Unitranche, junior secured, second lien, trade finance, recurring revenue, deeper industry specialization and more are rising in popularity among ABL players. Clearly more and more asset based lenders are bringing unique solutions to market and evolving to be more than your father’s ABL. So how does the evolution affect go to market strategies?
Whether you are developing an internal capability to deliver these solutions or are partnering with a mezz/junior secured player, creating a gameplan to achieve maximum success is crucial. Here are a few items to consider:
Tell the whole story. Make sure your differentiated messaging (value proposition) include your new capabilities. Don’t be bashful about telling the market you stretch beyond the boundaries of traditional asset based lending into more comprehensive solutions.
Educate. Don’t assume CFOs (or even private equity) really understand what some of these solutions really are. Educate the audience by putting an article series out there talking about the benefit of these types of solutions compared to more traditional offerings. Talk about how companies can best leverage these solutions and what events…expansion, acquisition, turnaround, recap…these solutions can impact. These articles let the audience experience how smart you are…before they experience it first hand. Also, do webinars (2-3 per year). Great low expense, non-threatening way to add value, collect leads and grow the pipeline.
Prove it. Tombstones and Case studies. And when you’re finished with those…do more of them. Nothing sells like success and these items are a terrific complement to the education approach described above.
Build a toolbox. Every unique lending solution should have at least one education article, a simple “just the facts” overview, sales talking points including industries predisposed to a need (ex. SaaS for recurring revenue) a case study and a few tombstones. You want each rep to speak to the solution as though they have done each tombstone themselves.
If you are thinking about expansion into one of these areas, we encourage you to think like a “product company”. Do some research on the target market, the competition and really focus on bringing unique value to the market. Think of it as a product launch…because it is. If you ever wanna chat about how to position a new, more comprehensive ABL, give us a holler.