If experience is the greatest teacher, Christine Janklow experienced the painful lessons of overwhelming business debt on the road to founding SettleSource, Inc. which is quickly becoming the company to watch in the commercial debt reduction industry. An astute business person, Christine did everything in her power to save the family business that went from seven figures in annual revenues to $150,000 in debt before turning to commercial debt settlement to ease the financial burden.

"When you go from running a thriving company and delegating workload to dealing with boardroom CEO's and in spare moments dealing with persistent bill collectors, the pressure is enormous and it is almost impossible to focus on growing a business."

"As economies and industries consolidated, we borrowed, borrowed and borrowed to stay current in our field. We soon learned that return on investment took 3 to 5 years to realize so we had no choice but to downsize," said Janklow. We did everything we could to reduce expenses. Despite efforts to "spread the cash as far as we could," the pressure mounted when we simply could not meet the demands of various creditors."

During 2000, she attempted to negotiate her own company debt before realizing there were professional debt negotiators. Despite being a savvy business owner, she felt obligated to paying the company’s debts in full until she realized it was a losing proposition. Unable to make a dent in the debt because of late fees and high interest rates despite making high monthly payments, she considered corporate bankruptcy until she was told it would cost $40,000 in legal fees, money the company didn't have.

Later that year, things took a turn for the better when she learned of a commercial debt settlement company through a mutual friend. "Even though what the company proposed made sense, it took us three months to decide to turn our debt over to them because it was embarrassing for once successful business owners like us to find ourselves in this position," said Christine. "Now I wonder why we waited so long." The company negotiated the remaining unpaid debt down from $55,000 to $25,000 including fees.

That inspiration was the beginning for Christine to elevate her expertise in debt settlement. Now after nearly a decade of serving indebted businesses and given the high rate of business failures today, SettleSource continues to offer an innate understanding of what its clients are experiencing. Christine is a leading rated business debt expert on About.com’s All Experts forum. She is a professional debt arbitrator and has spoken and has been an advocate for business recovery for various trade groups including National Franchisee Associations and the National Restaurant Association.

"Being in debt can damage your sense of self as a business person," said Janklow. "There are business owners out there who are taking non-stop collection calls every day, paying interest rates topping 30% and whose only idea of a way out is to make more money, business closure or even declare bankruptcy. Business debt reduction is a much easier way out at a fraction of the cost. If I can play a role in providing a serious option for businesses to survive, this is the most satisfying part of this work because I know how life-changing this can be."