Scott Kiley,
Published Author & ELFA In-House Lead Instructor,

Once you’ve completed an annual marketing plan by identifying a call frequency and strategy for existing customers, high-priority prospects and low-priority prospects, it’s time to work the plan.

Existing customers are obviously the “low-hanging fruit” when it comes to generating incremental volume, so focus on them first. Every equipment finance salesperson knows that adding a new customer is very hard and time consuming, and now your goal is to increase your market share with that customer. If the closing process went well on your first deal, you are now a trusted financing partner for the company and you want to leverage that initial effort for years to come.

SCHEDULE A DEBRIEF MEETING
The first order of business is to find out if the closing process went well. Conduct a debrief meeting with all members of the company involved in the closing.

Questions to ask your new customer:

1. Did the closing process meet your expectations?

2. Do we need to make improvements to any of the closing steps?

3. Was the frequency of communication during the closing process sufficient?

Closing a deal is a two-way street, and it’s important that you debrief your team as well.

Questions to ask your team:

1. Did the customer meet their obligations in a timely manner?

2. Do you have recommendations I can share with the customer to make the next closing smoother?

There is nothing more deflating than feeling the excitement of adding a new customer only to find out your team thought the closing was a “cluster” and the customer was difficult. “The customer is always right” — until they aren’t. How you turn a difficult customer into a valued customer proves your selling skills and earns you a customer for life. Don’t try to manage the new relationship all by yourself. Get key members of your closing team to establish direct relationships with their company counterparts.

SET UP A CHECK-IN SCHEDULE
After the debrief, the next step is establishing a calling schedule with each customer based on their equipment financing needs and the CFO’s desires. Some CFOs will want to be called on regularly (which makes life much easier) and others don’t want to be bothered and will call you when needed. This second type of customer is more of a challenge, but you need to figure out a way to stay in front of this type of customer as well. Send them an article pertinent to their industry they may find interesting, or share a recent success story in which you brought a new financing solution to another company in their industry. Get creative in finding ways to stay in touch by adding value but not being viewed as a pest.

PARTNER WITH CREDIT
Focus a ton of your energy on those customers with material annual equipment purchases. The CFO may want to spread the business around to multiple funding sources, and your job is to convince him/her that you can handle all (or the bulk) of their needs to save them time and energy. Push your credit team to establish a maximum credit limit at the beginning of each year. Put in place a PAL (pre-approved line) which isn’t a commitment but an expression of interest to the customer that you have more credit capacity subject to agreement on terms and conditions.

If credit sends you signals that a customer is nearing their credit capacity, I would strongly suggest you embark on a two-part strategy simultaneously. Get your credit folks more entrenched in the relationship to open their minds to increasing hold levels either now or down the road. An in-person meeting with your credit team is the most effective way to make this happen. In my experience, having the credit folks speak directly to the senior management, either in person or on a Zoom call, will improve their view of the customer 90% of the time. Yes, this approach may backfire 10% of the time, but I like those odds.

LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR SYNDICATION
The second part is bringing in your syndication partners as part of your annual customer relationship review. Every syndicator will tell you not to wait until you are already maxed out on exposure before calling on their services. It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that you only need to bring in the syndication team when you are at or approaching exposure capacity, but the truth is your pricing and credit requirements change over time. A syndication partner might be able to bring in a capital markets partner to offer better pricing or a better product fit for a particular transaction.

To capture most of your customers’ annual equipment financing needs over time, you must develop a strategy that incorporates syndication. You may not syndicate a deal for a while, but laying the groundwork early through discussions with the customer and with your syndication team will pay dividends down the road.

The customer may resist and want to self-place their needs. If that happens, I suggest this response: “Mr. CFO, if I can continue to bring you competitively priced financing solutions that we either hold or syndicate, wouldn’t it save you a lot of time and energy to deal with me and my company using the same set of master financing agreements and our billing and servicing systems? We will bring in syndication partners who we have long standing relationships with and will make sure any early lease termination needs, or end of lease negotiations are handled fairly.”

Identifying high-priority prospects is easy. Getting them to meet with you and turning them into a customer is hard!

Most large organizations now have access to several public databases such as D&B, UCC filings, Hoovers, S&P and Moody’s; industry publications with company rankings; CRM historical records and even former customer lists. Use all the data available to you, as well as considering what you learned from your discussions with the top salespeople and your credit team, to create the list of high priority prospects. Customer referrals are also great prospects!

SCIENCE OF SELLING TRUTH NO. 2
You are selling yourself and your company while making a phone or e-mail introduction. You are not trying to sell any product or service. This is so critical that I’m going to say it again. You are only selling yourself and your company in the initial contact phase and the goal is to schedule an in-person meeting or a more constructive Zoom call.

When I became a sales manager at GE Capital earlier in my career, I had an relationship manager in Chicago who was not producing. When I sat down and asked him to describe a typical day, he told me he made over 100 phone calls each day. He was a polished guy in a nice suit with a disc jockey voice. When I asked him to share a typical call, it became clear that he was trying to find a deal on the phone rather than get a meeting. Keep in mind that his territory is one that you can cover by car, so he did have the ability to see each prospect in person. When I told him the goal of a call was to get a meeting, I could tell this was a foreign concept, and he disagreed. When I accompanied him on a customer meeting and saw how uncomfortable he felt and unnatural he appeared, I knew he wasn’t going to be a fit in the strategy I was trying to implement, so we parted ways amicably.

Getting a CFO to take a call or a meeting is even harder today because of the numerous walls that have been constructed to keep you from talking directly with the CFO. We all know about using LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media to try to get the attention of, or make a connection with, the CFO and differentiate yourself. Using these social media platforms is an essential part of your strategy, but I would argue that you should incorporate some old school methods as well. Writing a personal note to the CFO/treasurer is an old tried and true trick of the trade that is rarely used these days, which will make it that much more distinctive now. Send the note via FedEx to make it even more “important” and include a relevant article or a specific equipment financing structure or idea that has helped other clients in their industry.

Once a CFO makes contact, you must convince him or her that it would be worthwhile to meet you. If the company has a big capital expenditure spend each year and you are a bona-fide source, you must leverage that fact and know that the CFO is motivated to cultivate relationships with people like you. If the company you represent has name recognition and a good reputation, your pathway to success will be much easier. Now you need to introduce something personal about yourself and demonstrate you are knowledgeable of their firm. For instance, if you have been successful in the industry for many years helping similar companies, don’t be bashful in sharing this experience.

ART OF SELLING TRUTH NO. 2
Most equipment finance salespeople have a designated geographic territory and a list of cities they travel to often by car or airplane. Once I got one meeting scheduled in a particular city, I would reach out to every high-priority prospect in that city and say, “I’m going to be in your area on the 22nd through the 25th seeing other clients, and I would greatly appreciate a few minutes of your time to introduce myself.” Truth is, many times, I didn’t have an initial meeting scheduled but I committed to be in that city for those dates. If the CFO knows you are traveling many miles, and their company has ongoing equipment financing needs, odds are they will agree at least to a quick introductory meeting. Those quick meetings can turn into longer conversations and the start of a new relationship.

WORKING LOW PRIORITY PROSPECTS
Companies are on your low-priority list for a reason and that’s because you have no solid information to make them qualify as high-priority. This is where the numbers game comes into play. You simply set up some method of regular communication and make it efficient and low-cost. If you have associate relationship managers, put them in charge of working this list of companies. Establish goals for how many of these companies they can turn into high-priority prospects!

In my next article I will provide my thoughts on how to conduct an effective in-person meeting or Zoom call with a CFO and how to increase your chances of winning a deal. •

Scott Kiley is a seasoned equipment finance professional with 35 years of experience specializing in capital markets, indirect and direct originations and syndications. As an inhouse workshop instructor for ELFA, he provides training to members across the industry, helping professionals develop a strong foundation in equipment leasing and finance, enhance their market strategies, and navigate key industry concepts.