If you read this blog, you’ll see I hit this topic a few times because I feel it’s an essential part of any business. But what spurred me to write today was reading an old blog from five or six years ago about always selling on a payment. 

I believed it wholeheartedly then, and I believe it now. Saying “You can have this for $1326 a month” is a lot easier to take than “It’s $75,000. Will that be cash or check?”

You can think whatever you want about auto dealerships, but they are the absolute masters of closing sales. And they learned the ultimate lesson decades ago: always sell on a payment. Always. 

Of course you will get that one customer who doesn’t need financing and wants to know the total cost, but the fact is almost everyone else buys a vehicle on a payment. 

It’s the same with your company and what you offer. Even if your customer doesn’t ask you about financing, I promise you a considerable percentage of them, likely well over 90%, are thinking “monthly payment”, even if they say nothing to you about it. They are going to Crest Capital, they are going to the bank, they are going to their rich-but-obnoxious uncle… they are going somewhere, and will make monthly payments.

But there’s another customer you never got to really talk to. Know why? They ultimately bought from your competitor because your competitor made it easy. Your competitor made it so they didn’t have to go to Crest or banks or uncles they really can’t stand… your competitor partnered with someone (maybe even us) to offer equipment financing right there at the point of sale.

Your competitor understood that offering financing cost them nothing. Your competitor understood that offering financing was ridiculously easy, and it involved no work on their end at all. Your competitor had “only $XYZ a month” right on their website. 

Your competitor made the sale. You never even had a shot.

Compete better. Offer financing. If you need help, we’re ready.

But like always, let’s start out with the fun stuff: sports.

As I type, the NFL playoffs are going on, and to my crystal ball, I’m seeing a Packers-Bills Super Bowl. And for long-suffering Bills fans, this is your year! Yes, the Bills finally take one home.

Baseball – I’ve been on a NY Yankees kick for a while now, and they’ve fallen short every year. But this coming year, I’m going to stick with NY, but go across town to the Mets. New owners, new players, new life. And a championship in 2021. 

Basketball – how do you go against the Lakers? You don’t. Until LeBron retires, it’s his championship to win, and everyone else is playing for second. I grew up a Michael Jordan fan, and you just didn’t bet against Michael, and we’re seeing that with LeBron now. What I wouldn’t give to see these two go head to head in their primes.

Hockey – I’m terrible at this one. Let’s go with the Vegas Golden Knights. Just because it would be so cool to have the city of Las Vegas win a title. 

Now let’s get to business. 2020 was not good for many companies, with good reason. And this year, we have the wildcard of the ongoing pandemic, with vaccines getting distributed. Some people are down on the economy, but I’m not – I’m going to predict we will have a surprisingly good year economically. Here’s why: 

As life slowly shifts back to “normal” (whatever that is these days), we have a populace chomping at the bit to get back “out there”. I know Mrs. Fletch and myself are really looking forward to going out to eat on a regular basis, and I’ve stated in this blog how much I like concerts, and as soon as they start up again, Fletch is going to be there. There are millions of us looking to get back to our lives as much as possible, so I predict an almost mini-boom for an awful lot of industries. For example, my buddy put off buying a car last year. But he weathered the storm, he’s still employed, and now he’s shopping. Take that thought, multiply it by countless products, activities, and reasons, and you get a recipe for a pretty solid bounce back. That’s my thought anyway.

No huge tech predictions this year, as companies have pivoted to adjust to our new normal. Ok wait, we will see a solid improvement in collaboration tools and software, as it further cements itself into the mainstream. We’ve realized that “work from home” can be done, and I feel a lot of companies will continue some form of this at least part-time, as both a cost savings, and because employees like it. 

There you go – some predictions for 2021. Oh yea, and Section 179 got a small bump to a deduction limit of $1,050,000 (up 10k from last year.) Make sure you use it, because you only have 11 and a half months left!

However, there are some people that are still not convinced. They don’t see how offering financing can help them. I can hear them now: “I don’t care how my customers get the money.” (I’ve heard that).

If you’ve ever thought something like that, you really should care. And if you don’t believe me, please, ask your salespeople. Because financing is a serious deal closer.

All good salespeople are always on the lookout for what they call “closing questions”. These are questions that a prospect asks that indicate interest. Here are a few examples:

“Does it come in red?”

“Can I get the chrome trim?”

“What options does it have?”

And so on. All of these questions, and questions like them, indicate interest. And a good salesperson will answer them and work towards asking for the order.

But there are a subset of closing questions that not only indicate interest, they indicate SERIOUS interest. These questions pertain to dollars and cents. Things like:

“Is there a delivery charge?”

“Do you know if this equipment is Section 179 eligible?”

And the biggie: “Do you offer financing?”

In fact, “do you offer financing” is without a doubt the strongest indication of interest there is. A competent salesperson will jump all over that, as well they should. The sale is as good as closed.

Well, an addendum: the sale is only closed if you offer financing. If you don’t, your salespeople do NOT want to hear that question. 

Again, remember that I’m not talking about YOU offering financing literally. I’m instead saying you offer financing by partnering with a company like mine. WE provide the financing – you are simply playing matchmaker, with your “closed sale” as the introduction.  Oh, and you get paid in full for that sale right away. You already knew that from my other posts, but it’s worth repeating.

So yes, it’s a question of closing. Talk to your salespeople – they’ll tell you. 

I’m happy I did. I’m of the firm belief that selling cars is fantastic training for almost any businessperson, especially in any sales activity. It teaches you to work with people, handle rejection, and follow through. But, to me, the biggest thing selling cars taught me is to ALWAYS SELL ON A PAYMENT.

Selling on a payment is something I’ve taken with me my entire career, and I have seen it work across any industry you care to name. There is no seller of equipment, vehicles, or even software that would not immediately increase sales by proactively offering a payment option.

This due to two reasons:

#1 – Selling on a Payment Takes Price and Affordability Out of the Equation

Telling someone the equipment is $45,000 can sting. Telling them “it’s $45,000 and we can get it to you at around $825 a month” is much better. Better still is simply saying “you can have it for less than $850 a month”.

#2 – Almost all Equipment is Sold on a Payment Anyway

Even if your buyer never mentions it, they are probably going to the bank to fund their equipment purchase. More than 80% of all equipment sold is financed in some way.

Bonus – Here’s Why You Have Price Objection

Ok, so if I establish that 80% of all equipment is sold on payments anyway, why didn’t you make the sale? After all, they could have gone to the bank, right? I am convinced that most price objection stems from the fact the bank can be really tough to work with. It’s not an objection of your price, but a rejection of the bank’s difficult loan process and yet another restrictive blanket lien they insist on. In other words, they like your product, and could take out a loan… but it’s not worth the trouble or more restrictions.

But What If You Could Offer EASY Monthly Payments Right There?

That’s exactly what Crest Capital does for our Vendor Partners – give them an easy way to offer monthly payments, great rates, a fast approval process, and no restrictions.

But even with all of that, it still won’t work as well as it could unless payments are offered, and offered EVERY TIME.

So there’s my advice – Use payments every time. Include a “ask us about easy monthly payments” on every piece of marketing collateral. Put an “easy monthly payments available” in your e-mail signature. Work with your financing partner (us?) for a way to make things simple. At Crest, we offer our vendor partners an easy online application portal that’s free, and literally takes 5 minutes to install.  And it’s a serious sales booster, especially when it’s proactively offered.

Bottom line: if sales are soft, and you’re not pushing financing, that’s on you. Because there’s an easy way to fix it.

I read something interesting the other day. There were the usual “brick and mortar retailers vs. online shopping” articles that crop up right around the holidays, but there was a different tone this year.

As reported by CNN Business, brick and mortar retailers fought back against online sellers using “buy online / pick up in store”. This pleased me to no end, because not only do I like brick and mortar stores and want to see them survive, it’s also an excellent primer for any business looking at slumping sales: if you look hard enough and get creative, you may find the answer in an asset you already have.

In this case, Brick and Mortar Retailers looked at themselves and said “hey, wait a minute – we have physical stores. Let’s try and use that to our advantage in a different way.” And they did, using their physical presence to circumvent the 2-3 day shipping time wait.

So how does this relate to equipment financing? Glad you asked.

Answer me two questions:

1. Does your company sell any kind of business equipment, vehicles, or software?
2. Does your company have a website?

If you answered “yes” to both questions, then there’s an incredibly powerful (yet really simple) tool that can increase your sales right now. And that’s offering equipment financing right on your website.

Crest Capital has made it really easy to do this (it can literally take less than five minutes). You need not get involved in approvals, payments, or anything like that. In fact, you get paid right away, just like always – the difference is, you make it much easier for your B2B customers to buy from you.

I’ve discussed equipment vendors offering financing to increase sales before in this blog, but it’s such a game changer for so many companies that I like to revisit it every so often. And reading that Brick and Mortar article made me think of it today – there are solutions to almost any business problem if you look hard enough, and sometimes, it’s using what you already have a little differently. In this case, your company website.

In my last post I talked about using Section 179 to sell more equipment, and focused on the fact that many business owners simply aren’t aware that Section 179 even exists. Let’s take that one step further and talk about a few specific strategies that can help equipment sellers sell more using Section 179.

#1 – Make Your Buyers Aware of Section 179

The first step is to make buyers aware that Section 179 exists. This can be in the form of website articles, blog posts, newsletter blurbs, Facebook posts, or similar. You need not even research or write in depth articles – a quick Facebook post with a link to a Section 179 informational site will work fine (simply search Google for Section 179 – you’ll have good informational websites within the first three results).

The bottom line is to start talking about it in your social media / blog / newsletter / other marketing.

#2 – Get Your Salespeople to Start Talking about Section 179

If you have salespeople, and they aren’t talking about Section 179 with every prospect, then listen up, because I’m about to make your next sales meeting the most beneficial (and profitable) one you’ll have this decade. Every single salesperson, on every single sales call, should be talking about the FULL PRICE DEDUCTION the prospect could take using Section 179. This is a powerful tool. Creative salespeople can even talk price, using Section 179 tax savings to overcome a price objection.

To give an example, a $10,000 piece of equipment has a net cost of $7,500 if you factor in taking the entire $10,000 as a deduction (this assumes a 25% tax rate. If the tax rate is higher, the savings are even more).  Tell your salespeople they can talk about a 25% cost reduction, and watch their eyes light up.

#3 – Get Section 179 Into Your Marketing Collateral, and On Your Website’s Product Pages

You can find Section 179 banners and icons online (again, simply search). Put these on your marketing collateral and website, and let prospects know a particular piece of equipment is Section 179 eligible. Like I mentioned last post, who cares if your competition can do this too? They aren’t reading ol’ Fletch – you are.

One more post on this topic next time, with a few more advanced strategies.

As you can tell from reading here, I’m pretty excited about Section 179 being raised to one million dollars. It’s a huge boost for companies, and to me, makes complete sense. Because when you allow a full tax deduction for equipment purchases, more companies will buy equipment – it’s really that simple. And that helps everyone – buyers and sellers both.

Let’s talk about equipment sellers today, and the huge sales gift that the IRS is (and always was) giving them. Because if you aren’t using Section 179 to help you sell equipment, you are missing out.

Now on the surface, you would think that it’s not a big deal for equipment sellers to tout Section 179. After all, assuming the equipment qualifies (most does), the deduction is available to every buyer, and all eligible equipment, regardless of manufacturer, can get the deduction. In other words, two identical machine manufacturers can both say their product is Section 179 eligible. So it can seem a little like an auto manufacturer saying “our car has wheels”.

Ahh, but there’s a difference. All car buyers are aware of the wheels (I hope so, anyway). But not all equipment buyers are aware of Section 179.  

Yes, believe it or not, there are thousands, perhaps even millions, of executives and business owners that are not aware of the Section 179 Deduction on a day to day basis. Oh, they will be aware of it when they visit their accountant at tax time, and the accountant gives them the pleasant surprise of a big deduction. But how many business owners would have bought more had they been aware of / reminded about about Section 179 earlier in the year?

There is no doubt in my mind that if every business owner in the United States was magically made fully aware of Section 179 tomorrow that equipment sales would spike markedly by weeks’ end.

So yes, using Section 179 to help sell more is, without question, a viable and desirable business strategy.  And lastly, who cares if your competition can technically do it also? They aren’t reading this blog – you are. Get a leg up.

Next time, I’ll talk about specific strategies you can use.

Let me tell you a quick story. When I was a kid, I had a friend named Joey. Joey’s father always got cool stuff in the mail – I’m talking stereos (although Joey’s bell-bottom-wearing dad called it a “Hi Fi”), bikes, all kinds of toys, etc. Now, my family got stereos, bikes, and toys too, but we went to the store to get them. Joey’s family got them through the mail, which to my mind, was really, really cool.

So why didn’t Joey’s family get their stuff at the store? I found out later it was because his father did not have great credit, so they didn’t have a regular credit card like everyone else. However, his father DID have a credit card with a certain mail order company that specialized in giving credit to people who had trouble in the past. The catch was, you could only use that credit with them, and in their catalog. You could use their card to peruse their catalog and buy a lava lamp (to go along with your HI FI, I suppose), but you couldn’t use it to buy dinner at a restaurant. Talk about good marketing…

The point I am trying to make here isn’t about bad credit or what silly 1970’s-era people called their stereos. It’s the fact that Joey’s father chose to shop with a company simply because they offered him credit. It’s a big deal.

I see this kind of thing every day in equipment financing. Not so much in the bad credit aspect, but in that companies repeatedly choose to buy equipment from vendors who offer a payment option. In many cases, it tips the scale.

Think about it – you’re a company, and you are looking at six machines that cost 30k each. You can go to vendor #1, who does not offer equipment financing, or you can go to vendor #2, who does. Everything else is equal, save for the financing. In most cases, vendor #2 will sell more equipment, simply because they allow their customers an easy way to acquire it, without depleting their cash reserves, and without jumping through hoops at the bank. Again, I see this over and over – offering a simple payment option increases sales. And you know what? It’s really easy – you can literally offer a payment option on your website in ten minutes. Talk to your friendly equipment financing guy (me or someone like me, only not as charming), and ask about it.

Now I have to go, because I saw a sweet deal on a used Boom Box.