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Winning Business
and Loyal Clients in Invoice Factoring - # VII, Part 2
Advice Desk
Implementation of the Plan
(cont'd)
For each
of these 4 areas, we can then present the features of each
that can help us determine where we are today as a financial
services firm, and where we need to be in the daily execution
of our operating procedures and policies. I have outlined in
table form each of the aspects of the 4 key areas below: |
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Toll Free Phone
877.894.UCFC (8232)
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Take a minute and carefully study the chart
shown below. It is very
useful in the process of determining where your invoice
factoring company or organization is, and if you have started
or perhaps finished the migration from a product focused
[dinosaur] to a financial services information focused firm.
Here is a series of questions to think about: |
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Is your factoring client expectation still driven by
advertising, features and benefits, or is the focus centered
on information intensive, personalized, super responsive
approach? |
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Do you even know where your funding firm is perceived by your
clients? Has there ever been a formal, objective survey
process for new and existing clients? [This topic alone will
be the basis for another future article]. |
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Are you still focused on meeting your invoice funding clients
expectations based on location of your facilities, pricing and
delivery? |
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Source:
Leapthought
While it
might appear that this first group of questions is too
esoteric or theoretical, I cannot stress how important they
are to ask, answer, debate and resolve internally. One of the
reasons I believe this so strongly is due to what the Internet
has done to not only our accounts receivables management
industry but all business delivery systems in general. It has
changed the landscape of how we are, and will need to operate
in the future in order to remain profitable, and perhaps, even
survive in the financial services industry. |
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The Internet, as will be discussed in a series of future
articles, has opened up opportunities that never existed
before to invoice factoring companies and firms like mine, or
like yours. The most important reason for this is simple:
Company size no longer matters in our business, or yours.
Focus does. The ability to respond quickly and professionally
will determine your future success.
In business financial factoring, it is easier today to compete
against the “big guys” today than ever before, and quite
honestly, be successful beyond imagination. The ability to
move quickly, serve professionally, earn reasonable returns of
funding capital today favor the small, niche, focused invoice
factoring firm like never before. The line that separates the
winners [survivors] from the losers [extinct] is a well
defined, executed, focused game plan and team of professionals
that are eager, ready and able to perform.
Some other questions to ask as part of the
product/channel/information focus review process:
The key areas are: |
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Is your financing firm truly focused on a client relationship
management approach? Or are you still of the mindset that if
“we make it, they will buy it?” |
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What is your factoring company strategy, with respect to your
products and advertising? Have you explored, embraced, and
exploited the Internet as a tool to offset the disinter
mediation occurring within the more traditional financial
service providers that your clients previously used? |
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Do you still consider your MIS function to be “transaction”
oriented only, vs. a CRM tool and a source of valuable data to
analyze? Is there a focus on efficiency or effectiveness? |
After you have analyzed and determined where your factoring
firm is in the spectrum [in each of the 4 areas presented],
determine what needs to be done, if anything to become and
remain information focused factoring service provider. Once
you are able to focus all of your efforts on information vs.
products, receivables management clients will begin to view
you as a “partner”, not just another “vendor”.
When you sit back and think about it, isn’t that what we all
are shooting for?
For invoice factoring companies, the truly Client driven
organization successfully marries a well thought out strategy
with an aggressive operating plan, supported by a team of
focused financial services professionals. The truly Client
driven accounts receivable factoring organization uses a
marketing plan that combines client and business intelligence,
real time knowledge transfer, integrated communications in the
execution process, a branded marketing approach and an online,
interactive approach to development and integration. How many
of these critical variables do you have in your firm?
In the next Article, I will outline what our invoice factoring
company has used in our daily effort to not only meet, but
exceed our funding clients’ expectations. I will also present
how we have used the Internet as a valuable tool in this
effort, and where we see future opportunities for focused
providers to use other information based tools [websites, WOS,
etc.] as a part of this process.
Feel free to email me at any time with questions,
observations, comments or if you need any additional
information on the discussed topics. I can be reached via
email at mark@ucfunding.com. |
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View and Print this Article (pdf version):
Winning Business and
Loyal Clients in Invoice Finance (part VII)
In this
series of articles to assist you in winning business and loyal
clients, Mark Mandula offers his guidance from the viewpoint
of an experienced business finance professional based in the
US.
Winning Business and
Loyal Clients in Invoice Finance (part I)
Winning Business and
Loyal Clients in Invoice Finance (part II)
Winning Business and
Loyal Clients in Invoice Finance (part III)
Winning Business and
Loyal Clients in Invoice Finance (part IV)
Winning Business and
Loyal Clients in Invoice Finance (part V)
Winning Business and
Loyal Clients in Invoice Finance (part VI)
Winning Business and
Loyal Clients in Invoice Finance (part VII)
Winning Business and
Loyal Clients in Invoice Finance (part VIII)
Other Invoice Factoring Articles of Interest
Trust Based Financial Services
in Factoring of Accounts
Receivables:
How to build a sustainable
trust based financial services firm
Winning Business
and Loyal Clients in Accounts Receivable Factoring "How to Sell More to Your Existing Clients"
Winning Business
and Loyal Clients in Accounts Receivable Factoring "Work
Smarter, Not Harder"
Factoring: Fact vs.
Myth: What types of companies use factoring?
Factoring: Fact vs.
Myth: Will factoring negatively affect your
customers perception of your company?
Factoring Company
Corporate Overview
Apply for Factoring Online
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