What can you do to boost profit and volume? In today’s market, your existing vendors are selling less equipment. So, one of the first things to do to boost volume is to land new vendors. It's as simple as that, and fortunately there is less competition out there today.
How do you land new vendors? I suggest comprehensive monitoring of your sales force. Are they making enough calls? Are they just talking to prospects that are friendly, but don’t have volume? Measure their activity level, the number of calls, length of calls, and also code the leads they are calling on. Leads can be coded three ways:
A= High Quality
Using a competitor you recognize
> Five sales reps
> Twenty employees (per D&B, or other confirmation)
Average ticket fit with your funding sources
Sell acceptable equipment
They sell to appropriate lessees
> Ten applications per month
B= Potential Vendors (small but worthwhile)
They do a couple leasing deals a quarter. You know if you land them, you can count on a slow but steady stream of business.
C= Everybody else
Your sales people haven’t even fully qualified them, but they have started dialogue and they think that the vendor has potential. The first thing to do is to get the answers to these questions:
What’s your average ticket size?
Who do you sell to?
What leasing companies are you currently using?
What is most important to you in a leasing company?
Are they really a prospect or are you wasting time with them?
If you help your sales people stay on top of the leads they have, and effectively qualify prospects, you have a better chance of initiating new, quality vendor relationships.