Jamie Waller: How I cleaned up debt collecting

Jamie Waller rejected the threatening ex-bouncer approach to debt collection and relied instead on persuasive ex-salesmen. By its second year, his company had hit £4.2m in sales.

Jamie Waller, 30, became a bailiff as a last resort. He had left school at 16, trying his hand at window cleaning and selling second-hand cars. But after two years, "I was back where I started", he says. "I had heard that being a bailiff was a good way to make money without needing any qualifications." Little did he realise that within ten years it would have made him a millionaire and landed him on TV.

He applied to one of London's top "debt enforcement agencies", but was rejected as too young. So he marched into the head office and "told them I would be good at the job". The firm tried him out, and he raked in huge commissions in his first year. "They eventually offered me a supervisor role. At 19 I was managing people who'd been there for ten years." Waller puts his success down to his sales background. "The other bailiffs were mostly 'doorman types', hired for their physical presence. But being a bailiff is like being a salesman you have to persuade people to part with their cash."

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James McKeigue

James graduated from Keele University with a BA (Hons) in English literature and history, and has a certificate in journalism from the NCTJ. James has worked as a freelance journalist in various Latin American countries.He also had a spell at ITV, as welll as wring for Television Business International and covering the European equity markets for the Forbes.com London bureau. James has travelled extensively in emerging markets, reporting for international energy magazines such as Oil and Gas Investor, and institutional publications such as the Commonwealth Business Environment Report. He is currently the managing editor of LatAm INVESTOR, the UK's only Latin American finance magazine.