Here’s the problem. You don’t have one, your competitors do. We’re talking about a customer financing plan for your products and related services. And can we all agree that a competitive disadvantage is not a good thing, which is why Canadian business owners and financial managers might well want to consider a vendor finance program for clients?
So how exactly does Canadian business benefit from the ability to offer customer finance solutions for clients? If we had to sum it all up into one thing, we guess it well might be: “Increasing the sale of your products!”
The good news is that a customer finance program can be easily put in place either directly, if you have the experience and resources, or as importantly, indirectly via a solid partnership arrangement. And if you choose the partnership arrangement, you can pretty well reduce the cost of your program to zero, which is a great price point, wouldn’t you agree?
The key concept around a financing program for your clients is essentially that it is a strong sales tool. Companies in Canada that use vendor financing tend to form over time stronger relationships with their clients. While the finance industry itself tends to portray this type of program as a “control mechanism” on your clients, in our opinion, it’s more of a customer relationship scenario. But we’ll let you decide that one.
It all starts, of course, in your firm’s sale cycle, and hundreds and probably thousands of firms that use vendor finance tools quickly find that simply offering a finance option in many cases gets that purchase order or commitment from your client. Unbeknownst to you, clients might well be talking to your competitors about their ability to offer a finance option on the same products and services you are competing for.
Also, at the same time, a financial firm that is aligned with your competitors might in fact be pitching your competitor’s product versus your own for their own selfish reasons.
One of the strong merits of a customer financing plan always comes back to the relationship cycle, because even after you have provided your client with a customer financing option, the flexibility around financing options allows you to constantly work with your client on upgrades and add-ons. Using a basic master lease allows you to constantly add on new sales and services to your existing arrangement with clients.
Ever wondered how your competitors sometimes seem to have made a sale to a major client in a much shorter sales cycle? If you investigated closely, you might just find that your client was less focused on price simply because he was being offered a financing option via vendor finance that made sense and was quick and easy to facilitate.
At the end of the day, you can devote money, time and resources to setting up your own program. In many cases, that requires a major commitment of time, capital, and oh yes, you have to know what you are doing.
A strong alternative? Work with a qualified third party to set up your own customer financing plan at no cost, at the same time customizable to your own firm’s products, services and needs. All of a sudden you may well find that you are now winning and regaining lost clients and sales otherwise not achievable without a finance solution.