Len Sklar on “The Check is NOT in the Mail” at March 7 Breakfast

Len Sklar is coming to our Friday March 7 breakfast at Hobees in Palo Alto. He will make a short presentation on “The Check is Not in the Mail” and answer questions on effective approaches to getting paid in full, on time, at less cost and without losing valued customers. Len offered the following bio:

Len Sklar likes to characterize himself as a serial entrepreneur. After spending 14 years with P & G, Dow Chemical, and IBM, he started a collection agency, about which he knew nothing.

After a year, he understood the business and started doing seminars teaching businesses how to avoid collection problems, in the first place, and then how to recover most of the money themselves, without losing good clients in the process.

From 1971 to 1990, he presented 600 seminars a year, in 200 U.S. cities, using himself and 12 others he trained. He wrote an industry standard book, “The Check Is NOT In The Mail” and started a collection temp staffing company that he grew to 12 offices nationwide.

Len sold the staffing business in 1994 and keeps busy as a private investor, helping non-profits, some consulting and, with the encouragement of Sean Murphy, he just completed a book on how to give great presentations.

Len was kind enough to let me review drafts and then the galley copy of his new book “Great Presentations: How to Keep Your Audience Awake–All The Time.” I found that he brought a dry sense of humor, an attention to detail for the customer’s experience, and an understanding of the economics of putting on a successful seminar to a short but very dense book. It has a number of excellent checklists and thought provoking insights to help the reader prepare and deliver compelling seminars.