Many reps in the middle market and large corporate space covet the holy grail of relationships with the CFOs, Ts, ATs and maybe even a VP of Finance. And rightly so. A great relationship here can lead to great things and first crack at the biggest deals. But, be honest, how many times have you asked a prospect CFO (and the like) what asset classes they lease and the answer comes back, none or we just hit our line, pay cash, do term debt…BUT THE UCC DATA CLEARLY SHOWS THEY ARE LEASING!
Are they holding back on you? Probably not, they just don’t know. No, really, they don’t know. We find this a great deal of time with copiers, IT and lift trucks in particular but it extends to other asset classes as well. These decisions are held with the budget manager in some corner of the operation. Many times this manager is the actual manager of the users of the assets. Warehouse Managers, Network Administrators (and the like), and more can hold the key to “program leasing”.
Program Leasing happens when an operational manager (either of their own invention or really good lease salesmanship) has determined that the operational benefits of having a program to acquire, finance, manage and dispose of assets is either the most cost-effective, least hassle or some combination to achieve maximum operational performance. These benefits include but are not limited to:
- Staying on the cutting edge of technology
- Increasing employee productivity
- Increasing employee satisfaction
- Decreasing maintenance expense
- Reducing downtime due to equipment issues
As such, often times the Master Lease and the decision process lives in a different place than the office of the CFO. And notice spread, implicit rate, the requirement to be in the bank group and funky finance structure wasn’t on the benefits list.
Program leasing is more about a better way to manage assets than the cheapest way to borrow money. And that’s good for you.
Could a campaign targeting operational managers of certain asset classes educating them on a better way to spend their precious budget dollars change the game for you? If you had just a handful of these “programs” what could that do for your volume and profitability?
We think this is something most leasing companies that are targeting a direct audience need to be thinking about. If you ever wanna chat about how marketing can help drive new “program-type” relationships, give us a holler.