The uncertainties facing small and medium-sized businesses – difficulty in obtaining loans, rising interest rates, and high rates of inflation, to name a few – have created many situations where businesses need to consider alternative forms of business funding, such as invoice factoring, to fund their working capital needs. The challenge for factoring brokers is how to identify and connect with potential clients that can benefit from using invoice factoring as their funding source.
Want to earn more commission income? Here how you can identify and connect with prospective clients.
Focus on Your Market Niche
From construction trades to consumer products, from manufacturers to staffing companies, from suppliers/ distributors to publishing, invoice factoring can quite literally be applied to any industry and everything in between. Choosing your niche and focusing on it essentially sets the stage for your brokerage as well as future business relationships. Focus on companies that need a knowledgeable, professional intermediary to help them obtain alternative financing solutions. Companies that may be less sophisticated financially and do not have the depth of in-house financial expertise to take advantage of invoice factoring.
Leverage Your Knowledge, Experience, or Connections
Do you have knowledge, experience, or connections in specific industries? These touchpoints could be through education, work experience, family, or friends. Leverage your touchpoints to identify lead opportunities.
Utilize Networking Opportunities
Professional and social networks can be an excellent source of lead opportunities. It’s usually better to use networks to promote yourself instead of direct selling. The network connections you establish can become ambassadors for your brand who have exposure to many more lead opportunities than you can reach by yourself.
Some examples of networks you can develop to identify leads include:
Industry Associations
Many industries have associations to promote member interests. They often have different categories of membership or affiliation. This allows vendors and service providers to participate in association activities. They can be great opportunities to network with prospective clients. Specific associations will sometimes sponsor presentations on products and services that are important to members, including financing and alternative lending solutions.
Professional Groups
Like industry associations, professional groups such as CPAs, lawyers, CFOs, and engineers belong to groups that may allow service providers some form of affiliation to benefit the members. Better yet, you may qualify to be a member of these groups yourself based on your education or work experience.
Elevator Speech
You never know when a networking opportunity will present itself, so hone your elevator speech to take advantage of any situation where you may be able to develop a new network connection.
In 30 seconds or less, be able to identify yourself, your business name and describe your services when contacting potential clients by phone or in person. Practice your elevator speech so that it sounds natural and encourages prospective clients to begin a dialogue with you.
Data Mining
A vast amount of information is available on various industries in databases. Some information may be available free to members of industry associations, but most data must be purchased. The data may be available for download to your computer or by access to a cloud-based website.
You can use various commercially available software solutions to manipulate the data in many ways to help you “mine” for lead opportunities.
Develop Your Online Network
Many new businesses today are run by “tech-savvy” people who rely on the internet to communicate and run their businesses. It is essential to develop your online network to identify lead opportunities and provide a channel to connect with them.
Website
A website is your headquarters in the digital world. An online office where you meet and greet lead opportunities and tell them about you and the services your business offers.
The landing page on your website is where potential leads land after being directed from an ad you’ve posted on the internet, or from a link in your social media posts. It provides an opportunity to showcase your business and convert the visitor into a lead.
An easy and efficient way to connect with the potential leads on your website is to utilize website forms. Website forms are important lead generating tools for your website that you should use for identifying and connecting with lead opportunities. Examples of forms include:
- Referral forms for your network of bankers, accountants, advisors, etc., to refer a lead to you
- Forms for prospects to use to request information on invoice factoring and/or the terms and costs of a factoring facility
- Forms for potential clients to request complimentary information offered on your website or downloadable reports, case studies, etc.
- Requests to be added to your email and newsletter lists
Website forms are available on the WordPress platform and email marketing platforms such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, etc. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software such as Freshsales and Pipedrive are also excellent sources of website forms.
Email marketing platforms are also an excellent source of forms for your website that support online marketing campaigns with tools for tasks such as prospect mailing lists. These marketing forms are also used as popup forms. When a visitor to your website completes a popup form, they are automatically enrolled and subscribed to your mailing list for newsletters and bulletins. Prospects using these forms can also be included in your email platform preprogrammed emails that automatically contact prospects periodically with content to build relationships and make them more receptive to follow-up calls.
Social Media
Social media websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram offer additional opportunities to present your business and convert visitors to lead opportunities. Visitors can click on a link to your website for additional information.
Use your online network to provide information of interest to prospective clients. It is a much easier and more efficient way to identify and connect with lead opportunities. Use your creativity to develop the approaches that will work best for you, and for more information on developing as a broker, visit our broker resources.
