Savvy factoring professionals understand the shifting landscape of business. Customers use mobile technology to engage with your company at all hours of the day and night, from all over the world. Since these tools are readily available, it’s important to use them to your advantage. Below are ten essential mobile applications for staying connected to the most important parts of your business. Add them to your arsenal to take your factoring company to the next level. Stay in touch with clients and contacts. Communication is the key to building a factoring business and serving your clients, so use these apps to follow up even when your desk is 1,000 miles away. • Salesforce1: Salesforce’s comprehensive app puts your lead and customer … [Read more...]
IFA Announces New Factoring Training Classes
The International Factoring Association has just announced NEW training courses and meetings,giving you more options for continuing education and networking! Learn Invoice Factoring With IFA Mark your calendars for these upcoming training courses and events: Digital Marketing May 1 - Webinar The Law and Business of Factoring June 23 - 24 - Planet Hollywood - Las Vegas, NV Account Executive / Loan Officer Training Course June 26 - 27 - Planet Hollywood - Las Vegas, NV Meeting for Women in Commercial Finance July 14 - 15 - Paris Hotel - Las Vegas, NV Transportation Factoring Meeting September 11 - 12 - Omni Nashville - Nashville, TN Portfolio Operations and Monitoring October 13 - 14 - Planet Hollywood - Las Vegas, NV Credit, … [Read more...]
Marketing The Right Way For Factoring Business
New clients, we all want them and we try everything in our power to find them. The internet along with social media has made it possible for almost anyone to get their message out to the masses at an extremely low cost. With an internet connection and a very small marketing budget you can create a web page, post content on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and a variety of other outlets depending on your specific need or preference. Our position in the factoring business has always been to keep a lot of irons in the fire when it comes to marketing on the internet. As important it is to have a great website, it is just as important to create useful content to educate our audience about what we do and how our services can benefit their … [Read more...]
Tax Time! Five Tax Tips to Benefit Your Factoring Business
No time of year puts quite the same amount of panic into a factoring business owner as tax time. Properly filing and paying your business taxes is one of the most important things you will do all year, and can also be one of the most complicated. With that in mind, we have five tips to keep your tax season running smoothly. Tip #1: Get the right person to prepare your taxes. (Hint: it may not be you.) It can be tempting to save money by filing your business taxes yourself – after all, who knows your factoring business better than you? Before you break out the pens and calculators, though, think about whether you have the time and the tax knowledge necessary to accurately report all of your earnings and deductions. Mistakes can cost you … [Read more...]
Is Invoice Factoring Becoming Mainstream?
Let’s say you are in business for yourself and begin your morning ritual. Coffee. Email. Facebook. You know…not quite ready to get into the day-to-day stress of work, employees, and cash flow issues. Then you see this on Facebook…. Invoice Factoring has entered social media…and in a BIG way. And when something enters social media…it becomes mainstream. And mainstream means, potentially, big profits. Fundbox.com is just one such factoring company* that understands the importance of social media, websites and online marketing. *[UPDATE: Tomer Michaeli, co-founder at Fundbox, was nice enough to contact us and give us a bit more insight to their business model. - "Fundbox is not a factoring company...We are a technology … [Read more...]
Why Factoring Works
Working capital - Every business needs it but at what cost? One of the main reasons why I enjoy working in the factoring business is that the concept is simple and easy to understand. Factoring companies provide businesses with working capital by purchasing their client’s outstanding receivables. Typically a factoring transaction is an arrangement between three parties (client, factor and vendor) all of whom are businesses. The business owner understands his profit margins and the expense associated with factoring while the factor evaluates the risk. In most cases the increase in cash flow will not only justify the cost but actually lower operating margins by increasing sales for the business. But why is factoring so popular … [Read more...]
How I Sell. My Preferred Factoring Sales Technique
Selling factoring services can be very challenging, especially in this environment where there is very strong competition. Not only do you have to help clients determine if factoring is right for them, you also have to show them how your solution is better for them that everyone else’s. This may sound simple, but selling factoring services in this market is very difficult. It’s a crowded market with every factoring company promoting their benefits. You can expect that most prospects will be talking to four or five different factors. One simple approach is to match what they are saying. But if you do that, you become a “me too!” factoring provider that will only get average results. So, how do you break through that barrier? How do … [Read more...]
Are They Really a Factoring Prospect? The Telephone Interview
In my early days in the factoring business, prospect calls were few and far between. Whenever the phone rang, I grabbed it quickly and hoped for the best. In those days, the process of qualifying a prospect could take me up to an hour. I would have long detailed conversations, learning everything I could about the client’s business. After these detailed calls, I would hand the client off to the factoring company I thought would help them best. But there were two problems with this strategy. First, it was not a very effective use of my time. Especially when I found out, 45 minutes into a call, that the prospect would not qualify for factoring. And second, it did not scale well. It wasn’t long before I was on the phone eight hours … [Read more...]
Sequestration and Business: What Factors Need to Know
Start planning now for the effects of sequestration on factoring and your business. As far as sequestration goes, it feels a little like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Due to the failure of the government to come to a workable agreement on spending reduction, automatic across-the-board cuts were implemented on March 1st. Many government programs and jobs will be impacted, as well as the businesses that work directly and indirectly with them. While exemptions from the cuts do exist, sequestration will have far reaching implications for industries like healthcare as well as … [Read more...]
Marketing Your Factoring Business? Avoid The Crush
If you are a regular member of a gym or fitness club as they refer to it today, I always find January to be the most interesting month of the year to be a member. At the beginning of every year the place is so crowded that you usually have to wait in line to use the equipment. Then, within a few weeks the crush subsides and the facility is back to normal. I kind of look at business from the same point view. Just like at the gym, this time of year my mailbox is usually full of emails, blogs and pings from contacts wanting to reconnect to see how we can “align our strategies in a mutually beneficial relationship”. Sound familiar? I’m always amazed by the emails I receive from people who do not know what factoring is and what our … [Read more...]