Blog & News

Here in the belly of the beast, the cloud shall free us from the trappings of mortals.

With the New Year just around the corner a sense of opportunity hangs in everyone's mind. Something about starting fresh always fills us with a sense of wonderment. The unsoiled picture of the future rests on a pedestal, sometimes seeming too high to grasp. Why not this year though? Why not obtain the success you dream about every year? 2019 might as well be the year you move forward.

Have you even had a chance to think about the New Year, or has a hectic end to a long year taken up all of your time? If you haven’t, why not take a minute now to think about the future, what could you do in 2019 to really drive the success of your business to new heights? With constant improvements in the technology and an increasingly tight job market maybe automating processes to alleviate the work load is the route you want to take. That way your employees skills can be put towards better use. Maybe you feel like 2019 is the year to make a full change to your processes and technology, the year to go out on the limb and really move your company upwards.

Sometimes we use the New Year as an excuse to push our commitments a little further down the line. How many times have you heard, call me back in January, I'll have more time then. The real question becomes how many of those commitments can you follow up on, or, if you're the one asking to push things back, how many will you decide are worth your time for 2019. What of those goals are you going to pursue with vigor next year?

Setting goals is one of my favorite parts of the end of year celebrations; it's a physical manifestation of your hopes for the coming year. Hope for a better tomorrow is the foundation that America was built on, and looking to a new year with high expectations is a beautiful thing.

Here at ADS our goals are big for 2019, not only are we shooting for a record year in terms of growth for ourselves, we are looking to facilitate increased profits, margins, and volume for all of our clients as well. In terms of new partnerships, we want to help as many companies as possible with our cutting edge technology, to not only make them more money but also make their day to day work life a little easier. Beyond obvious success of increased growth in sales we want to innovate and incorporate new ideas into our system. We want to develop new applications and create helpful integrations that benefit everyone involved. Above all else, we want to help the industry grow and prosper in the coming year.
What are your goals for growth in 2019? If you feel like ADS could help you achieve those goals, or if you just want to talk about the possibility, let us know how we can help you moving into the New Year.
 

Are you going into the end of the year satisfied with your 2018 results? Has the year just flown by? Or has the year been one rough patch after the other? No matter the answer, we can't afford to let the last remnants of 2018 fall into unproductivity.
With the cold weather setting in (at least in Denver it is) and the days getting shorter, it feels like the end of the year is racing towards us. Who knows what 2019 will hold, but before we get to ahead of ourselves, let's look back at the first three quarters of the year.
 
The idea of growth is sometimes hard to measure. Sometimes adding a single team member who will be with you for years, finding that one new partner, or finding a new client can turn a mediocre year into one of the best. Putting processes into place that increase efficiencies and decrease cost increase the potential and success of growth within an organization. If you spent 2018 insuring processes were improved, 2019 should be a breeze. 
2018 has been a year of growth, a year of change, and a year of innovation at ADS and it's only the beginning. For me personally, 2018 brought many changes; a new city, new house, plenty of sightseeing and hiking, and my first year at ADS. Looking back, I would like to say I'm happy with how everything went, but when examining the past, mistakes seem clear as day. The idea of a perfect year seems a farfetched notion, but maybe we can achieve a single perfect quarter. For those of us where things haven't been going smoothly, we need to look at our processes and, instead of waiting for the New Year, we need to prioritize the issues here and now. Procrastination has hardly ever helped before, so I doubt waiting for 2019 to fix your software problems will help either. With the holidays approaching, we should be celebrating and not allowing old problems to continue holding us back.


With Thanksgiving right around the corner and Christmas following right on its heels, all the talk is aimed at joy and fun. But often, a time for joy at home can be a stressful time at work. With budgets being either finalized for the next year, or the excess budget from the current year being spent, more pressure than usual is mounted on the shoulders of the organizations decision makers. However, we can't look at this as a burden. This is the time of year when we can make a mark on our professional lives and really separate ourselves from the competition. When is the last time you broke down the effectiveness of your team and the profitability of your processes and business rules? ADS takes pride in the effectiveness and ability of our system to help your team be as successful as possible.
Here at ADS, we would love to be part of your holiday season and send you into 2019 with all the tools and processes in place to make you not only more profitable and more successful, but also to give you more time next year to spend with your family!
 

 The Biggest Takeaway from DCS 2018

The 2018 Debt Connection Symposium (DCS) offered the most age diverse crowd at a debt collection conference in recent memory. This led to an interesting and enjoyable experience. With the changing of the guard clearly evident, a large amount of focus was put into attracting and retaining millennial employees as they continue to enter the job market, filling spots traditionally held by older generations. Business strategies have been changing for years, however, many companies have been operating successfully using their old methods. With every passing year, and highlighted by this conference, business strategies are evolving and the past solutions will simply not be as successful with the emerging workforce.

Employers have seen a shift in the mindset of the new workforce. Millennials tend to value the atmosphere and benefits of the organization more, whereas the generation before them valued job security and their salary more than the atmosphere of the organization. The Millennial Peer Group, headed by Matt Justice who is President of the Professional Bureau of Collections, emphasized the successes and failures of companies when hiring Millennials. The peer group included a roughly 50/50 mix of Millennials and older generations, with the overall mood being more symbiotic than I expected. Some of the theme’s presented that keep Millennials in an organization included a sense of community, more time off, and a level of trust without the constant oversight of a supervisor or manager to name a few.

One common theme was the idea of building a community around the company, not just a functional group working together within the company. Employees want to work at an organization where being part of a team means advancement, family, balance, trust, and having a unique role within the company. These factors are the driving force behind Millennials staying with an organization and enjoying their daily work or moving on without much chagrin.

Here are a few ideas gathered from peers in the group:

Companies who have held events and participated within their communities have seen more positive results in retaining employees. One great idea being implemented was giving employees one or two paid hours off every few weeks that they could use on community service activities. This has shown that it helps not only their employees and the community, but it also saves thousands of dollars in free marketing and advertising in that the organization becomes a larger presence in the community.

Another idea, and seemingly just as effective of a method, is allowing employees to purchase an extra week of vacation. Millennials want more of a balance between work and personal time compared to their parents. This can be a great way to distinguish the benefits within the organizations workforce based on the employee's priorities. The employee buys a week of time from the company; the money is then spread over the course of the year so a small deduction of ten to twenty dollars a week isn't really noticed, but in the end an entire extra week of vacation really makes a giant impact on the employee's life.

Third, the idea of a "cool" place to work was emphasized. Small visual updates to the building or sprucing up the everyday work environment of the employees really makes an impact on someone who may feel as though they could easily obtain another job in today’s strong economy. It may not seem like a big deal, but the work environment goes a long way in terms of creating an overall desirable workplace.

If nothing else I realized one thing; Millennials want an environment where they can feel appreciated, trusted, and above all else, understand the how's and why's. They really want to know what their hours upon hours of work are building towards. They need to have a purpose and feel as though their work is meaningful. Basically, they want to work towards a common goal where they can still feel free to live their lives.
 

Getting ready for the Debt Connection Symposium (DCS), has got us thinking about how important connections are in this industry. People seem to stay in the collection space for their whole careers, making the connections with fellow industry peers and leaders invaluable. How many people do you know who have "left" the collection space only to be pulled back in? And with consumer debt growing every year, it doesn't look like the industry is going anywhere any time soon! 
The very nature of the collection space is rough. Organizations are constantly battling regulation, dealing with people in a rough spot in their lives, and pulling profit from an area that others have abandoned. That may be what creates the camaraderie among the organizations within the industry, or, maybe we're all just a little crazy! Either way, chances are someone you meet today will be around the industry in some capacity many years down the road. That's one of the main reasons we look forward to each conference. A constantly evolving and changing landscape requires individuals to stay sharp and as current as possible. Maybe that's the reason people stay? The need to adapt and learn are great human attributes that are at times stifled in jobs, but in the collection industry, if you don't learn to adapt with the changing times, you shrivel into obscurity. Another benefit of getting out to conferences is that an invaluable amount of knowledge is in one place at one time.
The Debt Connection Symposium has a great lineup of compliance talks and sessions this year, as well as, plenty of possible industry partners who could expand profits and effectiveness. When you go to a conference, what are you really looking to take away from the experience? Is it to see the new innovations out there? Figure out where you may be failing in compliance? Or simply meet some people in the industry and take some time away from the office?
For us, it's finding great partners to grow with. We're not the biggest company around, or the smallest, however having been in the industry for over twenty-five years, we understand the strengths and benefits of a lifelong industry partner and that is what we strive to find. Getting to meet people face-to-face is something we at ADS look forward to all year. How many times have you sat up at night thinking about work? How many sleepless nights has a major decision cost you? Hopefully not many, but I doubt the number is zero. Working in the collection space is not all flowers and roses and sometimes it seeps into our private lives. This is where having trustworthy processes, innovative technology, and solid business rules in place is a must! You want to leave work every day knowing you have set your company or institution up for success.  The peace of mind that goes along with a successful day is priceless. That's the beauty of the conferences in this industry. We get to meet one another and share how we have thrived over the years, what has made us better, and most importantly, we support one another in this ride.