The Why and How of a Canadian Customer Financing Program – Why You Need to Offer a Vendor Leasing Offering

When isn't the competition intense in Canadian business? So if you had a tool that allowed you to grow sales, increase profits wouldn't it make sense to at lease investigate any possibility that allowed you to do that?

What we are talking about is a formal (it can be informal also ... it's your call!) arrangement to provide a customer financing program - i.e. a leasing offering for your clients.

Sound complicated? time consuming ?Depending on the type of offering you put together we can assure you the cost to your firm starts at Zero Dollars ! And the beauty of a customer lease offering such as the type we're talking about can pretty well include any product and service your firm sells.

We remember fondly working on very formal customer financing programs in the 1980's.... we continually spoke of using financing as a means to ' control ' our client base . Boy did the lawyers hate that term ' control ' ... so I guess in the end we opted for ' influence ' as the buzzword for the benefits of a vendor program offering leasing to our client base .

So just how did that influencing work...? Well... are you often

worried about the competitions pricing of similar products and services to yours? Consider this - when you offer customer finance you have a new powerful tool in your sales ' toolkit ' because clients tend to focus on actual monthly payments - they will spend less time talking to you or your sales team about actual price and discounts.

In fact, you can even become the General Motors of your industry ... what do we mean by that? ... simply that you could even utilize a bit of your discounting and pricing that you typically use to subsidize the finance rate - that is perceived by clients quite often as an economical purchase decision - of your products and services!

The old adage ' time is money ' is suited quite perfect to vendor program financing. Why... because by offering a financial solution to your clients you... and by the way congratulations! .. have just saved your customer the time and frustration in going out to arrange their own financing. We hate to sound like a broken record by we're champions of the term ' Obstacles to Customer Innovation '. The innovation is of course your first great products and services... the obstacle are your price. The solution... a one stop financing solution when you market your firm's product and service offering.

Let's circle back to that word ' control ' that the lawyers seemed to hate so much when we started marketing customer financing way back in the 80's. The reality is that if your customers are financing your product you now have a certain element of control... oops! 'Influence' on the end of term behavior of your customer. If your client is on a 3 year typical lease as an example you are in a position to know exactly when they are up for renewal, upgrade, etc.

We can't begin to count the many other significant benefits of a customer financing vendor program. And, as we said, by aligning yourself with the proper ' back office ' partner the cost to your firm is zero... and the benefits are increased sales, cash flow, and profits. That a triple whammy! Speak to a trusted, experienced and credible Canadian business financing advisor who can assist you to set up a vendor leasing offering that puts you ahead of your competition.