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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 4
December 2006
Workman is back on the lobster credit beat
BOSTON, MA – There’s a familiar face on the waterfront these days. After a five-year sabbatical of sorts, Neal Workman is knocking on doors and once again offering lobster dealers throughout New England and Canada’s Maritime Provinces his credit-check and collection expertise.
Workman is the former CEO of Seafax, a company that today provides business information for the perishable food industry throughout North America. He founded Seafax in 1985 and sold the company in 2001 to three long-time employees.
For the last five years, he’s lived in Boston, spending time with his family and serving on the boards of nonprofit organizations such as The Home for Little Wanderers. But earlier this year, he got the itch to get back to his roots in the lobster credit business.
“Basically, I was rested, enthusiastic, loving life, and found that I missed the lobster dealers I built my business on 20 years ago,” Workman said.
So last summer, he resumed doing things the way he used to, getting in the car or hopping on a plane and traveling door to door to talk with prospective clients. By mid-October, he had signed up nearly 50 dealers.
Services menu
Clients of “The Fisheries Exchange,” the name of Workman’s company, can choose from a menu of services. One is an “Accounts Receivable Tune-up,” a thorough assessment of a company’s account management and credit granting systems, including an audit of all active accounts to identify high-risk customers.
There’s also “Buyers Edge,” a three-step program to improve sourcing and purchasing practices, expand supplier base, and increase a company’s standing and profile.
Workman also provides: marketing advice and strategies, even for companies on a shoe-string budget; dispute mediation and collection services; executive recruitment; banking and financing advice; and credit telephone alerts to communicate time-sensitive information.
Most of these services are available at set prices published in a brochure, leaving little room for billing surprises.
“Lobster Flash”
But one of the most well-known of Workman’s products and most appreciated by lobster buyers is his “Lobster Flash” report.
Issued weekly at a minimum and as frequently as twice a day if the current news merits it, the report includes up-to-the-minute credit information about dealers’ customers – who’s not paying their bills, who has a history of slow payment, and other insider news that can offer an early warning of a potential credit risk.
Workman says he can provide this information with confidence because he knows the business, and the people in it are comfortable telling him what’s going on.
“This is a very competitive business. Dealers tend not to talk to each other, but they will talk to me, and then, without mentioning sources, I tell my clients,” he explained. “It’s not a scientific process. I share information. I’m like radar. I let people know what’s down the road.”
Early years
Bill Atwood of Atwood Lobster Co. in Spruce Head, ME was the first lobster dealer to sign up with Workman back in the mid-1980s and was the first client to sign up this time around, too.
“Back then, Neal answered an ad for a sales job. After less than a year, we concluded that he was a better collector than salesman,” Atwood said with a laugh.
Concerned about an unpaid bill, Workman went to Atwood with an idea for getting dealers to share information.
“I said, ‘I’ll invite you to a meeting of the Maine Lobster Dealers Association.’ So he went to the meeting. There were eight or 10 dealers there looking at each other asking, ‘Am I going to give this guy information?’” Atwood recalled.
Workman made his pitch, telling the group, “’If there’s somebody bad in this industry, we all should know,’” Atwood continued. “There was not much of an instant response, but Neal was sort of like a politician and there ended up being three or four who signed up.”
The attractiveness of Workman’s idea grew with each new dealer who signed on.
“He branched out to Massachusetts and the database jumped. Then to Canada and it jumped again. That’s how he got started,” Atwood recalled.
He also recounted how Workman made trips to New York City using a bullhorn to inform customers in a restaurant that the seafood they were eating hadn’t been paid for.
“And Neal went into the Fulton Fish Market to dun some of those guys and he came out alive,” Atwood said. “If anybody’s going to get (payment), it’s Neal. He has ways of making people feel uncomfortable. He’s personable but firm.”
What people need
Workman is aware that people will perceive that he is competing with Seafax, which is based in Portland, but he doesn’t see it that way.
“I’m just going to people and seeing what they need,” he said.
Right now, Workman is running the business mostly single-handed but is looking forward to having his daughter Whitney Workman, a Northeastern University College student, join him. He is also broadening his Boston base by establishing a second office in Kennebunk, ME.
“We provide credit intelligence,” he concluded. “Our secret sauce is that we know who the good guys are in this business.”
Lorelei Stevens
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