FundingStrat™

 

Todd at deBanked has written another great piece about merchant relationships.

 

Important factors Todd found that drive positive long-term relationships are:

 

Pricing

 

User Experience

 

Speed

 

Efficiency

 

Trust

 

A survey on B2B sales conducted by Invesp resulted in some pretty interestingly related insights:

 

• Acquiring a new customer is 5-7x as expensive as retaining an existing customer.

 

• The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%.

 

• Increasing customer retention rates by 5% can increase profits by 25-95%.

 

By the numbers, it seems like a deliberate focus on renewals can provide immensely beneficial outcomes on the whole, but:

 

• 44% of companies admit they, “have a greater focus” on acquisition, while 18% have their primary focus on retention. The remaining 38% claim to have an equal focus.

 

Then, what is the primary driver of quality relationships and customer retention?

 

• 89% of businesses report their customers state that their user experience is the key factor in their loyalty.

 

What does “user experience” really mean?

 

“Customer Service”

 

Serve is the root word in Service.  How are you serving your customers?

 

-FundingStrategist

https://fundingstrat.com

 

 

“Will you be sending the docs soon?”

 

This weak question has been thrown around a lot by reps waiting on paperwork from merchants.

 

Applications

 

Banks

 

Contracts

 

Stips

 

These are all crucial tools we need to move merchants through the Sales Process and FUND.

 

To get merchants what they want, Funding Pros must to get docs completed and submitted at various points of the Sales Process to get the job done.  These are not optional requests.

Keep on Reading!

In You Want What? we explored merchants using the foundational principle of asking for more than one expects to get.

 

Merchants seasoned in bargaining with vendors understand that asking for more than the expect to get can actually result in getting just exactly what they asked for.

 

This tactic can also be used to see how experienced their sales rep really is, and to test how solid (inflexible) the terms of the deal really are.

 

For a Funding Pro, this negotiation principle is an excellent tool as well.

 

Henry Kissinger once said: “Effectiveness at the conference table depends on overstating one’s demands.”

Keep on Reading!

 

Recap:

On our Sales Process map, if each Stage is a mile marker on the highway to Funding, the roadways in between the markers are the Phases.

 

Here are all the Phases:

 

• Phase 1 – The Prospecting Phase

 

• Phase 2 – The Consulting Phase

 

• Phase 3 – The Application Sending Phase

 

• Phase 4 – The Application Reeling-in Phase

 

• Phase 5 – The Submitting Phase

 

• Phase 6 – The Closing Phase

 

• Phase 7 – The Contracting Phase

 

• Phase 8 – The Contract Reeling-in Phase

 

• Phase 9 – The Closing Stip Reeling-in Phase

 

• Phase 10 – The Funding Phase

 

Each one of these Phases has specific steps to complete to get to the next Stage, and there are Key Steps to take in each Stage to accelerate your sales cycles and closings.

Keep on Reading!

 

The late and great C. Holmes tells a true story of two furniture stores.

 

Simple but powerful:

 

Two furniture stores open up in a town on nearly the same day.

 

And over a 4-year period –>

Keep on Reading!