Your prospects are just not that into you.

From Private Equity to Community Banking, the biggest problem in driving new originations and revenues may not be what you think it is. Most industry participants point to a ‘lack of awareness’ of their brand in the minds of their prospects as being the biggest obstacle to growth. Well, you’re right and a little wrong […]

Is there a crisis of poor sales management?

The final six coaches of March Madness are: John Calipari, Rick Pitino, Tom Izzo, Mike Krzyzewski, Mark Few, Bo Ryan. For those that don’t immediately get it, these guys represent a roll call of 6 of the 10 most successful coaches of the last decade or more, so as much as we talk about players…there’s […]

Commercial Finance Websites: 10 things you just gotta have down

What should a commercial finance website be? You must think it should be a boring piece of online sales collateral that has no chance of helping you do much of anything. And after reviewing hundreds of your websites, we must say if that’s what you’re after…great work. But on the off chance that that is […]

Helping your sales team have better sales conversations.

The new phrase, and one that is likely to stick, is sales enablement. The question is what is your company doing to enable your salesforce to have better, more effective sales conversations? The answer for most commercial finance businesses is…drumroll…nothing. Not that it was ever a great idea, but the days of just hiring salespeople […]

Why targeting the “middle market” can be sales & marketing disaster.

Provocative title, but a not-so-easy topic. Why? Because most of you originating in this space are generalists in a general category of poorly defined businesses. What is middle market? $10-$500MM, $50-$500MM, $100MM-$1B, 100 employees to 1000 employees? The National Center for the Middle Market (our friends at GE and Ohio State) define the space as […]

Marketing to private equity

Let’s face it, having a few great private equity firms in your stable of lending relationships is beyond fantastic. In fact, many of the larger ABL players are originating half of their business or more from sponsors and really carries the load for them. And this trend is likely to increase with private equity coming […]

Creating value vs. quoting on stuff

We just finished a case study driven marketing campaign and it felt a little like tooth extraction. No, it wasn’t getting client consent or approval that was the problem, it was pulling the story out of our beloved commercial finance salespeople. Let me explain. Our process starts with a conference call where we pull the […]

Real things salespeople have crafted as written marketing content. Laugh and be afraid.

Over the last 6 years we have been collecting little nuggets of our dearly beloved sales pros and their attempts at written marketing content. These examples are all from $5MM to multi-billion dollar companies. Salespeople are terrific, but…well…somethings are just…forget it…enjoy. “We are the best lender in the country.” Of course you are. “Nobody beats our […]

Why don’t you sell your funding process?

For years we have noticed that not only do many commercial finance companies not sell the borrowing process with the market, they almost hide it. We’ve heard the ABL Due Diligence audit described as a financial enema and the equipment finance process for titled vehicles as finger nail extraction. That said, you might really be […]

3 rarely used best practices of running an industry vertical

Whether its technology, healthcare, manufacturing, transportation or northeastern sausage distributors, telling an industry’s story…solving an industry problem…is a critical way to differentiate yourself.  And maybe the best way. Over the years we have observed some best practices of vertical business development that might get your motor running. Put your opinions out there. Saying you know […]