Pierre Beaupre and Jean-Daniel Nieminen from Quebec came on Dragons’ Den with their invention, an easy-to-install dual-flush system. Designed to be easy to install and priced at roughly 10% of what a comparable toilet would cost, the device allows any standard toilet to be easily converted into a high efficiency unit.

However, when they traveled to a trade show, they returned without any sales – because they were looking for distributors, not sales.

On the Den, the dragons frowned on their maneuver, because it undermined their credibility.

It’s one thing for a business which has an existing revenue stream to turn down orders, as it could negatively impact existing business. However, a business which has yet to see its first dollar of income should be eager to take on new customers, even if they are not ideal. Where the business has an outstanding debt to its founders in the amount of $100,000 this need becomes even stronger.

While Pierre and Jean-Daniel claimed that they turned down the order due to an inability to fill the order, the dragons were skeptical of their ability to lead a business at all. As was phrased on the show, had they come onto the set with a purchase order in hand, asking for the funds that would allow them to fill the order, they likely would have walked away with a deal.

A prediction was made on air – one year later, Pierre and Jean-Daniel would either have done exceedingly well, or incredibly poorly. It is unlikely that they would be anywhere but. Looking for their business, I discovered their site at Flush2O.com and was unimpressed with what I saw. Low visit count, nothing out of the ordinary from a design perspective.

It’s looking like the Dragons made the wise choice to avoid business owners who couldn’t close a sale.

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1. The Right Time for Dragons’ Den
2. Dragons Flush a Good Idea – Bad Business Down the Toilet
3. Diversity and Focus

Forced to enter discussions with them, I was overwhelmed by the volume of paperwork and the miles of red tape that seemed to be targeted at making my inquiries impossible to be answered. With one employee at an institution assuring me that I would get an answer, and others presenting all the complications that stood in my way, I wasn’t sure if a simple solution existed.

A phone call to a colleague suggested an answer. He directed me to a particular branch of one of these institutions, where they were under significant internal pressure to work with clients such as myself. As such, they had streamlined their own processes to make dealing with the inquiries swift and painless for the customers.

While they had no assurance that even with a positive answer I would give them my business, they were aware that negative experiences could drive me away. As such, they solved my real problem for me – they explored the inane rules that they had to follow, and found ways to circumvent them.

This is similar to the experience of Mr. Incredible, who, working for a large insurance company, explains to one of the clients how to circumvent the bureaucracy to get a claim processed. This branch took it one step further, though, and instead of telling me how to get past their systems, they did the work for me.

If you have to work through a bureaucracy, it may be worthwhile to find people inside the system who have ulterior motives for helping you. This can be in order to meet other internal quotas, a relationship with you (e.g. a friend), or merely disdain for the complexity of the faceless entity they work for. These people, working within the system, know how to get things done, and how to do so expediently.

There’s no getting around the paperwork or the red tape, but there are certainly ways to make the experience less frustrating. Knowing which particular forms need to be filled out, and which ones do not, can save you large amounts of time, and can lead to faster answers to the questions you’ve been tasked with answering.

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Which group do you fall into, and why?

Calculating Salary

As noted in last week’s questions, assessing salary can be a challenging endeavor, especially if there are limited statistics available for the industry and region. However, there are some basic rules of thumb that can assist in running the calculation.

The first is to determine how much the position is worth to you, the employer. If by hiring someone to perform a particular role, you can generate $100,000 in revenue, then that position is worth some fraction of that. Once you factor in your own overhead, be it rent, taxes, collections, legal, and other aspects of your business which do not directly bring in revenue, this number usually works out to about a factor of 3.

Second, you need to look at the options your candidates have, and what types of positions they might otherwise be interested in. If you’re hiring a computer programmer, for example, but want him to work as a business analyst in addition to programming, you need to consider the salary he might be able to get as just a computer programmer. That number would then be used to determine the minimum salary level – since you require additional skills over comparable jobs.

Last, you need to look at what you can afford. If you cannot afford to pay a fair salary, then either you need to reduce the list of qualifications, or reduce the seniority such that the position becomes affordable. It will not help your business to offer a position at $75,000 per year when in reality you can only afford to pay $60,000. While you may scrimp to make the position work, you will end up doing your business more harm than good when you discover that you hired over your needs.

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2. Mathematics of Hiring
3. 10 Questions to Keep Asking About Your Business

This week, I had to contact a company which deals in large quantities of email to process a refund. The experience showed me what a good email policy is.

One evening, I realized that a purchase I had made had never been delivered, and so I emailed the vendor requesting a refund. Minutes later, I got an automated response telling me that my email had been recieved, and would be taken care of within 2 business days.

The following afternoon, I got a personal email asking for more details so that they could process the refund, to which I sent the requested information. I was notified that the refund would be processed within 5 days, and would get an email once the processing was done.

An hour later, that email came as well.

What this company did right is that they followed up at every step of the way:

1. They acknowledged that my email arrived, and let me know when I could expect a personalized response;
2. They met the timelines they set with a generous margin;
3. They constantly assured me that they would deal with this issue promptly and that they were concerned with my ultimate satisfaction.

If you receive more email than you can deal with immediately, following the example above may help reassure those emailing you that you will respond, and will do so in a friendly and professional manner.

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3. Question: Fake it Until You Break It?

I left university having had enough of sitting in the classroom. My degree took 5 years to complete, having added and removed subjects several times. I was ready to move out into the real world, despite the messages constantly being sent during the school years that the workload was preparing me for life.

I have never worked as hard as I did in school.

Being in a real job, whether for someone else, or for myself, made me realize that I have a fair bit of spare time, times when I don’t have other responsibilities. I then did something I would not have considered prior to starting the job – I started learning again.

Some learning was formal, presented in a classroom, with assignments, tests, and marks. Most, however, was the informal learning that I know to be one of the keys to success. Every discussion I had, every event I participated in, every situation that arose, all were opportunities to learn.

Constantly absorbing what happens around you in a work environment can be tougher than my fourth year algorithms course (ranked one of the most difficult courses offered by the university). Reflecting on the situations and making their lessons part of your being increase your value, just as getting a few more letters after your name can do the same.

To succeed, you need to keep learning. Any opportunity you have to sharpen your mind, increase your knowledge and understanding of your business and its environment, can only help you succeed.

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Find a mentor who has been in a similar business situation before (though not necessarily in the same industry), with whom you have good personal chemistry, and with whom you can communicate effectively.

The reason for this is simple – no matter how much advice you read, no matter how many textbooks you study, you will encounter countless situations in which the generic advice doesn’t hold true. Your training won’t help you, nor can you go out and search for an answer. The only resource that can help you is another person.

A mentor for a business owner understands the realities of the business. They understand the issues you’ve faced in the past, and how you handled them. They understand the local culture, and the personalities of the people involved.

And they understand your business.

Mentors can be free, if you have a friend or family member who is willing to step up to the job. If not, there are many small business consultants, who are essentially mentors. While their fees may seem extravagant to the point where they make lawyers look cheap, the value they bring to your business far exceeds their cost.

A good mentor will help you avoid costly mistakes, learn from your own history, and push you to succeed. A good mentor wants you to eventually part ways with them – because that means that you’ve succeeded, which means they’ve done their job well.

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Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki

I was fortunate to receive a copy of Enchantment courtesy of Guy Kawasaki. I had not read his previous books, but make use of his site Alltop (where I am featured under the listing Small Business), and was interested in reading more from the man known as the Chief Evangelist for Apple.

Having read this book, I am eager to get my hands on the rest of Guy’s publications.

Enchantment describes the process by which people have become enchanted with various things, whether people, causes, products, companies, or events. For any business, such information is critical – though, as Guy points out several times in this book, couples would do well to heed some of the advice and suggestions.

Enchanting people takes into account many factors, and to try to reduce the book to a single page of review would be impossible. Throughout the book, Guy kept me enchanted with its content, wanting to read more, to continue deriving benefit from each and every section.

The best comment I can make, having read through the book twice and in the middle of a third reading, is that if you were to select one book to read to improve your business, this should be it. It is absolutely critical that a business owner understand the art of enchantment, and this book contains all the tricks and tips you need to succeed.

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In your business, what do you tell your employees? Do you tell them the customer is always right, or do you take another approach?

Fake it Until You Break It

Last week, I asked about how to reconcile the two sayings: fake it until you make it and don’t bite off more than you can chew without damaging your reputation. Unfortunately, too many small businesses fail for the simple reason that they don’t understand how these two sayings relate to their business, and how they should influence their actions.

The first saying, fake it until you make it, is about giving the impression of being larger than you are, more established, more credible. It’s about impressions – that until you have the data backing you up, act as though you do.

The second saying is about accepting challenges: don’t bite off more than you can chew, or, in other words, don’t accept a challenge you can’t complete.

Just because you act larger than you are does not mean you have to accept every challenge. Even for large companies, not every project is a good fit. Saying no to a project is not a sign of being small, but rather, of knowing and accepting your own limitations. While you may feel pressure to act big and say yes, sometimes the better course of action is to be even bigger, and say no.

A business which manages to learn what types of projects it can do well at, and what types of projects exceed its capacities, and makes decisions accordingly, will not be taken for a small player, but for a seasoned business.

After all, it takes some experience to understand that certain projects, once accepted, can destroy a business as it fails to achieve its objectives.

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However, when the spiral has existed from the day of the business launching, and despite positive feedback on the product, making a few dollars has always been difficult, the sharp reversal can be another recipe for disaster. After all, if your customers like what it is you’re providing, then perhaps a tweak or adjustment is needed, but a reversal can merely drive people away.

If, however, due consideration indicates that a reversal may be in order, the business owner would be prudent to do two things:

1. Look at what the true problem with the current business model, and determine whether or not the reversal will result in the same scenario from a different perspective. As an example, if a site has little to no direct revenue, changing the structure of the site will not help bring in money unless the business model is adjusted as well.
2. Warn your customers of the pending change, so that you can gauge their feedback prior to making the change. This allows you to measure the effect the change will have on your existing clientele.

Building trust with your client base is critical if your business is to succeed. If you suddenly change attitudes with them, many customers will feel betrayed. If you take something away, whether a product or a service, customers will notice the absence of that item. Some may stay, but others will leave – because they truly were there for that particular product.

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If you want instant credibility, write a book.

Interesting logic, considering that many writers are people I wouldn’t necessarily want speaking at an event, or even consider credible because of their writing. For some, writing might have the opposite of the desired effect, by demonstrating their own lack of credibility.

However, for someone who does have credibility, just an inability to demonstrate that credibility, writing can provide a simple route to publicizing credibility.

First, the fact that you could come up with sufficient material for a book on a given topic shows that you have knowledge on the subject (though the quality of that knowledge would require actually reading the book).

Second, writing can help you organize your own thoughts on the subject, and help you define what it is your own expertise entails. The fact that you went through this process provides a measure of your credibility.

Having written copious amounts on this site over the past 2 years (over 400 posts and approaching 200,000 words), I considered this exercise of writing a book to be interesting, to say the least. Whether or not I choose to publish a book, the act of writing one could prove to be useful, and if ever I should need to demonstrate my credibility to someone who does not know me, I can always send them a copy of my book.

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How do you go about ensuring that your invoices are being paid in a timely fashion?

Coping with Failure

Last week, I asked how you cope with failure, no matter the significance. Clearly, though, the significance of the failed event makes a difference to most people, but successful people have managed to define all failures in one of two ways:

1. I failed and there was nothing I could have done to prevent it;
2. I failed because I didn’t take some action[s] to prevent it.

If the failure falls under the first category, then it can be brushed off fairly easily – after all, the failure came about through no fault of my own. Granted, I need to be brutally honest with myself in this assessment, but if I truly believe the failure was not under my control, then it will not hamper my ability to move forward.

If the failure is from the second category, however, then I need to assess what went wrong, and how I can prevent such a failure from occurring again. That is, failure is a way to learn from the past, to create the lessons that will shape the future.

Regardless of whether the failure was due to my actions or not, I cannot allow the failure to impact my future actions at an emotional level. Such reactions will not generate positive actions, and are more likely to result in a downward spiral as logic is removed and emotion begins to take control.

If you want to be successful, look at failure as an opportunity to learn how to improve. While you should not hope for failure, it also need not be a calamity.

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However, clearly some people manage to run meetings effectively, or at least in such a way that people leave those meetings with a sense of accomplishment. The tricks include some of the points below:

1. Make sure the right people are invited to the meeting – that is, every person who needs to be there is present, and those who do not need to be there are not invited. It’s not an insult – it’s about respecting everyone’s time and energy.
2. Have an agenda, and stick to it – if you want to accomplish something at a meeting, make sure everyone knows what it is you’re trying to accomplish, and stay on topic. If other items come up during the meeting, put them aside and deal with them later.
3. Keep it short, ideally no longer than 45 minutes – after about 45 minutes, people’s attention begins to wander. If it seems likely that the meeting will last longer, break it into multiple shorter meetings, perhaps with fewer people at each meeting.
4. Avoid touching base meetings – this can be handled more effectively via email, and does not really serve any useful purpose other than to take people away from doing productive work.

If you have a suggestion or idea about how to keep meetings on track, I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

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Within 6 to 9 months of becoming certified, if you are not getting 75% of new clients via referrals, you’re doing something wrong.

This is particularly interesting to those in service-based industries. Getting new clients is generally extremely lucrative, and many businesses would be prepared to pay hefty fees to bring in new clients. However, the vast majority of their new clients don’t have any costs associated with them.

Word of mouth is the best way to draw in new business, and there is no reason why any business owner need have any difficulty in this manner. Treat your clients well, and they will, in turn, pass your name along to their associates. Establish trust with people, and they will reciprocate over time.

Additionally, there is no reason not to try to use this method of bringing in new business. You should be treating your clients well, because in service-based industries, that is precisely what you are being paid to do. While this may not be true for every client, treating them well in general will see your clients treat you well – with respect, courtesy, and understanding as you may need it.

For example, I try to be generous with my referrals – but only in terms of whom I will give a referral to. That is, if you ask me if I know someone who can fill a particular role, I would be happy to provide such a recommendation – if I know and trust someone who can fill that role. Getting onto my list of people I refer, however, is much more difficult, as competency and courtesy must be established before I will consider giving the referral.

Over time, this has benefited me, and so most of what I’m doing could be considered selfish. As a result of the dozens of referrals I’ve given out, I have in turn been referred a few times, but every time that has happened, the value of that one referral has shown that it is worth considering others. No, I don’t demand, expect, or even hope for reciprocity every time I give someone a referral. But I know that by doing so, somewhere down the line, a referral will arrive.

I’ve been consulting for several years. As of right now, I have only one client who was not the result of a referral. That’s how service-based businesses work – I provide one client with a service, he mentions my name to his friend, who in turn becomes a client. She mentions me to a colleague, who also becomes a client. I earn each referral (or at least, I try to) by providing that client with the best service I can.

At the end of the day, this is all a matter of trust.

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Naturally, the way in which people deal with failure is somewhat dependent on the nature of the event. However, some people are in general better able to cope with failure, and everyone can learn from them.

The question of the week is simple: how do you cope with failure, whether significant or otherwise?

Assessing Competency

Last week, the question dealt with interviews, and in particular, how you assess the competency of a candidate. Chemistry, or how the candidate will fit in with the corporate culture, is in some respects easier to assess. After all, you can describe the culture, assess for a personality clash, have the candidate meet the team.

Some will venture to say that qualifications, that is, the degrees and certificates a candidate presents, can be used to assess their abilities. Unfortunately, in reality, this doesn’t really work very well.

First, unless you have knowledge of the particular institution issuing the degree or certificate, you cannot assess how well the curriculum of that degree matches the needs of your business. Additionally, unless you request transcripts, you have no way of knowing whether the candidate finished at the top of their class or the bottom – which could be a significant spread.

Second, most jobs entail real-life experience, something which few degrees provide. As such, the work experience of a candidate has more relevancy than which university they attended, and what grade they received in a particular course.

Looking at work experience has similar problems. While the candidate can describe their role in order to appear to be a good fit, the reality of what they did at past jobs may have little resemblance to the verbose descriptions provided in the interview. Stories about events at past jobs may have been minor parts of the role – if they happened to the candidate at all.

As such, the interviewing company must resort to more practical assessments of skill. There are a few ways to accomplish this.

The first way is via a portfolio, in which the candidate is asked to provide samples of their work. The company must make it clear that the work is being requested purely for assessment purposes, and should NEVER use the work without the permission of the candidate.

However, not every job can be assessed via a portfolio. In some cases, more specific samples are needed.

The company can request a particular sample. For example, a salesman might be asked to prepare a sales pitch on a particular product, and present it during the interview. If the preparation of such a pitch is not expected to take too much time (and this is relative to the position being filled), such a mechanism can provide a very accurate assessment of skill.

Last, the company can attempt a test, but with caution. The test questions should be designed such that it’s not so much the correct answers as a way of thinking that is being measured. For example, a candidate could be given a problem to which there are many known solutions, and the assessment is not whether or not the candidate knows a particular answer, but how they approach the problem. This can be used to assess the candidate’s problem solving skills.

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The manager was concerned that this would appear as a stain on a clean resume, perhaps having a negative impact on his ability to market himself effectively. However, perhaps this early failure could turn out to be of benefit, when properly presented.

Everything in life is about the spin, or the angle. In any situation, the question is not whether there is bias, but rather, how that bias is being presented, and to what ends. Sometimes, the creation of the bias itself is subject to analysis, showing the thought processes of the presenter.

The manager, seeking to put a positive spin on the situation, can choose to reflect on what was accomplished prior to the conclusion of the contract. Additionally, he can look at the reasons for the project being cancelled, and learn how to detect such issues early in the project lifecycle. He can apply those lessons learned to future projects, but, perhaps more relevant, he can explain all this as a lesson learned in the school of hard knocks.

When presented with a situation in which the outcome was not the hoped for success, that’s not the same as a failure, unless you choose to present it that way. Every situation has bias, and you can choose to bias the situation to be described as an alternative successful outcome, rather than a failure.

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3. Life is a Roller Coaster

I reflected on my own degree, and the experiences I had during university. I changed my majors several times over the course of 5 years, taking a fairly diverse selection of courses both within and outside my selected area of study. Yes, I had a social life, but I also had an academic life. Additionally, most summers I worked in one of the laboratories on campus.

Following my graduation, I spent several months looking for full time work, eventually taking a job at a large insurance company, where I remained for over 3 years. From there, I moved to consulting work, which I have been doing ever since,

I learned very different things on the job from what I learned in the classroom, and I don’t think either one could stand on it’s own. Sure, you don’t need formal education to succeed in life, but for most, it will help define paths. Likewise, without work experience, there is too much of a focus on the theoretical, which does not always reflect reality.

The ideal scenario is to have both, which is, perhaps, why co-op programs are so popular. However, this could be taken even further, with companies working together with universities to provide real world examples to be used in courses as projects and assignments. Some courses already Integrate guest speakers into the teaching schedule, which is great, but there is no replacement for hands on training.

If your company has been having a hard time finding qualified hires fresh out of university, you may want to approach the universities to work with them to better prepare their students for the real world. If you do so, then everyone wins as the students end up with a more practical education, and the businesses end up with a selection of prospects for employment who have been properly trained to work in the real world.

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If you think that offering excellent reasons for your thinking will change anyone’s mind, you might be new on this planet.

In business, it’s important that you understand this because it relates to how you turn prospects into customers. That is, what type of arguments should you be presenting to convince someone that your product or service is worth spending their time and money on?

The key is that while facts cannot be ignored, they’re also not the most important piece of your marketing and sales pitches. Purchases are driven by emotion, and so you have to connect with your prospects at an emotional level. Sure, you need the facts to back you up, but they should not be the basis of your arguments.

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My friend asked me, since I’m in the same industry, what I might suggest for her. The truth is, from the description about, there are two possibilities for what’s going on, and each has a different approach.

The first possibility is that her prospects all require her services as well as the complementary service, and will generally only work with firms or freelancers who can provide both. The solution here is simple in concept, though execution can be tricky. Find another business which offers the complementary service, and start sub-contracting that portion of the work to them. In return, that business will send you work in a reciprocal agreement.

While you are unlikely to get an exclusive agreement like this, it can help bring in new business that you would otherwise have never seen, as well as enable you to close contracts that might have been lost.

However, there is another possibility, and it needs to be considered carefully. It is possible that the prospects she has been in discussion with are not her ideal clients. I’m often surprised by how many people in business do not understand who their perfect clients are, and spend great efforts pursuing the wrong types of clients. The perfect client is going to help your business grow in the direction you want it to go. If that client is asking you for something your business does not provide, and does not want to provide, then that is not an ideal client.

In this particular case, I believe the first answer is the better one. Many people in her industry either offer the complementary service themselves, or have a list of providers they use who can. When the menu is lacking, you have to choose to either supplement with an insert from another company, or redefine who and what your busienss is, and what services belong on the menu.

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When you named your business, how did you choose the name? What vision were you trying to portray with your choice of name?

Mentors

Last week, I asked about finding a mentor, or where you might look to find a mentor. Perhaps the best answer was the one from Jeremy:

Friends in business, business partners, customers that you respect, or hire a business coach!

The best approach here is to address each on its own.

Friends in Business

These are your peers, who have no vested interest in the performance of your business in particular, beyond a desire to see you succeed. They may not have much more experience than you, but their experiences are similar, and yet different enough to be of use. An issue you face now might be one a friend dealt with a while ago. Additionally, this mentorship relationship can be reciprocal, with you giving your friend the benefit of your experiences when they need it.

The downside to such a relationship is that finding a friend with sufficient experience, and where having a mentor-like relationship will not impact your friendship, can be difficult. Not every business owner can find such a resource, but if you can, it should certainly be used.

Business Partners

The upside to business partners as mentors is that they know exactly what issues you’re facing, and the implications of the decisions you need to make. The downside, though, is that they also have a vested interest, and some of those interests might not align themselves with your own.

When using a business partner as a mentor, try to find at least one other resource who can act as a mentor as well.

Respected Customers

This one may be surprising, but the perspective customers bring to a business is not to be taken lightly. They see the short-comings of your business, as well as what it is you do well that keeps them around as customers. If you have a customer who has experience with business, and with whom you have a good relationship, try to at least spend some time with them on a regular basis to get feedback on how your business is developing.

Business Coach

This is, perhaps, my least-liked approach to mentorship, though many advocate it. My primary issue with such a mentor is that they are in the business of mentoring, and as such, want to see you succeed. However, this lends itself to a potential pitfall, in that if you succeed too quickly, you may abandon them sooner rather than later. Of course, that also might result in more referrals, but you are a guaranteed customer, while referrals are a maybe.

However, a business coach who has experience running a business (other than their coaching business) could be an extremely valuable resource. If this is the route you are taking, be sure to get personal referrals for a coach from other business people you know and trust.

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At some point during the life of a business, the amount of work coming in the door will exceed the limits of the business. Product based businesses will see this when demand outstrips their ability to supply, service-based businesses will see this when the demands on their time exceed the number of hours available to work. In a large business, this issue may have already been solved, either by having a process for increasing the supply, or by increasing the price to reduce demand.

However, smaller businesses walk with trepidation when faced with this issue. On the one hand, their ability to increase supply is severely limited – they may not have the necessary cash flow to handle additional hires, or to front the money required to pay for additional goods. On the other hand, the inability to supply the increasing demand may hamper their ability to expand, and may result in a negative impact on their existing business.

Additionally, there is the inability to see the future, which means that the business owner trying to decide whether or not the sudden increase in demand justifies hiring another employee must guess (hopefully with some helpful data) whether the sudden demand is merely a spike in activity, or if it is sustainable. This has ramifications on what is needed to ensure that the decision is made with appropriate resources allocated to support it, should the spike in demand be followed by a dip.

To determine how to best handle the spike in demand, it is necessary to look at the goals for the business. If the aim is to grow by hiring more people, to increase the supply, then the spike in demand can be one way of moving toward that goal sooner than expected. If the aim is to reach a certain level of activity, or, in other words, to cap the supply at a certain point (for example, to work 40 hours per week), then the decision that needs to be made is only how to go about reducing the demand – should you raise your prices, or merely refuse to take on additional customers?

Others, though, are stuck between the two decisions. While they don’t mind working more than a certain number of hours, or, in other words, to work with an expanding business, they also may not be actively looking to expand. As a result, they are unprepared for the expansion, both from a fiscal point of view, and psychologically as well.

Some may choose to bridge the gap by using sub-contractors to take on the work they are unable to do. This can help defer the decision until it is clear whether or not the increase in demand is going to be enduring, but it also exposes the business owner to various risks associated with delegating work (the quality may not be up to standard, managing the contractor can be complicated). Others may raise prices moderately, in an attempt to drive up margins while they debate internally how to handle the demand.

What would you do? How have you handled sudden spikes in demand beyond your abilities to provide?

Related posts:

1. Growth, Expansion, and the First Hire
2. Growth and the Panic Response
3. Managing Accounts Receivable