Setting Yourself Apart from Other Financial Brokers

Breaking through the noise in a crowded and competitive market segment is a growing challenge for financial brokers and ISOs. 

Your competitors are promoting their businesses frequently, adding ever more noise to your market segment. This makes it very difficult for clients to differentiate one financial broker’s product and service offering from another, and the more competitors you have, the higher the noise level will be.

Unless you have a lot of extra cash to invest in marketing and advertising campaigns to break through the noise, you need to develop alternative strategies to set yourself apart from other financial brokers.

To stand out as a factoring broker, consider adopting the following strategies:

1. Avoid a Copycat Approach: If you adopt everything your competition offers, your message will be drowned out in the noise. Prospective clients will view you as just one of the many brokers vying for their business.
2. Focus on Your Market Niche (Specialization): Factoring is utilized in many industries, from construction trades to consumer products, manufacturing to personnel staffing companies, and suppliers/distributors to publishing. Specialize in the market niche that fits your strengths so you can position yourself as a knowledgeable and professional financial intermediary. Focus on companies that need a knowledgeable, financial intermediary to help them obtain alternative financing solutions. Companies that may be less sophisticated financially and do not have the in-house financial expertise to take advantage of invoice factoring. Set a goal to make your name synonymous with invoice factoring in your market niche.
3. Leverage Your Knowledge, Experience, and Connections: Utilize your expertise, experience, and connections in your market niche to build trust and credibility with prospective clients. These touchpoints could be through education, work experience, family, or friends. Leverage your touchpoints to identify lead opportunities. 
4. Utilize Networking Opportunities: Attend industry events, conferences, and trade shows to connect with potential clients and establish relationships. Networking can help you gain visibility and generate leads. 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. They have exposure to many more lead opportunities than you can reach by yourself.
5. Expand Your Reach in Local and Regional Markets with a Targeted Marketing Approach: As a financial professional, you are an expert in and aware of local and regional economic trends affecting businesses in your community.  Use those trends as marketing opportunities and stress to your potential clients that your knowledge of local business conditions can be used by you to translate into the funding opportunities for them and the commercial finance companies located in financial centers.  The commercial finance companies would never have exposure to your local market and the opportunities that are evident without your promotion of the local businesses that qualify for factoring, purchase order (PO) finance, equipment leasing, etc.
6. Provide Real Customer Service: Customer service is not what it used to be. Many companies make it difficult for clients to reach them. Some simply provide a chat bot to answer standard FAQs. If you want to set yourself apart from other financial brokers and ISOs, give clients what they want – personal service, quick response times, and easy access to information. Nothing will cement goodwill with a client like personal attention. Try to respond to your clients personally by way of their preferred method of communication – phone, text, or email. Set a goal to respond within one business day. Some clients simply like to have easy access to information on their business. You can give them this with a small business Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software package with file sharing and portal capability. CRM can give your clients what they want, save you time, and add a number of tools to improve your marketing, sales and client management efforts.
7. Accelerate Funding Speed: Brokers usually claim they can get fast funding for their clients. If you want to set yourself apart from the competition on this important selling point, you need to proactively facilitate the application and due diligence process for prospective clients with these steps:
   • Have your client gather and prepare documentation in advance.
   • Pick a factoring company that has a track record of funding proposals quickly. Work with a factor that has the experience and resources to provide the funding your client needs and the experience to get a factoring program up and running quickly and seamlessly. In other words, choose a factor for your client that will make you look like the experienced professional that they want to work with.
   • Have your client prepare a business plan that supports the amount of funding requested.
   • Make sure the application is complete and all information required has been provided.
   • Emphasize to your client the need to promptly respond to all requests and questions from the factoring company.

8. 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 build your online network to set yourself apart from other financial brokers or ISOs, and provide a channel to connect with lead opportunities. Build an online presence through social media platforms, professional networking sites, and your own website. Share valuable content, engage with your audience, and establish yourself as an industry expert to pull lead opportunities to your network. Be sure to provide the means for them to request further information, and/or contact you.

If you want to get to first base with lead opportunities, you will need to stand out from other financial brokers and ISOs. By implementing these strategies, you can increase your chances of success in the competitive commercial finance industry. 

Partnering with the right factor can help you break through the noise in your market niche and set yourself apart from other financial brokers. 

At Capstone, we can provide the support you will need to be successful, including:

• Local and personalized services all over the United States regardless of where the client is located.
• Marketing materials to support your business development efforts.
• Fast funding and approval times for new and recurring clients.
• Training and other educational materials so you never need to worry about any uncertainty with our financial products.
• Custom tailored funding packages to dovetail with you client’s business model and unique needs. 
• Easy agreements, forms, and transactions to work with so you can spend more time developing new business opportunities.
• A wide range of financial tools and programs to help facilitate the growth of your clients.  Capstone offers accounts receivable factoring, PO financing, domestic and international trade finance, and pre-exporting financing programs. A single resource for business funding can be more efficient and enable seamless business transactions.

The support we offer referral sources speaks to our commitment to your success. Get in touch with us today at (212) 755-3636 and learn how we can help you set yourself apart from other financial brokers and create a pathway to success.