Here are a few specifics that we engage in with our finance partners who want to get more out of their financing program. First are two options that every partner has access to:

Widgets and a Custom Payment Portal.

A “get financing here” widget can be inserted into your website in seconds (it’s just a quick snippet of code). But the results can be profound. Prospective buyers looking at your goods can click to get payment info and apply for financing.

The custom portal is similar in that it’s easy to deploy. For portals, we can brand them with your name/logo, and can include a custom vanity URL. Prospects can enter in finance amounts, get quotes emailed to them, and even apply for Crest Capital financing directly from your portal. It’s a fantastic addition to any sales effort.

Ok, those are the common tools. But the following strategies are more advanced, and are selectively available to specific partners (e.g., those who prolifically utilize financing, and are willing to work with us as much as we work with them.)

“No Payments Until…”

Pretty self-explanatory. The option to defer payments until later can be an attractive one for buyers. We’ve done skip first payment, no payments until summer, no payments until next year… these can be customized depending upon our partner’s needs.

Seasonal Payments 

Many businesses operate seasonally. Examples include a golf course in the northeast, a ski resort, or any other business that has high and low seasons dependent on climate, seasonal tourism, the calendar, or similar. If you sell to customers like these, the ability to adjust payment schedules depending on the season could easily be the deciding factor to buy from you. We can make that happen.

Progress Payments

For many industries (especially those that provide customized goods), progress payments are a key part of operations. If you provide goods that require progress payments, we can work with you to ensure your financing program meets those needs. 

There are other advanced strategies, such as custom lease structures, special rates, creative marketing collateral, and more that we work with advanced partners on, but the preceding should give you a good idea what’s available. 

Again, these advanced strategies require partners to be experienced with offering financing, and in some cases, willing to assume some of the risk. But they can be extremely robust to the bottom line. 

Financing makes companies money – it’s as simple as that, and if you’re already a practitioner, upgrading your financing program to Crest Capital can make a big difference, both today and tomorrow. 

For example, I posted a “why aren’t you offering financing?” series in January of 2020. Just one month after I posted, we began hearing about a possible Pandemic. Then a month later, the pandemic happened. And you know what else happened? Credit exploded. With shutdowns looming, companies did not want to spend a dime of their own money, so they borrowed and financed equipment in droves. 

Like everyone else, we worked from home, but were quite busy. And you know what took up a TON of our time? Helping our best vendor partners better offer credit to their customers.  

We have hundreds of vendor partners. Every one of them is important. But there are a certain percentage of them who truly embrace offering credit and monthly payments, and use financing as a selling tool. They already know, beyond any doubt, that offering credit raises sales. So they proactively employ it.  

For those vendors, our help was there for the asking. We worked with their salespeople, helping them better present financing. We assisted with marketing collateral. We worked out “as low as” price points for their websites. And for the most prolific ones, we worked out special payment schedules and similar. 

This all mattered immensely to our best B2B vendor partners. When the pandemic hit and business seemed quite “iffy”, we helped them take advantage of the sudden increased interest in credit, and for a great number of them, sales held serve during a very challenging time. 

So this begs a question to companies who already embrace offering credit: How much does your finance partner actually help you?  

At Crest Capital, we see it as a true partnership. A two-way street if you will. 

Many vendor partners don’t really want to push credit, and that’s ok. We give them some self-service tools, and financing is there if they need it.

But there are other vendor partners who proactively view credit as a vital sales tool (which it is). And together, we do some interesting, revenue-driving things. 

Do you have a vendor partner now, but haven’t seen much interesting (or revenue driving) lately? Maybe it’s time to talk to a vendor partner that actually does those things. 
I’ll discuss specifics in the next post, but suffice to say, if you’re interested in more revenue from your financing program, then we’re interested in talking to you.

In my previous post, I discussed how easy offering financing was for equipment sellers, and how it was literally plug and play. Then I talked about being proactive about it.

In this post, I’ll go one step further and discuss a few ideas on how you can be proactive about offering financing to B2B customers. None of these take a lot of work, but they can all have an extremely positive effect on your sales. Note: I am certain I discussed these in this blog before in some form, but it was at least a few years ago.

Offer Financing Right at the Point of Sale 

On your website’s product page, mention there is financing available. Better still, put our widget there, and your customer can quickly and easily get a payment quote. Also, right on any product collateral, make sure you put “financing available” pretty much near each product. 

The above is pretty basic, and requires very little work or upkeep.

Give a Payment Amount

This is similar to the above, but it puts a number on it. We often work with vendors to come up with a payment based on the cost of the equipment and term. So “financing available” can become “as low as $XYZ a month”. 

That’s really powerful marketing. Think about it: people are looking at your products because they are interested. Showing them how affordable it can really be always has a substantial impact on buying decisions. Especially if your competition isn’t doing this. 

Now, this does take a little more effort, because when you raise your prices, it needs to be adjusted, but we have found it’s well worth the tiny amount of effort it takes.

Get Your Salespeople on Board

I just did an entire post on this called “it’s a question of closing”. But let’s repeat the thought, because it’s low hanging fruit. Trust me, your salespeople are already hoping for something like this. If they’ve been around the block, they know how powerful monthly payments are at closing time.

Get More Creative

Do you want to get really proactive? We work with B2B equipment sellers to offer things like “no payments until next year”, “skip first payment”, or similar. These are a little more advanced, but again, they can really boost sales, and that’s what it’s all about, right?

Listen, offering financing to your B2B customers is great. And it’s even better if you are proactive about it. 

One thing that I really like about the internet is how easy it makes doing business (and offering equipment financing). Allow me a quick story to demonstrate this:

Years and years ago, a friend of mine started an advertising business. Basically, he wanted to be a “small town ad agency” helping Mom and Pop businesses advertise. And he had a really good idea – he was going to offer these businesses the ability to pay via credit card. Which, in 1992, was a big deal (if you remember, in 1992, it was uncommon for even a supermarket or fast food restaurant to take credit cards, never mind an advertising service.)

But he was undaunted. He wanted to give Mom and Pop the ability to pay him on credit. I have to say, as someone involved in equipment financing and credit, my friend was ahead of his time.

But try as he might, he couldn’t get it done. 1992 was “pre-web”, and the only way to accept credit cards was to walk into a bank and get things rolling. And banks laughed at my friend. I know – I went with him. One bank officer even said “son, that’s not how credit is used”.

Fast forward to now. The internet has made things very, very easy. And, attitudes towards credit have changed as well. Right now, my friend could go to one of several websites and in five minutes (and no expense at all), have the ability to accept credit cards from anyone, for anything, right on his website. No stuffy bank officer needed.

In fact, this has changed how we buy things, hasn’t it? Workers are now commonly paid via direct deposit, and some even get paid on a debit card. We use credit for everything. It’s super common. Even fast food is paid for by credit, and small town ad agencies can accept credit cards for their services. It’s a totally different world.

“So what does this have to do with equipment financing?” you ask… well, stay tuned for part two.

Let’s say you have an equipment financing company that you partner with. For years, it’s been a cozy, mutually beneficial relationship, complete with Christmas cards, “how are the kids?” and an occasional lunch. You realized the benefits of offering easy equipment financing and equipment leasing, and the equipment financing company had a nice flow of financing customers.

But lately you’ve noticed something…. Not only have revenues fallen over the last 18 months (like everyone else’s), but you also notice that percentage-wise, there just aren’t as many equipment financing approvals, despite the same level of customer as always. It’s almost like the equipment financing company has raised their lending criteria a little higher than you (and your customers) would really like to see. And by the way, where was last year’s Christmas card anyway?

The above really isn’t uncommon – as the credit crunch increased, banks and other lenders have tightened their lending criteria (in some cases, squeezing the life right out of it), and equipment financing companies have followed suit. This is normal.

However, not all equipment financing companies are created equal. While a tightening of lending criteria has happened across the board, there are different degrees of tightening. Some equipment financing companies are in a good position with their portfolios, and are still willing to finance or lease equipment to solid companies who have demonstrated an ability to repay the loan.

So basically, my point in this post is to let you know that not all equipment financing companies are the same – they are all unique in terms of who they will loan to, what rate they will charge, etc. If you notice things have changed with your equipment financing partner, it’s ok to take a look around at what else is out there.

Next time, I’ll give you some warning signs (besides the Christmas cards) that your equipment financing relationship might be in trouble.