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Understanding Offers
Your business of being a factoring / commercial finance consultant is actually a relatively simple business with incredible potential.  What we know is...

Your audience is unlimited.  The market for your services includes small and midsize business owners that need working capital or cash flow solutions.  That is virtually 99% of all businesses in America. 

You have only one primary competitor.  Virtually all meaningful competition for your services comes from the banking industry.  Banks are not lending in today's economy.  Therefore you have little competition. 

Lead generation and management is the key to success.  With a constant supply of qualified leads, you simply cannot fail in this industry.  Factoring and alternative commercial finance sells itself.  The prospect either needs the money now or he doesn't.  Actual selling and closing is almost unnecessary.  The business is all about generating qualified leads.  Qualified leads are generated effectively by direct marketing.  You must, therefore,  become an expert in all aspects of direct marketing.

Offers
Most will relate an "offer" to price.  While that can be true such as when an offer is a coupon or discount of some kind, such offers are really not of great importance to brokers.  Offers you will provide should be designed for one reason...to elicit a response and to begin the prospecting / qualifying process.  In B2B (business-to-business) lead generation for our industry, almost all offers will relate to information regarding our products (factoring, asset-based finance, payroll finance, etc.), industry white papers, a FREE analysis, etc.  Offers are designed to shed more light on our benefits and to allow the suspect to research your claims and representations.

Sell the Offer.  Let it Sell the Product
It is important to let the offer do its job.  Remember, direct marketing is also known as "two step" marketing.  Your #1 job is to sell the offer.  Sell it on your website, in your newsletters, in classified ads, and on the radio.  But, focus on selling the offer and generating leads. Good offers will result in leads and will move the suspect to the prospecting phase.

Where to Include Your Offers
An offer should always be included...

•   In all direct mail
•   In all email
•   In all classified ads
•   On your answering machine message
•   On all radio ads
•   On your website
•   In your newsletter
•   On your fax cover letters
 

Types of Offers
There are four types of offers, three of which have varying importance to your work.

•   Soft offers:  These are by far the most important in lead generation.  They include the offer of a FREE report, white paper, newsletter, booklet, etc.  This is where your suspects can look over your information at their leisure without the presence of a sales person. 

•   Hard Offers:  These will involve a face-to-face sales meeting or the option to request that a salesperson calls.  Those that respond to hard offers are serious buyers.  They will include a box that can be checked which says..."Please have a salesperson contact me".

•   Deferred Offers:  These are often found on direct mail reply cards and will say something like... "Not interested now" or "Call me in six months." 

•   Negative Offers:  "Please remove me from your mailing list."

Offers and Your Company Website
The importance and relationship between offers and websites should be obvious.  When was the last time you went to a company website on the internet where the company was involved in some service where it didn't set forth some form of promotion or offer?

For our purposes, responses to most of your offers will be handled by either a coupon on flyers, a response card in direct mail, or a form field on your website.  Coupons and responses cards require postage and expense.  Form fields on websites are FREE.  Websites also can provide a wealth of information the suspect can browse at his/her leisure while completing the form.  You now begin to see the critical importance of having a company website and the invaluable service it provides in "collecting" leads.

Creating Offers
All IACFB members have access to a primary offer entitled "When Banks Say No...The Small Business guide to Factoring."  This is included with every broker website provided by DMS for IACFB members.

You cannot use the same offer over and over, however.  You should create a supply of additional offers that target particular industries.  For example, you can create a FREE Report on "Factoring and the Commercial Janitorial Industry" to be used when marketing to a list of janitorial firms you have purchased or created.  Such papers do not need be longer than two pages but should contain a "Case Study" so the suspect can relate directly to the benefits that factoring can provide his/her company.