How CSG Came to Be

My professional background has taken me through several very different sides of the financial world. For many years, I worked in the mortgage business as a loan officer and business owner. I built a successful business and had a career I was proud of.

Then 2008 happened.

Like so many others, I lost my business and my mortgage license. I could no longer work in the mortgage industry. I applied for sales positions and other jobs, but I repeatedly heard the same thing: “You’re overqualified. We don’t think you’ll stay.”

What those employers didn’t know was that I wasn’t looking for my next big opportunity. I had exhausted my savings, sold the assets I had, and was simply trying to find a way to support my family. I would have taken the opportunity to work and rebuild.

That period of my life taught me something I have never forgotten:

Behind every account is a person, a business, a family and a relationship.

Then I Learned the Other Side of the Equation

Eventually, I accepted a position with a local dealership working in collections and skip tracing. It wasn’t glamorous, and it certainly wasn’t the career I had envisioned. But I learned.

I learned how collections worked. I learned how to locate people. I learned how companies approach past-due accounts. And most importantly, I learned what happens when the person on the other end of the phone feels like they’re being treated as a problem instead of being treated as a customer. That experience stayed with me.

Then Came Invoice Factoring

Over the last few years, I had the opportunity to work with an invoice factoring company. My responsibilities included onboarding clients and working directly with their debtors—the companies responsible for paying those invoices. I spent a great deal of time communicating with accounting departments. I learned how A/R really moves through a business.

I also learned about the NOA—Notice of Assignment—and how a factoring company could receive payment directly from a debtor after purchasing or funding an invoice. But something else caught my attention.

Every once in a while, I had to help address an aging receivable. At first, I approached those accounts the way I had been taught to approach collections. It didn’t work particularly well. So I tried something different.

Instead of approaching the accounting department as a collector, I approached them as an extension of the factoring company’s team. I wasn’t calling to pressure them. I was calling to help them take care of the account. And the response was remarkable.

The Response Changed Everything

The accounting departments responded differently. Instead of becoming defensive, they were cooperative. Instead of avoiding the conversation, they engaged. And very often, the response was essentially: “It was an oversight. We’ll get that taken care of.”

The relationship between the factoring company, its client and the debtor remained intact. And, in many cases, the payment followed quickly. That’s when something clicked for me.

Maybe the problem wasn’t the customer. Maybe the problem was the approach.

I Started Supporting A/R Before It Became a Collection

I began looking at accounts differently. Rather than waiting until an account was severely delinquent, I believed we could provide support earlier. Rather than acting like a collection department, I acted like an A/R support partner.

Rather than saying, “You owe this money,” the conversation became: “We’re here to help make sure everything stays on track.”

The results continued to speak for themselves. Even when my focus was supposed to be on much older receivables, I continued to believe there was value in maintaining communication with accounts earlier in the process. Because the objective wasn’t simply to collect money. The objective was to keep the money moving while protecting the relationship.

And That’s Where CSG Was Born

Eventually, the opportunity came to provide this type of support as a partner rather than simply as an employee. The concept was simple: if I could help a company improve its A/R performance, protect its customer relationships and get paid based on results, why couldn’t I build a company around that model?

That became the Collection Support Group. CSG. Today, our mission is simple: