Financing the future

A downturn is an opportunity to focus on the right sales techniques and financial strategies, Peter Austin points out

All businesses will be acutely aware of the distinct change in economic mood of the nation.

Previously we had hoped that the pessimists would be proven wrong; that the most we would have to endure would be a mild, short-lived downturn.

But each day we are faced with the economic reality that conditions are worsening, and we hear the ‘R’ word with increasing frequency.

In the consumer arena, I’ve noticed many articles in the media encouraging householders towards money-saving initiatives.

What have things come to when the editorial of a daily paper preaches about reducing food wastage by buying single vegetables rather than multi-buy packs?!

I’m not trying to encourage a debate about the nanny state. Actually, this article made me observe that the consumer receives an awful lot more advice than the average business.

SMEs in particular can find themselves feeling pretty much deserted when it comes to financial matters.

My experience has taught me that a key sales technique for resellers to remember in the credit crunch is the importance of having an upfront knowledge of a prospect’s business, particularly from a financial perspective.

No salesperson has a crystal ball on their desk, but research and preparation certainly help minimise the element of chance.

There are sophisticated prospecting tools on the market (some of which form part of finance applications) that give an online, real-time insight into the financial situation of prospective leads, identifying customers with good credit ratings for example.

Not only does this knowledge help resellers avoid bad debtors and instil greater confidence that sales leads will turn out to be lucrative, it can also be used as a basis for integrating a finance option into the sale.

Let’s face it, customers are likely to have less ready cash at the moment and are finding it difficult to make purchasing decisions.

So resellers who use finance intelligently to make their solution and service proposition more ‘palatable’ in today’s business environment, such as proposing a staged payment scheme from the outset, are far more likely to foster open and productive conversations with their prospects.

Peter Austin is general manager at Siemens Financial Services