, knowledge and experience, I feel that I got everything that I need to be able to tackle the life's what it throws at you. So do I enjoy life? Absolutely. Do I look for positive expectancy when the cat dies or somebody dies? It's. There are bad moments in life, right?
Bryn Griffiths:
Yeah. So absolutely. Hey, thanks for all this. I feel, I feel like I've got a ton of positivity from you again and I love that. Thanks for your time today.
Martin Hunter:
You're very, very welcome.
Bryn Griffiths:
Hey, that's it for today's episode of Overdue Advice. We're easy to find online. Metcredit is on Facebook Instagram, LinkedIn, and X @MedCredit. And you can also check out Brian Sumerfelt's blog. It's easy to find too. It's blog.medcredit.com. The website also includes numerous helpful tools and calculators to assess your business debt risk. And we'd also love to hear from you. So subscribe like or leave us a review on this or any of our podcasts, and make sure you share that podcast with your friends and business associates.
Bryn Griffiths:
You could drop us a lineat overdueadvice@metcredit.com. Overdue Advice, the podcast about cash flow strategies to grow your business. I'm Bryn Griffiths.