The Lessons You Cannot Learn From a Textbook: Why Mentorship Matters in Factoring

Written by: Carson Harmonson, VP Business Development, Dare Capital

We’ve all been there.

A crowded bar, a friend’s wedding, your local coffee shop.

“You work in a factory?”

“Like cold-rolled steel or auto parts?”

“No, I work in factoring. It’s a form of financing in which businesses access working capital through the purchase of their accounts receivable.”

“Huh, interesting. Did you catch the Cowboys game last night?”

When you were lying in your race car-themed or princess-themed bed as a child, what did you dream of becoming? The president? An actress? A baseball player?

A business development officer in a niche financial industry probably was not at the top of the list.

The truth is, we were all once that person at the bar—blissfully ignorant of the joys of invoice factoring.  Then, through happenstance, luck, family connections, professional opportunity or perhaps even divine providence, we found our way into the industry. We found our thing—or, as certain factoring “professionals” of an earlier era might have called it, “this thing of ours.” I’m joking. Mostly.

It may sound like a joke; people often think I’m joking when I’m not. Being a part of this industry brings real joy into my life. To the uninitiated, factoring sounds like nothing but tedium, a slow and inexorable race whose laps are marked in years and not minutes.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

Factoring is fun. Each deal is a puzzle to be solved, a story to understand and a risk to evaluate. Each client is a ship whose course we get to help correct; we are the wind in their sails.

Think I’ve got rose-colored glasses on?

Fine, go do something else.

Agree with me? You’re probably pretty good at your job.

But how did you get to be so good at your job?

 Chances are, someone helped you along the way. You had—or still have—a mentor.

There are  many professions you could master the fundamentals of in a few hours with enough Claude tokens and determination. Factoring is not one of them.

Factoring is equal parts art and science. The science is simple: we put money out the door—the easy part—and we get money back in the door—the hard part. What happens before, after and during those two decisive moments is where the art comes in.

That art includes learning how to evaluate people as carefully as financial statements, when to question a promising opportunity, how to manage a difficult client relationship and when the best decision is to walk away. Those lessons are rarely absorbed through policies, procedures or training manuals alone. They are learned over time, often with the help of someone who has already made difficult decisions and lived with the results.

The ancient Greeks believed that one’s stomach was the seat of decision-making. Later, the Flemish physician and alchemist Jan Baptist van Helmont described personal experiences in which understanding and imagination seemed to occur in the “midriff” rather than the head. Then, about 200 years ago, the term “trust your gut” first appeared in print.

We all know that little sinking feeling that something is off.

That instinct must be developed, tested and refined. A mentor can help a young professional understand when that feeling reflects legitimate risk, when more information is needed and when personal bias may be clouding the decision.

Without guidance, young professionals risk overlooking red flags, mispricing deals, mismanaging relationships and developing habits that could one day jeopardize the health of their  portfolios.

We may sometimes laugh about the precarious situations our clients have put us—and themselves—into. Hindsight has a tendency to create humor where there was none.

But make no mistake: this is serious work.

The decisions we make affect the survival and growth of our businesses as well as our clients’ businesses. Behind those businesses are employees, families, mortgages, college funds and car payments. The consequences are real.

Having a mentor is key.

I wake up grateful every day for my mentors. One of them just happens to be my father and the CEO of Dare. I fear your eyes might roll completely out of your head if I spend the next three or four hundred words gushing over how great it is to work with my father and how much I have learned as his employee, so I will spare you.

I’ll talk about working for Debra Zukonik instead.

Debra is everything you could ask for in a chief credit officer: intelligent, analytical, intuitive and, above all else,  deeply principled.

Although business decisions can appear to exist in shades of gray, Debra has taught me that our underlying principles should remain clear. A deal may be profitable on paper, but that does not necessarily make it the right deal for our company, our client or the other parties involved.

Debra and Cole have taught me a lot over the years, the most important lesson being that integrity, honor and honesty come first. The rest will follow.

We are here for a long time, not  just a good time. If a transaction is not good for everyone involved, it’s best to walk away. If something feels funny or the deal  seems too good to be true, walk away. Walk away while you still have the chance.

It is now my firm belief that you make the most money on the deals you do not do.

Debra is from East Texas, and Cole is from Lubbock, so lots of colloquialisms get thrown around on our calls. My favorite from Debra  is, “Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered.”

When I first started, I would form  intense emotional attachments to the deals in our pipeline. It was quickly made clear that you get the deals you are supposed to get if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other—or, as Debra would say, “Play your next hand.”

It took mesome time to understand what she was trying to say. If you stay at the table, continue building relationships and remain disciplined, you will get your wins.

That advice extends far beyond business development. A mentor can provide perspective during the periods when your career feels stalled, when a deal falls apart or when you make a mistake. Mentors remind us that one decision, one transaction or one difficult month does not define an entire career. They help us play the next hand.

In the age of artificial intelligence, it’s easy to  dismiss the need for a mentor.

That would be a mistake.

A good mentor is equal parts teacher, sounding board and confidant. A good mentor will advocate for you when the time is right and shield you when the time is not so right. ChatGPT, Claude or Grok can do neither of those things.

Don’t get me wrong: I am not a Luddite. I love AI. I use it daily. It is a miracle of modern technology.  If you are not using an AI tool, I highly suggest you start. Mastering the use of AI will have  significant implications for your career as well as your firm’s trajectory.

What AI cannot do is replicate the judgment a seasoned professional has developed through years of trials, triumphs, mistakes and difficult decisions.

I’m sure someone out there is trying to train an AI on your boss’s data and sell you back access to that person’s accumulated knowledge. I would still go for the real thing.

AI can summarize a credit policy. It can help analyze data, prepare questions and explain unfamiliar terminology. But it cannot fully understand the history behind a mentor’s caution, recognize the significance of a subtle change in a client’s behavior or decide when a young professional is ready to take on greater responsibility. Technology can provide information. Mentorship provides context, judgment and trust.

One of the cardinal rules of human nature is that people love to talk about themselves. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Another natural human tendency is that most of us are hardwired to give back.

If you haven’t done so already, find someone who can teach you the things that are not taught in textbooks.

Do not wait for a formal mentorship program or an official invitation. Identify someone whose judgment, integrity or career you respect. Ask thoughtful questions. Seek feedback on real situations. Listen carefully to the stories behind their advice. Most importantly, show that you value the time and knowledge they are sharing with you.

Mentorship also does not have to come from only one person. One professional may help you understand credit, another may teach you how to develop business, and another may model the type of leader you hope to become. The best professional networks often become informal teams of mentors, peers and trusted advisers.

We live in an age of extreme anxiety. A significant part of that societal storm cloud is the idea that AI is going to take everyone’s jobs and that we will all be sequestered into various forms of post-scarcity techno-communist government housing.

It’s possible—highly unlikely, but possible.

What is much more likely is that factoring continues to grow and evolve alongside AI.

Factoring is extremely “Lindy.” If you are unfamiliar with the Lindy principle, here it goes: the future life expectancy of a nonperishable thing, such as a technology or an idea, is often proportional to its current age.

In other words, an idea that has endured for a very long time is more likely to continue enduring.

The underlying concepts behind factoring and the financing of receivables have existed in various forms for centuries.

We are not going anywhere.

But the industry will continue to change. The next generation of factoring leaders will have to combine longstanding principles with new technologies, changing client expectations and increasingly complex risks. That is precisely why mentorship matters now. We need opportunities for experienced professionals to share what they have learned—and for emerging leaders to ask questions, challenge assumptions and develop their own judgment.

That exchange of ideas is one of the goals of the IFA’s NEXGEN Leadership Roundtable, taking place in person this October. The roundtable will bring emerging leaders together to discuss the challenges they face, learn from established industry professionals and build relationships with peers who are preparing to shape the future of factoring. It is not intended to replace the individual mentor relationships that help us grow. Rather, it creates another place for those relationships and conversations to begin.

So, find someone to help you. Get as good as you possibly can at what you do. Become successful. Make a lot of friends along the way.

Then, when it’s your turn, extend a professional ladder to someone who could use your help.

The knowledge passed down to us is one of this industry’s greatest advantages. Our responsibility is not only to use it, but also to pass it forward.

This post was written by ChatGPT.

Just kidding.

NEXGEN Leadership Roundtable

Continue the conversation like this one at the NEXGEN Leadership Roundtable during the 2026 IFA Roundtable Summit, where we will bring together the brightest young professionals in the factoring industry. Over the course of the 2 days, attendees will gain crucial industry knowledge, insights into the current state of the market, and leadership skills to help take their careers to the next level.

Register for the 2026 Roundtable Summit here. 

About the Author
Carson Harmonson is a recent and promising graduate of St. Edwards University with a bachelor’s degree in Entrepreneurship. Before joining Dare Capital as a Portfolio Analyst, Carson helped grow a local water sports venue from one thousand customers per season to ten thousand customers in a single summer. Since then, Carson has become passionate in helping entrepreneurs surpass their goals with asset-based lending and factoring solutions. As a member of the NEXGEN committee, Carson hopes to help in the pursuit of NEXGEN’s goal to build partnerships within the factoring industry.

The views expressed in the Commercial Factor website are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, the International Factoring Association.