Published March 28, 2022

78% of businesses look for financing when making commercial equipment and technology purchases.

Zig Ziglar, the famous sales mentor and author, once said that if you want to sell more, “Talk about money first.”

You may think, “Of course you’d say that — you’re a finance company.” And financing definitely does make talking about money early in the sales process a lot easier. But let’s go a little deeper.

Zig Ziglar, the famous sales mentor and author, once said that if you want to sell more, “Talk about money first.”

Have you ever had a customer spend countless hours with you talking specs, bits, and bytes? They watch your sales teams generate proposals, revisions to proposals, and revisions to the revisions, yet the deals take way too long to close or end up not closing at all. Talk about a waste of time. But it happens to way too many sales professionals. In fact…

83% of equipment and technology sales teams say a lengthy sales cycle is the biggest problem with their pipeline.

It’s not getting more customers and it’s not price-based competition, as you might think. Instead, the key problem is finding ways to close faster. But the real question is, why does the sale take so long in the first place? Here’s a big reason:

8 out of 10 equipment and technology purchasers who take more than 60 days to make a commercial equipment and technology decision point out affordability as the key reason for the delay.

Equipment and technology sales teams are frustrated with long sales cycles, but don’t address the money up-front. Or put another way, your sales actions might be your biggest sales obstacle. Addressing financial concerns up-front will help you solve for any issues with affordability. And before you go to cutting your margins, go to your finance partner.

A proactive discussion with a finance partner can address those affordability issues. It can allow customers to purchase with low-to-no money down and cash-flow-friendly payments. It can even give them creative ways to give equipment and technology a head start on paying for itself, such as seasonal billing or skip payments. These solutions allow businesses to better match equipment and technology expenses to any revenue they may generate. Financing can also preserve cash in their budget for other investments that create a higher return.

So it looks like this to your customer: equipment and technology that’s more affordable, plus more cash available to grow. What’s not to like? This is what turns two months of buying hesitation into a quick yes.

At LEAF, we make your equipment and technology easier to buy. Our customized finance solutions solve real problems — like closing the great divide between equipment and technology team sales expectations and customer needs.