BUSINESSOPERATIONS Express Yourself ACA International member Mary Shores' new book explores how your words can help you change your life. By Anne Rosso May W hen Mary Shores founded Midstate Collections Inc. in 1999, she was 24 years old and operated her new debt collection agency much as she'd seen other agencies operate. But a few years in, a switch flipped and she decided to take a different approach to collections, one based on positivity and empathy. She retrained her collectors using this new philosophy, giving them scripts and coaching them regularly. Within a year, the company was returning 34 percent more revenue to clients. And things changed for the better in her personal life, too. Gradually, Shores leveraged these successes into a thriving side gig as a 32 ACAINTERNATIONAL.ORGhttp://www.ACAINTERNATIONAL.ORG