On May 29, O. D. Glaus will be awarded the National Association of Credit Management's first ever Alice McGregor Lifetime Achievement Award at NACM's national credit conference in Chicago. The award promises to be the pinnacle of the half-century-long career of the 70-year-old Glaus, who will retire later this year from his position as credit manager at Genesco, Inc. (Nashville, Tennessee).

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the Credit & Collection Manager's Letter, which Credit Today purchased in 2006.

If you've been involved in the credit profession for a while, you have likely met, or at least heard of, Glaus. He was the NACM president in 1971 and chaired the Accreditation Committee for its first 22 years, overseeing the graduation of 1,200 credit professionals into the CCE (Certified Credit Executive) ranks. He also spearheaded the move to create a national credit legislative conference, which has grown from a turnout of only 16 in 1972 to 400 last year.

These days the majority of credit decisions are made by 'crunching numbers.' If the numbers don't 'crunch' right, customers don't get credit. Most problems that credit professionals experience in their careers come from not being able to communicate effectively. -- O.D. Glaus

• Credit. "Credit people should have more contact with customers than the salespeople do," he suggests. "Salespeople may talk with customers a couple of times a season. I like to talk with customers at least once a month." (Glaus reports only half-jokingly that he has sold more shoes to customers as a credit professional than a lot of salespeople have.)
  "Over the years, I've extended millions of dollars of credit to people whose financial statements weren't all that strong, and to some people who didn't even have financial statements," he notes. "I was willing to extend credit to them because of the confidence I had in them, and I gained this confidence by being able to meet them in person. And there have been a lot of big winners in that group of people."

• Collections. Glaus is also a strong advocate of visiting customers when collections are a problem. "I don't like to turn customers over to collection agencies," he explains. Not only does this require paying a large fee to such agencies, but it loses customers in the process.
  "Instead, I like to visit them personally and work out some deals." Often, Glaus will meet privately with a customer and the customer's attorney to create an informal agreement, which can often keep the customer out of bankruptcy. "When you can get paid and keep a customer out of bankruptcy, you do everyone a service," he notes. "You maintain control, you save money, and you don't have to jump through all the hoops of bankruptcy procedures -- hearings, committees, fees, attorneys, and so on."

• Technical. Regardless of how sophisticated an audience Glaus may be addressing, he finds that the majority of questions still center around "the basics."
  "People want me to talk about how to do specific procedures, and what they should be when specific things happen," he notes. "This highlights the need for continuing basic credit education."

• Interpersonal. "Most problems that credit professionals experience in their careers come from not being able to communicate effectively," he emphasizes. "In fact, I'd say that 90% of all success in the credit profession is related to people skills and communication skills. In my career, the credit people I've known who have become the most successful are the ones who have been the best communicators."