Scott Kiley,
Capital Markets Expert,

I hope you enjoyed reading my “Capital Markets Corner” series of articles. Thanks to the Monitor for allowing me to continue sharing with all of you the lessons learned during my 40-year career in originations in a new series of articles affectionally called, “The Art and Science of Becoming a Successful Equipment Finance Sales Professional.”

Whether you are a direct or indirect originator, you must develop soft skills that contribute to the “art” of the sales process; and there are hard skills you must learn to master the “science” of selling. Any equipment finance originations job requires mastering and adopting these selling skills into your job each day to have a successful career.

Many of you may be asking a question right now: “You’ve been in capital markets (primarily indirect originations) for the last 25 years, what do you know about direct sales?” I did “carry a bag” for the first 15 years of my career, calling on CFOs convincing them to do business with my company both as a relationship manager and a sales manager. I exceeded my production goals every year. I fully admit that direct originations are the hardest and truest test of your selling skills, but indirect originators must also convince external customers to do business with them and both jobs require internal selling that is just as important.

I believe my 40 years of originations experience— spanning a large regional bank (Fifth Third Bank), the largest equipment finance company during its heyday (GE Capital), a captive finance company (GTE Leasing aka Verizon Credit) and a small regional bank (Merchants National Bank)—along with having the privilege of working with the best direct originators in the business, gives me a unique insight into the art and science of equipment finance sales. My hope is that your career will be as fulfilling for you as mine has been for me. The ultimate compliment would be if you choose to incorporate some of these critical skills into your daily routine.

Important distinctions exist between the direct and indirect sales channels. Many articles I write will feature a “Capital Markets Corner” section, where I will point out some of these differences but also drive home the point that similar selling skills are necessary to be successful.

DEVELOP AN EFFECTIVE MARKETING PLAN TO INCREASE CHANCES FOR SUCCESS
Whether you are just starting your career or a veteran with over 30 years of experience, it’s crucial that you develop a written marketing plan that changes each year to reflect current market conditions.

An effective marketing plan answers the following three critical questions:

1. How do you increase your market share with current customers?
2. How do you identify high priority prospects and turn them into customers?
3. How do you efficiently work the low priority prospects and elevate some to high priority?

Before delving into how an effective marketing plan should answer these questions, let’s cover why a marketing plan is important, the essentiality of establishing customer and prospect classifications along with calling schedules and some old truths about equipment finance marketing and selling that can’t be ignored.

Why is it so important to write a solid marketing plan? The best answer is “plan your work and work the plan.” The backbone of an effective marketing plan is classifying each customer and prospect with either a high or low priority status. This classification will drive the calling schedule you assign to a company, providing a road map to drive your work effort each day. Most equipment finance companies
arm their salespeople with a CRM software program that provides more information with just a few clicks about current and prospective companies than was ever available in the early years of my career. Take the time to use the tools built into every modern CRM program to make these classifications and input calling schedules.

Sit Down with Top Salespeople
If you are just starting your career or taking on a position with a new company, before drafting your marketing plan or classifying the companies in your database, meet with the most successful salespeople at your company. Ask them which factors they consider in making such classifications and calling schedules. Don’t reinvent the wheel when seasoned salespeople will most likely share their best tips.

Most salespeople don’t mind talking about themselves and, if you listen closely, they will share both the soft and hard skills that have made them successful. Some are grinders who work the numbers game and succeed by sheer willpower while others pride themselves on working efficiently to maximize the output from their effort. Use the advice that most resonates with you and incorporate your skills and strengths into creating a unique marketing plan.

Conversations with Credit
My next piece of advice is to have in-depth conversations with your key credit partners. Ask them which industries and client profiles they would like you to focus on. I have worked with many different credit officers over the years, and while their personalities vary, their individual credit philosophies and underwriting hot buttons will not change over time, so you must learn what they are. You are not
going to materially change the credit culture of your company, so accept it, embrace it and incorporate it in all aspects of your customer classifications and marketing plan.

SCIENCE OF SELLING: TRUTH NO. 1
The first hard truth you must accept and embrace is that successful selling is a numbers game. You must make a lot of phone calls, write a ton of e-mails and send numerous LinkedIn messages to get enough meetings to identify a large enough pool of deals where your share of awards will meet your goals. This is especially true early in your career. The good news is that if you accept this “numbers” discipline and act accordingly throughout your career, it will get easier. You will become more efficient at each stage of the selling process, and you will grow your customer base which represents the lowest hanging fruit for repeat business.

Playing by and analyzing the numbers will also help you identify where you need to improve. If you aren’t getting enough meetings, you either aren’t making enough calls or you need to improve your pitch once you hear back from the CFO. If you are bidding (a word I hate that we will focus on later) on a ton of deals but your win ratio is low, you must figure out how to differentiate yourself and your deal from the pack.

ART OF SELLING: TRUTH NO. 1
While I believe in the numbers game approach, you will win more business from those customers and prospects who are willing to consistently engage with you. For example, if a high priority prospect continues to take your calls, this demonstrates they are investing time in you — a leading indicator of future success. At the end of the day, if a CFO commits a material amount of time with you, they don’t want to admit to themselves that this was time wasted, so they are more likely to do a deal with you. Remember: The goal of your calling efforts is to get them to think of you when they have an equipment financing need. Every time you get a CFO to answer the phone or respond to your e-mail, add value by sharing information that shows them you would be a valuable financing partner.

CAPITAL MARKETS CORNER
Direct originators don’t view capital markets folks as true salespeople. I’ve heard the comments, like “Buyers just sit back and wait for the next deal to arrive in their inbox, and “Sellers just have to wait for the next phone call about an opportunity from one of the salespeople they support.” I’ve been in both worlds in my professional career, and while I would readily admit that being a direct originator is more difficult due to the built in inefficiencies, I can also say with certainty that being a successful buyer or seller also demands a mastery of the basic selling skills, hard and soft, and the full adoption of the
“numbers game” mindset.

In developing your marketing plan, the good news is that your target list of customers and prospects will be much smaller than a direct originator, but it’s still very important to classify your customers and prospects. As a buyer, your audience are the syndicators who can feed you a ton of business if you develop strong relationships with them. The same prioritization and call frequency scheduling is an important task, and the goal is the same: get a syndicator to think of you when they have a deal to sell.

As a seller, you have multiple “customers” to satisfy, including the salespeople and sales managers who originate the deals you may syndicate, the CFO at the lessee whom you will need to support your syndication efforts, the bank relationship manager if the lessee is a bank customer and the buyers you need to find as the best match for each deal. Your marketing plan needs to address how to stay in front of each of these “customers” on a regular basis.

The phrases, “out of sight, out of mind,” and “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” are just as pertinent to those in capital markets sales as they are to direct originators. Take each interaction seriously and always have a tickler list of items you can discuss to demonstrate your professionalism and expertise because these are the qualities that make you a valuable capital markets partner.

In my next article, I will provide practical tips to help answer the three critical questions above that will make you more efficient and productive. •

Scott Kiley recently retired after a 35-year career in the equipment finance industry, including the last 25 years at Fifth Third’s Equipment Finance Capital Markets Group.