Marc Schillinger: Digitalizing Account Receivables

Hi. Remember when those guys who had slicked black hair and carrying a bat, paid you a visit about a debt you owed, you know, debt collectors. What times have changed in mark Sillinger founder of EEC is transforming the way debt collection and account receivables takes place. EEC is a fully digitalized receivables management, thin tech startup with best in class AI and machine learning technology.

They're currently operating in several European cities. Provide services for more than 13 languages are approaching 10 million in a. This is a very fun conversation with mark, as we learned about EEC and Mark's passion for Michael Jordan, as I believe he's Jordan's number one, fan, listen to his story to see why let's dive in.

Hey, mark. Welcome to the show. How you doing? I'm fine. Thank you very much, Eric, for having me here. It's a great channel for me. Absolutely. For folks who don't know you, who is mark Scher? Well, like how would you describe yourself? Yeah, 46 years old, three children, you know, living currently in Switzerland and in Germany.

And I build up AEC. And before that I had corporate business CV, I would say. And then for years I decided to go out of the corporate and started the AEC to be an entrepreneur in the tech environment. Okay. Okay. You know, mark, when I was thinking of. Sorry. When I was, when I was thinking about our chat, I remembered a time that many years ago, I received this phone call from a debt collector and he was very rude.

He definitely wasn't customer centric at all. In fact, he, he made me very upset and I was about to put on my, my ass kicking boots and go pay him a visit. That's how angry he made me now times have changed. And when it comes to receivables and debt collection, what's really changed in the past 10 years on, on how companies are using technology and processes.

You know, what is, what has changed in that field? Look, Eric, I have hairs, I don't sit here having a black suit and I don't have a place ball in my hand, you know? So this is like thing. When you talk about collection, you know, it always comes down to, okay, this is like the image, you know, of, of collect. I think we have seen quite a large change within the last two to three years, you know, coming more, not being like a collection company where you outsource your depth, but you become also a very important port and chain of the customer value because no large.

Cooperation, you know, starting from the invoicing over the dining process to the collection process know, see the whole receiver piece management process as one process. And therefore the, the collection approach, you know, is, is the enlargement of, of the customer journey in the collection. And therefore also in the collection area, you know, I mean, you need to be very cautious, you know how to talk to people.

You need to give them different communication methods, different payment methods. And this I think has changed dramatically in the last two. Also see the collection part of the business, you know, being a customer retention, part of the business for the large corporation where we, for example, do collection for, are you seeing a lot of differences in, in countries in terms of the channels that people are using to pay their debts or, or, you know, for example, in Germany, are you seeing more SMS and mobile payments versus Bulgaria?

Or maybe they're still utilizing the phone? I'm just very curious. Yeah. Yeah. So. You know, Eric, we have filled a platform where we are currently operating in more than 30 countries to collection business and services. So we. More than 60 payment methods on our payment platform, how to pay the collection at the end of the day that, you know, and so guess you see, right?

So when I look in Europe or, or at Europe, you know, the Scandinavian countries, you know, are more into digitalization, for example, than. Germany, you know, and therefore, and also from communication style east Europe is more, is far advanced than for example, Switzerland or Austria, you know, so yes, this is the reason why we are offering different communication channels for tors.

But on the other side, we also offer different payment methods. So I just mentioned the 60 different payment methods. So we have really specific country specific payment methods in the platform so that I don't know, the Swiss guy can pay via PostFinance, you know, and the Dutch guy can pay via EDL. And this is very important.

And we also see a trend, you know, moving from the tra traditional. You have to go to the bank and pay your debt. You know, the more we send out a payment link and he just clicks two or three times on the payment link and therefore the debt is more or less resolved. So also the convenient in the, on the communication side, but also on the payment side has, has very much changed within the last 12 to 24 months.

Are you servicing specific industries, specific types of companies. We have actually focused on large corporations where they have allow to know operations across Europe because the us P of EEC is that we have one API integration into a client and therefore we then operate the collection service in different, in different countries, in different currencies, any different.

Therefore our, I would say main, main focus is large corporations who have different operations in Europe and therefore also different type of debts in Europe. So we are not focusing on one specific industry. However, you know, the, the digitalization approach we are bringing to the market, I would say we are best in servicing that's to up to 1000 euros.

So everything. So typically you're not banking debt, which has like 50,000 euros open principle balance. It's not very convenient with LIC because we are very, we have really tried to do the digitalization when it comes to payment and communication. And I think if you have a 50,000 Euro that you will not pay by credit card, for example, you.

No. No, I don't think so. Unless you're a prince from Saudi Arabia or something like that. Right. okay. Now you're having a lot of, a lot of success here. You're in many countries throughout Europe. What are some of the main tactics that you, you use to grow EEC? How did you get the word out about it? Yeah, so, you know, we started four years ago.

We, we established a headquarter in Switzerland because the infrastructure and also the startup, I would say support was, was better than in other European. So we headquartered in Switzerland, we then opened an operating hub in Germany in essence, which is like the, the internal capital city of collection, because a lot, a lot of collection companies are located here in essence.

And therefore we decided to open our operating hub in essence, to just get the talent, you know, into the company. Some guys with some guys with baseball bats and things like that. Yes, exactly. Boxing blocks and all that, you know? No, seriously. I think it's important to understand. So we have now currently 20, 20, 20 to 25 people in essence operating people, we speak 13 languages there, you know, because we still have in the collection, you can never automatize the whole process.

You always need to have people to talk to the. So we do inbound and outbound calling and therefore we need like native speaking people who now speak 13 languages in the operating center, innocent. And then we have, we have decided to build up a tech hub in SOF. Bulgaria. We have looked at different countries in Eastern Europe, but then we decided also a couple years ago to go to Soia because also there, the talent, the tech talent is still is still there.

You know, you have a large talent pool and we are very satisfied of, of, of, of. Having found at that top building up that top. And currently we have 25 people located in sofa. Okay. So what I think, I, what I, what I think I heard here is that you have a tech operations, a lot of your engineers are probably in Sophia Bulgaria.

You actually started the company in Switzerland, but then you also have a base, a big base with a lot of people that are in Germany. So how do you juggle this? Are you in different locations, maybe one, you know, one month or what are you, what are you doing here to. To try to manage all of this and be at, at multiple places, or you specifically just remote mark.

I'm just trying to get idea what your work schedule looks like. So it was like, you know, cor Corona for us started actually four years ago when we founded the hubs, you know, because we were then one visa. I was, I mean, we are very much used to working with zoom and, and all this stuff, you know, however, if I look back now, I think that it was the right decision to get most of the locations we are, you know, so we get really tech expertise tech now, tech talent auto.

So. We get the operating connection expertise out of German, you know, and the infrastructure, which is in Switzerland, great to build and scale a company. And this was actually the reason why we looked at different location to get the best out of each of the location. We are also. Currently looking into other European countries also to scale the omnichannel platform.

But that, that was actually the reason by finding the company. Yes, you are fully, right. It is a huge challenge, you know, to get the management team, to get the people in the different operations together and working also in corporation. But I think we manage quite well either in traveling and, and, and having meeting on sites, but also of course, Virtual meetings at the end of the day.

Okay. Okay. But no more was the challenge for us, you know, but I think we, we are, we quite manage. So we build up the company from five people, not to more or less 55 people. We have 23 different nationalities in the company. So we are really diversified company. As a small startup. Yeah. Yeah. So 55. Yeah. 55 hit count.

What is the projected revenue for 2022? Just an estimate. Well, it's something between five to 10 million euros. Unfortunately I can give you, I can give you a concrete number, but it's something between five to 10 million euros. Okay. Well, that's, that's fantastic. Now, what ha what do you wish you had known before, before you started on this journey with E.

Well, you know, I think we are, so the management team in AEC are from the collection business, you know, which I think separates us a little bit from typical VC driven companies, you know, where you get money and then you store your idea and then you look okay, it's gonna be . You know? So when we found out the company.

We were all more or less experts in collection. You know, we were not experts in tech, but we were experts in collection and we had an idea how to drive the collection business into digitalization, you know? And so for us, the, the, the largest challenge was to find tech people, which we can communicate, you know, and which understands our, our business and our language from the connection.

And this I have to say was probably, or personally my, my biggest challenge. You know, to, to lead steer and manage tech people, which are completely different culture and nature and mindset and set. And this was also for the management team in ATIC was quite a huge challenge, you know, to get these people on board, understand these people and then leave the people or against the people more or less the freedom.

To develop a system, which is now running in more than 30 countries. Okay. You know, on that note, I'm now wondering what is one hire that you and the management staff made that really made a tremendous difference for the company? Well, you know, it's now unfair to all the 55 employees to pick up one, but I have to say, I have to say it's when it comes to collection and the new way of collecting it's it's, it's, it's two.

Tech and operation. Okay. And, and I think we made a good hire with, with some of the tech guys, you know, because these tech guys have really deep understanding of sort of the re receivable management invoice. So this is one thing, you know, how to, how to also. Bring people into the company. Imagine that how's the industry.

How can the industry look like in three to five years, you know, and already build a system or factoring a system now new to be, you know, also future ready. And then on the operational side, you know, it's important to have people in the company who have an open mind, not only for one country where we do collection, but more or less for more than 30 countries.

Okay. Yeah, because also the, the, the, the culture. The mindset and the behavior of adapters are completely different in, in different European countries. So communication skills, payment skills, you know how to treat them is completely different country by country. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I don't want to pick out one guy, you know, but it's like more a team effort on the operation side, but also on the tech side.

Yeah, well, I was thinking maybe it was maybe the C CIO or maybe a CTO for somebody that had, could speak the language of the engineers and the tech guys. That's what I was thinking, but, but you're right. It's not just the technology. So I was, I didn't, I didn't, I was not very successful the last three, four years, not picking a CTL, which is staying in the company for, for the last three to four years.

And also this was like a position I has to. That has changed within eight to 12 months, you know, the last four years. But now we have found a CTL, which has noticed that, which has already in the company for one year. He's a very experienced guy. So he's 51. He has a good background in, in, in tech, you know, but he can also, he has also a great knowledgeable future technology and I'm very happy that, that, that we could find this guy and hire this guy.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. When you say future technology, I'm already fascinated that there's more than, well, there's multiple ways that somebody could pay their debt. Right. But like in five or 10 years, You know, is there something out there that another way that people may be paying their debt or, or, you know, are they gonna be in the, in the meta universe paying a debt?

I'm just what do you anticipate five years from now in this field, mark. You know, I'm, I'm pretty convinced that. So if you look at our, our industry today, and if I take no EEC, you know, 65% of all the debts are being paid without manual interference. So this means that we send out an email and SMS and WhatsApp.

There is a PAing you, you click the PAing, you pay your debt. And then you have like the 30% or 30% of the depth where you still need manual interaction by people. Okay. And our main target now for the next three to four years is that we reduce the 30% to maybe 10. Okay. So that we, more to that, we go more into automatization, for example, end screen email.

So if, if you want to, if you want to propose an installment payment in all for 500 years and you drop as a. The machine already recognizes the text of the email, and then you will directly, you will receive a proposal for an installment payment. Okay. So this can be one thing. So we automatized, we automatization the, the communication also via email.

This is one thing, second thing we want to, we have already started now 18 months ago is machine learning. So if I talk to mark sheller 46 and he has paid, you know, in a certain type of debt, our system is capable of filling an. The avatar will then be stored in the system. And if a adapter, which has more or less, a similar characteristic will, will, will enter the depth collection stage.

The machine automatically chooses the communication and payment journey of this other hub. So which each successful payment. The machine, you know, recognizes and builds another tone. And then the communication strategy and the payment strategy will be set when a new depth is arise. And I think this is, you know, this is like how the machine is learning on the Mo how we, more and more automat the, the process of that collection.

And now we are also thinking about also introducing the blockchain, you know, because I think this will be the next future technology also in our. You have like one, one contract, you know, and everything is stored in this conflict, you know, then payment, the PNL and everything is in this contract. So at the end of the day to make a long story short, I think you will always need people in the debt collection area because doctors want to talk because it's an open debt, you know, but I think at the end of today, our, our primary target is maybe reduced this interaction, this communication to five to 10% and 90% should.

Automatic. Yeah. Yeah. Artificial intelligent. Let's call it this way. Yeah. Yeah. So I, if I was a, a client and I was doing debt collection manually, and having just heard what you just said that, Hey, we can digitalize a lot of this. You know, we've already got multiple ways for a person to pay. We've got a staff that speaks multiple languages here.

I would already be fascinated. I would be pretty excited to, to try you guys out. Right. But is there something else that, that clients get really excited about when they discover EEC? Well, I think it's, it's three USPS, you know, number one, one API connection. So traditional collection companies, you know, work with exercises.

So the client is here. The collection company is here. They, they, they send you an exercise. You take the exercise, you, you put in the information in your system and you start the collection process. Right? If the collect process you start is you do a letter and you do a phone call full stop. Okay. So the first contact to adapter is already three to.

Euros on expend on the expenses side, because you need to send out that you need to print the letter, send out the letter. Do the phone call. Okay. So the, the cost, the costs on the collection side is, is, is already there. When we talk to clients, we say, okay, we want to have an API integration, which is fully managed by ourselves.

So we pull the, we pull all the information fully digital, and then our system automatically creates an email and sends out the email and the email, the cost of an email, you all know is 0.0 sent. So it's nothing. So I think it's the technical integration. We are starting. This, this is one. Then it's like our approach to, to really follow the customer journey.

We don't see ourself as being a collection company. I see myself of like enlarging the, the customer experience in the collection. Okay. And this means that we are not having this high amount of, of, of fees, you know, but we, we just, you know, continue the customer, the customer journey. This is the second thing.

So I would call it soft collection. Okay. Okay. And the thing at the end of the day is that when we store new information from the. Telephone address, email address, how he pays when he pays, you know, at what time he pays this information will be directly in reach time, reboot it back into the system of our corporation.

It two it's a two-way integration then. Okay. Okay. And then for example, you know, if Eric is not paying its debt with company one, If he pay his debt with the collection company, he still is again, a good customer because he paid his paid in the first. Yeah. Maybe he paid it in the certain second instance and therefore the scoring of the client can be adjusted to irrigating.

Yeah. And I think this is also, this is also, you know, comes. Man, this can be the future also, you know, to have really an interaction between clients and collection companies. Yeah. And it makes so much sense. I mean, in my situation, I still get my us mail routed to my parents' house in the states. And sometimes a bill will come.

And I'm not aware about it. Cuz I live here in Romania and it maybe it's past due. And finally my mom is like, oh yeah, something came in the mail a few months ago. You want me to open it? I'm like, yeah mom, because they're, they're trying to reach me about something. I owe them. Yeah. This was like five months ago.

And you, you know, But I'm a good customer, you know, I just wasn't aware that I owed something or whatever, but yeah, that make, that is, that is phenomenal. How they can still be considered a good customer. It's that really good, good experience component. Like, just because they were sent to the debt collection agency, don't tag them as a bad customer.

Right. And so many companies I've worked with do that. Yeah. You know, as soon as they don't pay their bill, they're automatically categorized as, you know, a bad customer. We really don't want them anymore, but, and in some cases it's just, that's just not true. That, that that's that's awesome. One more question for you before we dive into some fun stuff about your personality.

What was one of the hardest obstacles that you've had to overcome for EEC mark? Look, I've been now in this industry for 17 or 18 years, you know, and I was also on the corporate side before I, before I more or less found the Deconnect and now had had this, had this FinTech, you know, so at that time, you know, it is really hard.

I mean, even though I have contacts in this industry also on corporate side, you know, on sea level side, it's really hard to convince the sea level guys on the corporate side, you know, to work with a FinTech company, like. Because somehow, I mean, everybody talks about the digitalization and we have to do that and that, but when it comes to decision making processes, you know, a lot of people tend to still go for the old and traditional big animals because it's some, okay, they're big, they have the name.

And so, but some only less, you know, have the, have the motivation to say, okay, we're gonna start something new, you know, and we are gonna divide a small FinTech company. And I think this is not only in the collection area. This is also in banking and insurance and, and others. I, I really, this is really the hardest, the hardest part, you know?

So you somehow have to be, you somehow have to convince the guys, you know, to maybe start with this smaller company, even though they, they don't have this great name in the industry and all that stuff, you know, but this is like, this is like the hardest challenges. This is like the hardest challenge we are.

Currently facing, you know, even though we have contacts, you know, to all the styles, you know, so we could definitely could convince some open-minded digital guns. You know, also the decision maker had cha have, have changed in the, in our industry. So most of the time. CFO has made the decision no more or less chief marketing guys or sales guys are making the decision because also collection comes with the customer journey and this has help, you know, but still, but still it says, okay, you are only 50 people.

We have your collection companies with like 1000 people. So let's go follow the big guys. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Hey mark. Now for some fun questions here, first one. Does corn belong on pizza? Does corn belong on pizza? Does corn belong on pizza? Yeah, if you like it, feel free to take it on the pizza. You know, I'm more Maita guy, but I would say, I would say no, you know, but.

As I'm very open to culture and, and different tastes go for it, you know? I agree with you. I'm a no on that one. Yeah. And it irritates me when my wife orders pizza and there's corn on it. I'm like, what the hell is this? You know, you never see this feel better than pizza. I, you know, because I N has for me nothing to do on a pizza, but still it's it's okay.

If people like it, they should go for. Yeah. Okay. second question. What is a favorite TV show that you can watch again? And again, actually there is, I'm a big fan of, of Michael Jordan. So I've watched this documentary now, the last dance, you know, which I think I know watched four or five times. Also, I like suits, but only in the English version, not in the German version, in the German version.

It's horrible, you know? Yeah. And so I would say these, these, these two, these two Netflix series are currently my top one and two. Yeah, no, I love that series. In fact, I was thinking about it this morning because there's this Saturday night live get on Michael Jordan because of his gambling addiction.

Have you ever seen that? Where they he's gambling? They're rolling the dice. Okay, I'm gonna send you the link after this. It is hilarious. It is hilarious. Yeah. He's so competitive and they're making fun of that, of his competitive nature. Yeah. He's yeah. You know, what I loved about it is fascinating is that his opponent, and even if there was.

Even if he didn't like his opponent, you know, let's say his opponent was great. He would, he would conjure something in his mind that maybe his opponent said something negative about him. Yeah. And it would get him motivated enough to be like, I'm gonna destroy this guy. Right. And I love that about it because in many cases you don't really have a direct competitor.

In my instance, I try to imagine there's somebody out there that's doing the same thing as me and he's working harder to distribute the podcast and market the podcast. And so I it's like I have to like come up with, you know, this fake competitor. And I, I really got that from him, that show, I love that show and I love, and, and I personally think that you can also buy reading his books, you know, that you can bring a lot of his sports mentality into business.

You know? I mean, he's like, he's the superstar. He, he's probably the CEO. But he's nothing without the team, you know, he's nothing with Scotty Pippen and all the other guys, and then he has this coach. And so it's at the end of the day. Yes, it's him. But the team made him to where he's where he was a couple years ago where he still is today, you know?

Yeah. Oh, also what's SW checking out is the trainer who used, he used to be his physical trainer. I can't remember his name and I'll send you his link, but there's some great videos. He wrote a book as well. And when Michael Jordan retired, Michael introduced him to Kobe. And he ended up being Kobe Ryan's trainer as well.

And so he's a, yeah, he's a phenomenal guy as well. He's got some really good YouTube videos that I enjoy. I'll send you a link as well, but I can't remember his name right now. Okay. Last question for you. What is something that most people don't know about you? They're not gonna find this on your LinkedIn profile.

Well, you know, the touching back on Michael Jordan, I'm gonna tell you no story. You know, so I was a big fan back in Germany, in high school, and I really wanna see Jordan play basketball, you know, so I was really going to my parents and saying, no, I wanna go to the us. I wanna go to high school. And the reason for that was not to, to go to the yes, to go to high school.

So I said to my dad, Hey, my dad said, okay, I'm going if you really want to do that, you know, because he was very open for, for traveling. He said, okay, I'm gonna sponsor you a trip, you know? And I said, okay, I wanna go to Chi, Chicago. He said, why to Chicago? I said, well, because I like the city. I've never been there before.

You know? So at that time I was 16. And then he said, okay, here's the money go? And then I went to an agency, I organized all that because my, my parents, you know, were still in the, in the mood to say, okay, he will never organize it by himself, you know, never. Okay. So I organized everything. And one day, you know, the invitation came, okay, feel free to come to Chicago to the high school.

So I went there, I said, and, and I moved for one year to high school in Chicago, but the primary target was to see Michael Jordan pleasant. This was the 94 when he then stopped, you know? So I, I. Four weeks, you know, after I was really excited and then he announce his retirement and then that make me like 800 euros, like on cash, you know, to say, Hey, mark here, you know, and then, and then I took all 800 euros and I bought myself on the black ticket for the first baseball and, you know, so I spent it life out of the 800 euros.

I spent like 600 euros of buying a ticket to see, to see him at least play baseball, you know, so I had the chance to see, to see him. Play baseball. Unfortunately, I had never a chance to see play basketball, but, but then, you know, he came down and this is also something I'm gonna tell to my kids. If you really want to have something in large, you know, you, you have to fight for it.

And then I, I got some friends in high school and we were playing tennis and basketball and one of his friends. So one of my best friends, the father, they had a, they had a holiday house at the lake of. And then he enjoy, he invited me, you know, and we went there and then all of a sudden, you know, we said, okay, tonight, we're gonna go to a neighbor to, to have some lunch, you know?

And I said, okay, it's great. You know, we went to the neighbor's house to ring the doorbell and then the neighbor opened the door and it was Michael Jordan, you know? And so it was like, we were like invited due to the fact that Michael and the best friend of the father, they were close friends. And so he had us over and then I told him the story.

I said, Hey, Mike, the reason why here is it's not the high school. It was you, you know? And so. I met him at the end of the day, you know, what did he say? What did he say when you told him this story? I mean, it was awesome. You know, he's like a, he's like, you know, a great guy. He's like, like you see in his documentary, you know, he's a, he's an awesome guy, you know, he's a personality, you know, and he was so down to earth, you know, it's.

It's just like Mike, you know, and this was like a mind changing moment in my life, you know, because then yeah, then I'm, I, I had met him, you know, and I said, okay, if you really want to achieve something, you know, you just have to believe it and, and focus on it. And this really helped me also in my entrepreneurial life.

I would say that is a phenomenal, phenomenal story. Wow. Wow. yeah. Wow. I don't think I've ever been. Only once. I was really motivated to see an athlete and I, I got to see him fight live was Manny pack. Yo. And I got to see him fight live in Dallas. Okay. But I didn't have any hardships. Like you, it's not like I went to Dallas and spent a year there and then all of a sudden he said, I'm not gonna do the fight.

Right. I mean, there was no hardship.

Yeah, it was crazy, you know, it was amazing. It was just crazy food stopped it. Yeah. So I think this story you can find on LinkedIn and, and I'm not also very, not openly telling the story, you know, but, but I think it's a funny thing. Because it was also for me, you know, it was a, a mind changing event also for the future career.

Yeah, no, I, I love him. I, I, he's one of my favorite athletes. He's, you know, ultimately when people say, when they're talking about another sport, right, maybe they're talking about hockey or they're talking about baseball or race, car driving or golf, you know, they say he's the Michael Jordan of this sport.

Right. And. Yeah, the greatest of all time, mark, this has been a pleasure, you know, for everybody listening, this is mark challenger, founder of EEC, mark. Where can people find out more about you? I'm gonna put the links in the show notes. So if you're on LinkedIn or anywhere else, feel free to, to, to just say where people can find you at.

Yeah. So PE most of the people find me on LinkedIn. So I'm on LinkedIn. And if you, if you are, if you are, if you are heading a company and if you had debts, you know, it's aconnect.org, give us a call and we are happy to service your debts around Europe, or maybe in a later stage around the world. All right.

Fabulous. Okay. And if you're a fan, please give us a quick review on apple or Spotify. Tell others about the show. I don't spend any money on ads. So your word of mouth really, really helps the community grow until next week. Keep hustling out there and and cheers. Thanks. Eric. It was a pleasure.