I think this identifies a real problem, but I agree with those who are suspicious of the proposed solution. All that goodwill I would gain from playing good-cop-bad-cop with a sockpuppet as my partner will vanish, threefold, if and when my customers begin to suspect that I'm making stuff up. They will commence to wonder how many other aspects of my company are completely fictional, like my portfolio, or my qualifications.
What I wonder is how much it would cost to outsource Tony. The job of being Tony is, in the simplest form, really simple: You have to physically exist, and send out stock emails that I compose for you, and forward the responses to me. Obviously if your Tony candidate can write and speak well and has great customer-service skills they can do more, like actually respond to calls and emails without checking back with you.
sounds like a neat business idea. You could get a bunch of polisci majors who can't find jobs in this economy (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1545019) and hire them out to be "fictional tony's". Sort of like a more specific version of the Amazon Mechanical Turk.
Nothing about the article says that Tony is a jerk or a thug. Tony's requests for payment will be exactly the same as any other company trying to get paid for their hard work from a customer that is a jackass who won't pay. You start out with polite reminders, and gradually increase the sternness of the letters. At some point you start sending physical letters in the mail, via certified mail, you start printing headers in red, then you switch to the phone calls, and finally, Tony shows up in their front office and sits there every single day and asks to see the president, for as long as it takes. Then you'll get paid. And after the first time this happens, no more products on credit for that customer, payment in advance only.
Also, no products on credit for new customers either. Credit is only for ESTABLISHED customers.
What I wonder is how much it would cost to outsource Tony. The job of being Tony is, in the simplest form, really simple: You have to physically exist, and send out stock emails that I compose for you, and forward the responses to me. Obviously if your Tony candidate can write and speak well and has great customer-service skills they can do more, like actually respond to calls and emails without checking back with you.