Adam Parks (00:00.984)
Hello everybody, Adam Parks here with another episode of Receivables Podcast. Today I'm here with my good friend and, well, we used to serve on the RMAI board together as well, Mr. Andrew Roscom. How you doing today, Andrew?
Andrew Roskam (00:15.366)
I'm good, Adam. Really appreciate you having me on. Yeah.
Adam Parks (00:17.932)
Well, I do appreciate you coming back on and having a chat with me. So much for us to get caught up on since I've retired from the RMAI board, but for anybody has not been as lucky as me to get to know you personally through the years. Can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and how you got to the seat that you're in today?
Andrew Roskam (00:35.63)
Absolutely, so Andrew Roscan been in been in this industry the receivables industry for six years and prior to that I was in banking for about eight I took over a family business. So we have a debt buying company and a collection agency or in the Pacific Northwest Primarily doing business in Washington, Oregon and Idaho So yeah six years ago jumped jumped into the seat and just wanted the network and get to know the industry you and I met at one of the first conferences and
picked your brand and you gave me some really good advice. It's been going since then, been going all right and I really enjoy it. It's a fun space to be in. You would never think to seek out like your high school career day, you don't say I want to be in the debt collection industry. It's just like, it's not usually a popular answer, but I like it.
Adam Parks (01:21.14)
agreed. Agreed. You know, I think it looks it's unique, right? It's, it's not an industry that everybody is used to, but it is full of great people. And so when good people join the industry, I think they find their way into the community, so to speak, very, very quickly. And that's definitely the case for you, right? Like you were in the industry, maybe two years before you got on the army I board.
Andrew Roskam (01:46.062)
Cool. think probably I think I ran in my third year, which was too soon. And I lost an election to our good friend, Amber Russo. And then I ran again after that. You know, got a little more experience, a little more committee involvement, had a better idea of what I was doing. Still, obviously learning a ton. And then, yeah, was fortunate enough to be elected in was that, 2023. So I'm finishing out my term, my second year of this term.
Adam Parks (02:09.794)
I hope you're rerunning again. Are you going to be back on the ballot this year?
Andrew Roskam (02:12.774)
I am, I am. I just submitted my information last week, so yeah, I'll be making phone calls to all your lovely listeners and hoping they'll vote me in. Because I really appreciate what RMAI does for the industry and for debt buyers. And in my space of being a small debt buyer, I want to make sure that those companies are represented as well. think we are a broad industry with a lot of different players, and I think there's room for everyone. And I think that the big folks do a really good job. But as little
folks have a place too with some of those small lenders and you know when I'm testifying in front of like Washington on a bill it sells more than I'm a little small business in Washington than it might if I were a large buyer. So we all work together and it's just fun to be able to provide that perspective for our members because there's a lot of small debt buying members.
Adam Parks (02:59.456)
I think the majority of our membership was represented by smaller organizations, right. And, you know, when in my time on the board, I had both you and Amber, right, who were operating on a regional basis, and you were able to provide that kind of different perspective, right. And it's not that it's, you know, right or wrong, but you're dealing with in specific regional areas, you're more sensitive to changes within those individual regions because of the concentration of the portfolios within a
graphical space. But I think it's an important perspective, too, because it one it helps us kind of level set in terms of who we are as an industry, right? Like we really are an industry, whether it be whether you look at the different disciplines of debt collection, right, the law firms, the debt buyers, the agencies, you know, there are a lot of very small organizations that are efficient operate well, and
their perspective is important because they are going to be more sensitive to cost changes, right? Increases in fixed costs, regulatory engagement. But since I had the opportunity to retire from the RMAI board at the last annual conference, what's the organization been up to since I've been out?
Andrew Roskam (04:11.858)
Well, we've been busy. I, as a board, just kind of directing what's going on in the industry over the next few years and figuring out where RMAI's place is in the greater industry and along with our other sister trade associations. What I do a lot of and how I came up on the board is a lot of state legislative issues. Then I'm also on the editorial social media committee. we just put out there, Follow Insights magazine a couple months ago. If anybody saw that, I'm sure you saw that.
Definitely busy on the legislative front, as you would imagine, especially in states that aren't so friendly to our industry. hire lobbyists, we got to read these bills. the weird thing is I'm not an attorney, but at this point, I've read enough statute that I almost understand it because I've had to force it. I've had to read it. And fortunately, we have people on that committee who are experts in that space so they can translate it for me in the layman's terms because again, I'm not in
Adam Parks (04:58.102)
There's experience. Yeah.
Andrew Roskam (05:11.122)
We do a lot of
Adam Parks (05:11.936)
No, but your perspective is important, right? So you might not be an attorney and you might not be the one where like you're going to have David Reed and others across the organization that are providing you with interpretations of what you're seeing. But they can't take that perspective of the small debt buyer and provide the feedback based on that understanding.
Andrew Roskam (05:26.842)
Yeah. Yeah. And that's thing too about being a small buyer. And maybe we'll get into this more later. It's like you, I'm not necessarily, I wouldn't consider myself a compliance expert, but I have to know enough because I am one man shop. have some, like a part-time employee that helps me on my debt buying company, but it's me. So I have to either know the information or have outside resources that can help me because I'm
I'm held to the same standards that the largest debt buyer is in the jurisdictions in which I operate. So I need to be able to comply just as well as them, even if they may have an entire department dedicated to this. I'm still following the same rules.
Adam Parks (06:07.02)
Well, they're having to track the this web of regulation across 50 states, right? And not even even more jurisdictions was 56 licensing jurisdictions across the United States, right? Like it does kind of get a little ridiculous. It was interesting, I had a I had somebody who had sat in on one of the webinars recently related to the New York rule change. And so we had been texting back and forth during that process. And they don't operate in New York, but they wanted to understand what kind of things that the industry is facing on the whole.
Andrew Roskam (06:14.854)
Yeah, cities and all that.
Adam Parks (06:37.565)
and the messages I started getting were basically like, this doesn't make any sense. These things contradict. How can you do A and B at the same time? That's not possible. Looking at some of the statistics directly from the CFPB's database and trying to understand why you wrote this rule based on such a small sub-sub-subset of a population.
Andrew Roskam (06:42.211)
Don't just run, just don't do it.
Andrew Roskam (07:02.471)
Yeah, you're solving a problem that doesn't really exist. And you're not even solving the problem, you're just kind of solving something.
Adam Parks (07:08.61)
Well, isn't that what politics is? The solution to problems that don't exist.
Andrew Roskam (07:12.242)
Yeah, totally. That's very well said. Yeah, lot of my time is spent doing that. And then we have a subcommittee because what's happened in the last couple of years within the legislative issues is even if it's not really specific to debt buyers, you might have a medical debt rule that gets proposed that the definition of medical debt could loop in, you know, credit cards. you
Adam Parks (07:16.068)
I feel like that's gonna be one of my quotes now.
Andrew Roskam (07:35.89)
put a copay on your credit card, or buy ibuprofen. Certain definitions of medical debt could loop in that entire credit card to be defined as medical debt, which creates problems. So we've been dealing with that, and that's some of the things that keep me busy. And just in general, board activity, industry activity, we're going to DC here soon to get in front of some regulators and have some meetings with folks in Congress.
That's kind what we've been up to. Good things, good things on the horizon, I think. And hopefully I'm able to continue serving on the board.
Adam Parks (08:08.096)
I fully expect that you will I mean look at all the hard work that you've been putting in for these years and let's not be confused. mean there is definitely a lift to getting things done across an organization. I've for those of you that watch the podcast frequently you know I've talked a lot about kind of driving a cruise ship versus driving a speedboat and when we drive our own organizations it is like driving a speedboat if I want to go left I go left.
right? I go right and I can do it as fast as I want to do it. But when you're moving an association forward, you're a group of people together, right? It's a little bit more like driving a cruise ship. And it's I don't want to be all spaceballs about it, but preparing to fast forward fast forward and sir, right? Like there's a there's a lot more coordination that goes into any small movement. So it requires you know, a group of people requires a lot of effort.
it requires everybody rowing in the same direction, but with different perspectives. I think the leadership of RMAI has done a great job of coordinating all of those voices on that cruise ship in terms of deciding which direction the whole ship needs to
Andrew Roskam (09:18.938)
Yeah, yeah, and it's really been great for me and I'm just very appreciative. I've never once have I felt like being the smallest step-by-er on the board that my voice doesn't matter. I've never gotten that impression. Everybody is so supportive. They want to hear what I have to say. They listen. You know, I've been on a lot of boards and not all boards always, you know, get along all that well. But I think it's just that I've been felt supported in all those ways. There's no, there's not a lot of ego there as far as
Andrew Roskam (09:46.955)
those type of conversations still. So it's been helpful.
Adam Parks (09:50.446)
That's how I always felt about it too, right? Like it really didn't matter large, small, whatever it was about, we were all trying to get to the same place. And I think everybody really does respect the different points of view based on organizational size or geographic location or whatever, or even product type, right? Like not everybody's collecting the same products or has the same concentration, but it doesn't seem to have any kind of personal feel to it. It's always very directed towards what's best for the general industry, which I
Andrew Roskam (09:52.134)
Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Parks (10:17.92)
I'm quite proud to have participated in. So let's talk a little bit more about that small debt buyer perspective, right? So as we talk about small debt buyers, what are some of the unique challenges that you face based on kind of lacking that economies of scale?
Andrew Roskam (10:36.24)
Yeah, so a lot of small debt buyers, you know, there's several in the industry. Generally speaking, the small debt buyers I know are aligned with like a law firm and they buy debt and then most of what they place in their law firm or an agency. I have an agency that plays a lot of my accounts with I'm starting to outsource more and grow outside of that agency. But that's kind of how it has worked. And there's a few that are strictly, you know, what some might call passive. They're actively involved, but don't actively collect. And so
Andrew Roskam (11:05.82)
So getting deals is probably like these days, you know, post CFPB and some of the industry changes regarding banks not allowing resale. Finding deals can be difficult. So, you know, having those relationships, generally speaking, I don't often buy directly from a creditor because, you know, national bank is not going to sell me in these three states in the Northwest their file. Why would they do that when they can sell it to one of these large debt buyers that they're comfortable with, that they've audited, they know, operate?
Andrew Roskam (11:35.902)
that way. So generally speaking, it's through brokers or other debt buyers that don't have a presence up here. Being so far northwest, a lot of folks haven't made it out there yet, so I get the benefit of that. Maybe they're really strong in their region or even the east half of the states, but maybe they don't have firms and agencies out here or whatever. So I get the benefit of that from time to time. so think getting the proper connections and relationships with folks that will sell you is important.
Andrew Roskam (12:06.863)
And then trusting those people, you know, the further down the chain of title you get the scarier it can get. So knowing who's selling it to you and trusting that they can give you what you need. I need all these documentation. I'm a certified army, certified debt buyer. I'll plug certification here. You know, I've been audited. I follow these policies and procedures and there's policies I have to follow as far as, you know, the types of asset classes I buy and what documentation I'm going to get and you know, the reliability of that information. And also if you want to
Andrew Roskam (12:36.06)
collect on these files. If you're going to litigate, you need to have documentation in order litigate. Your law firm is not going to want to file a lawsuit if they don't have proper documentation. So trusting that your seller can give you what you need is really important. So those relationships are huge. Good, solid relationships with people that are trusted is very important.
Are you finding, you know, one of the challenges I had, you know, when I was a small debt buyer was media management, right? Like the management of all of these files, all of this documentation in a digital format. Have you found economies of scale or economies of scope in the leveraging of technology to kind of manage some of these formerly manual processes?
Andrew Roskam (13:18.872)
Yeah, working on that. That's still in the works. I would consider myself, sad to say in front of you, Adam, a very unsophisticated organization to this point. So some of those manual process, a lot of those manual processes still exist. But I have some, I've like taken steps now to try, okay, we got to figure out a better, more efficient way to do this. And how can we automate all these things and have more reliable information? So that's kind of, that's the where I am right now in our evolution, like things I'm working on today.
Adam Parks (13:31.607)
Okay.
Adam Parks (13:46.456)
Okay.
Andrew Roskam (13:47.666)
is kind of how to manage that better. historically, we would buy a file and we place it at our agency and it would sit there and it was like this old antiquated thing. But now that I have other firms working for me and agencies, you just have to have oversight and know where everything's at and know what's going on. Yeah, so I got to have good oversight and good data. So those are things I'm working on right now and I am not where I would like to be, but we're hopefully getting there.
Adam Parks (14:05.92)
Or organize a little better. Yeah.
Andrew Roskam (14:16.914)
Because that's just going to help you make decisions, right? Like if you have, we talked about this before we started recording, having good data informs the decisions you make. Yeah, so I I might think I'm a good decision maker, maybe I'm not, but I might think I could make good decisions, but if I don't have the proper data to make that decision, it doesn't really matter.
Adam Parks (14:25.835)
Absolutely.
Adam Parks (14:35.094)
everything comes back to the data, right? And the availability of that data. And I think that's a very true statement, right? The how are we going to manage it? And for as a small debt buyer, I think that there's
I think there's opportunity in effectively managing those tools because I could tell you back in 2007 2008 even 2010, like that time period, we were able to start moving some of that documentation around in new and interesting ways. I think there's a lot of vendors in the space. But I do think that for a smaller debt buyer, some of those things become costly because they're built to operate at scale, and not necessarily at a smaller level. So we end up building a lot of custom tools that enable us to move.
documentation or data around but the sophistication of the systems of record I think has also played a part in the ability to kind of increase our capabilities over time because the software providers are constantly iterating and preparing for those rules right like when reg F came out all the software providers were heavily invested throughout that entire year 18 months prior to the rollout right laser focused on making sure that they could provide the features and functions that would be required of the industry going forward and so I think you probably are getting
some of that wave, you know, in terms of improvement. But as you've started to build your network, what's what's that experience been like? Have you stayed within your geographic region? Are you looking at larger organizations to start providing that paper to like, what's that process for you?
Andrew Roskam (16:01.97)
Yeah, it's kind of a, so this is year six, halfway through year six. I feel like the first five years, maybe even still, it was like kind of figuring it out. Had a couple of good years, probably by accident. Maybe started feeling myself a little bit. And then the last year or so has been like, we got to buckle down. We got to have a better, I do a better job of some of this stuff. You know, I was talking to our friend Amber, we mentioned her again, like, I feel like I'm pretty good at getting deals. That's like the
Andrew Roskam (16:30.93)
part I like is like working with folks, being in front of people, going to find a deal, negotiating. But I can get as good of a deal as I want. But if I don't know how to manage that inventory, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter how good of a deal you got. If I'm going to buy a rental property and I get a really good deal on it, but I can't get a renter in there, I'm not going to make money. Similar thing. that's the morph I'm trying to make is getting better at the inventory management part. And maybe that's not me. Truthfully,
Adam Parks (16:41.058)
It doesn't matter how many deals I get.
Adam Parks (16:49.037)
Yeah.
Andrew Roskam (17:00.152)
those type of things, project management is not my strength. Now as a small debt buyer, and we talked about, you got to wear all the hats. So I have to have enough knowledge to know that I can comply with these laws and I can make this work. But at some point, maybe I need to duplicate myself and find somebody who can do that job way better than I ever could. And that would probably pay for itself. But it's like, you know, as a small person, it's a risk. know, like you're committing to salary and better, like all these things that committing to an expense. So it's like,
You gotta have the faith to do that. So as I'm starting to build out, I'm slowly expanding my geographical area. So Oregon and Washington was our core, now in Idaho. It's just a small step, very small volume state, but I wanna make sure I have the infrastructure in place to handle that. To speak to my, know, naivety earlier, it's like a couple years ago, I hired a company to help me license in several different states. think.
Andrew Roskam (17:56.754)
couldn't even remember all of them, but like six or seven other states. I got these licenses. I didn't have the infrastructure in place for the proper firms to send this to and knowing where I was going get the paper, was just like, just not a well thought out plan. Yeah, for the car and for the horse. Yeah. And so I wasn't quite ready for that, but now I feel like that's kind of where I'm going to evolve over the next couple of years. And truthfully, I think I know a little bit more now than I did then anyways, so I probably would have been better off waiting.
Adam Parks (18:08.768)
In the car before the horse. Yeah. I mean, getting out in front of it. Yeah.
Andrew Roskam (18:26.45)
to do that. But like any business owner, you have a ton of listeners who are business owners, we make mistakes all the time. You just gotta learn from them. I'm not gonna not make mistakes. But you just gotta learn from each one and try and get better. That's like, you know.
Adam Parks (18:40.524)
And as we grow, have to foster that in the people around us. Like I know when I first hired Catalina and really everybody on our team, we always have a conversation about it's okay to fail. Like I expect you to make mistakes. I expect you to fail at some things. Try and minimize the losses on your mistakes and try to maximize the value of, you know, of your big hits, but like you're going to make mistakes and like, that's okay. I make mistakes every day. So I try to call them out for the whole team. When I do something silly, like I forgot, I recorded a session yesterday and I forgot to move it forward in the process.
It would have just sat there for probably a week before I noticed, right? But it helps when you've got some good people around you and you're willing to demonstrate that you do make mistakes.
Andrew Roskam (19:13.872)
Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Roskam (19:21.372)
That's big too, because then they can see that he's not above it. He doesn't have too big of an ego to realize when you make a mistake. Because it would be unreasonable to assume that even you, Adam Parks, who's been around for a while, doesn't make mistakes still.
Adam Parks (19:34.38)
Dude, I make mistakes every day. Every day, I probably made three since we've been on this podcast.
Andrew Roskam (19:39.75)
Yeah, I'm counting them actually. I have a little tally over here. We're going to talk afterwards about them.
Adam Parks (19:43.79)
Fair enough. Fair enough. But as we kind of wrap up our discussion for today, can you tell everybody I want to hear what you're telling people in the marketplace when you want them to vote for you? What's what's what is the Andrew Roscom? Why should a debt buyer or somebody a member of army I vote for you to participate on the board of directors?
Andrew Roskam (20:05.554)
appreciate the opportunity to say it. I really enjoy this industry. I really like being a debt buyer and the last two years I've certainly been an honor. I'm 35 years old. I have two young kids. I'm gonna be around this industry for a while. My livelihood is this industry. My interests are in keeping this association thriving, keeping it available for small buyers to be able to do our business.
I feel like that's my voice on the board. I'm not angling to only create things for small debt buyers. I just want to represent the voice of the smaller debt buyer and then just make sure the industry continues to operate and thrive. We're in an interesting area and time in our industry where we're growing, charge-offs are up, maybe liquidations will come down a little bit, but there's opportunity. I want to be a part of it and I would love the support of voters who think that I could continue to serve this association.
Andrew Roskam (21:00.162)
because I really, really enjoy it. It's been an honor and I'd love to continue to.
Adam Parks (21:04.62)
Well, it was an honor for me to serve on the board with you. I really did appreciate all the opportunities that we had to collaborate and work together, whether it be on committees or just in board engagement or in strategic planning or even just at the dinners and getting to know each other personally, because I think that's relationships are built through shared experiences. And I think that our may is a great place to do that. And for those of you that are watching who are not actively engaged in the board or actively voting, like go get involved like that.
That's the best advice that I continually shout out from my podium here, talking with people about they want to know how to take the next step in their career. Get involved, get engaged with RMAI and the other organizations and just participate.
Andrew Roskam (21:46.834)
Yeah, 100 % and I'll even take my RMA hat off and say if you're obviously in this industry, if you're watching this podcast, whatever association closely relates to you, plug in, get on a committee, serve, like you're going to meet people, it's going to grow your network. You're also giving back to the industry that you draw your paycheck from. like we aren't able to accomplish a lot of the things we do and be around as long as we have without some of the work that people put in. So to the extent you can get involved with whatever association that is.
Adam Parks (22:16.302)
I think that's a great pitch, man. I really do appreciate you coming on spending some time with me today. For those of you that are watching, if you have additional questions for Andrew or you want to know how to get your hands on your ballot, I will put a link to Andrew's contact information below so you can reach out directly to him on LinkedIn. But if you have other topics you'd like to see us discuss, you can leave those in the comments below as well. And say hi to Andrew while you are at the RMAI Annual Conference in February, unfortunately.
I'll miss my first conference in 20 years for good reason. We'll talk about that on another podcast. But go out there, say hi to Andrew and the rest of the board for me because it's an organization that's doing a lot to protect our industry. But Andrew, thank you so much. I really do appreciate you coming on today.
Andrew Roskam (22:50.044)
Very good.
Andrew Roskam (23:02.872)
Absolutely, Adam. Thanks. Thanks for having me on.
Adam Parks (23:05.204)
Absolutely. For everybody watching. Thank you for your time and attention today. We'll see you all again soon. Bye everybody.
