We spent last Friday cleaning up the Boys and Girls Club of Metrowest in Marlborough and in Michigan, our team cleaned up the Proud Lake Recreation Area. This was all to observe Earth Day and the Professional Land Care Network’s PLANET Day of Service.

We were proud to sponsor this entire event nationwide and be the chosen collection agency for PLANET and the green industry. We were excited to give back to this organization and more importantly, get out of the office for a day and show our communities that we in fact do care. Take a look at our Massachusetts project in the video below and stay tuned early next week for video of our Michigan project.

Earth Day and PLANET Day of Service was once again a great experience. Both our Massachusetts and Michigan offices took part in this day and all in all, we had a great time helping out our communities. Now I heard that it was snowing in Michigan first thing in the morning but that didn’t stop our team from going at it, pulling weeds, planting shrubs and building fences at the Proud Lake Recreation Area.

In Massachusetts, we partnered with the Boys and Girls Club of Metrowest in Marlborough to help clean up their play area. We took away broken branches from the trees, laid bark mulch, planted flowers and a bunch of azaleas and filled quite a few bags of leaves from the past winter.

We also partnered with students from the Keystone and Torch Clubs to help out at the Boys and Gilrs Club. They did a great job of painting stones to surround one of the trees and as we left, they took over the duties of watering the new plants.

In Michigan, this collection agency will offer 400 volunteer hours over the next two years to the upkeep of the Proud Lake Recreation Area. Many might think we just do this as a one-time thing but given this is our third year sponsoring the nationwide event and getting dirty ourselves, we have put the commitment and dedication of this collection agencybehind a great cause.

Now many of us really got our backs into it but our own Michelle really got into it. In fact, there was one weed that Michelle had her sights on since she got to the project. See who won this battle in the video below… And stay tuned for a video of the entire project coming soon.

For many, April 22 is Earth Day but for so many in the landscaping and lawn care industry, it’s PLANET Day of Service. This day was developed by the Professional Landcare Network of which we are an endorsed partner.  We work with hundreds of businesses in these industries so this project is a great way for us to give back.

We have two projects on the books for tomorrow. The team members of this collection agency will be rolling up their sleeves and getting a little dirty all in the name of our environment.

In Marlborough Massachusetts, we’ll be cleaning up a play area for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metrowest. We’ll get a little help from some of the young members of their Keystone and Torch Clubs, which will partner children ages 11-18 on the project.

In Michigan, our office has adopted Proud Lake Recreation located in Commerce Twp, Michigan. The office has pledged a two year commitment to the upkeep of the park with 400 hours of volunteer service. They will also work o plant new shrubs and a general clean up of the area.

Check back for photos and video of our project and let us know what you’re doing for Earth Day.

In our meet the manager series here on our blog, our next manager probably does the work of five managers. Michelle handles everything from human resources where she secures our great talent, our marketing and social media where she’s telling the world about the great services we provide here and she oversees our first-rate customer service team, the best in the business.

As a collection agency that does an enormous amount of charity work, Michelle spearheads all of these initiatives including our Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walks, PLANET Day of Service on Earth Day, our Adopt a Family program during the holidays and our Summer Charities of Choice, among others…

Michelle has a passion for doing the right thing, making us look good and keeping an eye on how we can constantly improve. I took some time out recently to grab a video camera and talk with her about all her duties here at APR;

Tim is one of the most passionate sales professionals I know. And when I say passionate, I mean he truly believes in what our services can do for a business. I’m not bashing anyone in sales but not all sales people believe in their product. Tim does and he gets in the office everyday and is excited to get on the phone to businesses and tell them about how this collection agency is different.

Tim has a Masters Degree in Leadership from Central Michigan University, is a great soccer coach when he’s not working here at APR and he is always thinking positive which spreads all though our offices. Tim has an extensive background in the financial services industry which helps him in his work here at APR and it has shown as he has been a big part of our growth over the past couple of years. Tim took time away from the phones to tell us a little more about himself and the goals he has set for him and his team.

As you can imagine in a collection agency, our technology needs to be flawless. Not only can we not afford any downtime but the security we need to have in place given the nature of our business is a top priority.

We have a great IT Manager in Tim Hays. When he started we had one server and now he’s managing an entire room full of them it seems. Tim keeps us all up and running so we can do our jobs and he is heavily involved in keeping us up to date and compliant with security.

Tim has over 20 years in the IT business. He is highly accomplished in the IT field and is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer along with being a Microsoft Certified Professional. He’s worked for a couple different industries and he is a solid leader in his department. There’s a lot of pressure to maintain good secure networks in this day and age and Tim and his entire team do a great job.

Our own Michelle took time out recently to talk with Tim about his job. Take a look at the video below.

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April is a busy month not only for us with our Collectors Challenge, raising money for the ACA’s Educational Foundation but we’re also into lawn season for many of us around the country. After the winter we have had here, especially in the Northeast, I know I’m looking forward to just seeing my lawn. And while you’ll see homeowners out there prepping their own lawns for the warm weather, you’ll also see a lots of lawn care professionals out there as well serving customers.

The lawn care and landscaping industry is one of our largest areas of concentration here at this collection agency. We spent much of the winter attending various trade shows around the country talking to people in the green industry and showing them we can help them with their receivables. There are also many others in this field we service including irrigation specialists and nurseries that supply garden materials and other items to people.

As we always say to people in this industry, don’t wait until the cold weather to chase down overdue invoices for services. We know many in this business are small businesses that have even the owner of the company out servicing clients which makes some of the back office duties take a back seat. Invoice on time and make sure you’re following up on your customers that have not paid on time.

This is the perfect time to get a system in place for managing your receivables and sticking to it. Before you know it, it will be nice and sunny outside (thank goodness for that…) and if you’re in the green industry, you’ll be busier than ever.

Our own Lindsay in our customer service department recently caught up with one of our customers at a trade show and talked about his experiences with using American Profit Recovery. Take a look.

April marks many important things such as autism awareness month, stress awareness month, volunteer month and in our industry, its collectors challenge month. Many collection agencies band together to raise money and awareness for the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals Educational Foundation.

This foundation supports the very important initiative called Ask Dr. Debt which provides consumers with a whole host of resources to assist them with questions regarding debt issues. We want to raise as much money as we can for this project but also want to let the public know that this resource is available to them. Questions to many issues around consumer debt and how to manage it properly can be found on this website. More can be found at AskDoctorDebt.com

This challenge provides this collection agency with a number of things including the chance to show that we in fact do care about the consumer and their ability to manage their debt, it gives us a chance to offer valuable team building here as our entire team rallies around this cause and in the end, it gives us another opportunity to show the public that the collection industry does provide value to our economy by bridging the gap between business and consumer and getting that money back into our economy in a diplomatic manner.

Our team will be doing a number of things to raise money including paying for casual dress in the office, an NCAA bracket challenge, we’ll have weekly raffles in the office and we have already started to donate $1 for every person who “likes” our Facebook page.

Our pledge to treat all consumers with respect and dignity is also highlighted this month. I ask you to take 60 seconds to view the video below to hear our pledge to all consumers who we contact and check back here soon. You may see some great photos of our fundraising activities this month.