Purchase Order Finance - Your Tool For Unlimited Sales
Do you sell to the government or to large companies? Do you regularly get purchase orders that stretch your company's ability to deliver? Lastly, if you had financing to cover all your supplier costs, could you sell more? Much more?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then purchase order financing could help your business grow.
Purchase order financing is a way of financing sales that has been gaining popularity with US and Canadian businesses. It offers a very simple proposition. If you have an order from a large credit worthy business (or government agency), then the financing company will provide you with the necessary funding to fulfill your supplier payments and make the sale. Call it sales based financing. It works well for resellers, distributors and wholesalers, although it can also be used in other industries.
Here is how purchase order financing works. Let's say that you own a company that has been getting progressively larger orders, tightening your cash flow. After setting up a purchase order financing agreement, this is how your sales financing would work:
1. You get an order from a client
2. The purchase order finance company handles up to 100% of your supplier payments (by direct payment or letter of credit)
3. The order is fulfilled and the goods are delivered
4. The transaction is settled, once the client pays their invoices
As you can see, purchase order financing allows you to leverage the resources of the financing company and allows you to increase your sales. With PO financing, lack of cash flow will never be a reason to lose a sale.
As opposed to a business loan from a bank, purchase order financing is very easy to obtain and can be set up in days. The main requirement is to have valid orders from good commercial or government clients. Most banks won't offer this type of financing, but you can get it from a factoring company. As a matter of fact, purchase order financing and invoice factoring are frequently combined to help reduce the costs of the transaction.
So, if your purchase orders are piling up, be sure to consider financing with purchase order funding.
About Commercial Capital LLC
Interested in purchase order financing? We are purchase order finance experts can provide you with a purchase order financing proposal. For more information, call Marco Terry at (866) 730 1922 (toll free USA / Canada).
Turbocharge Your Online Marketing With Offline Techniques
Marketing with business cards is a great way to compliment your online campaigns. Business cards help target people who otherwise might not spot your online presence. Plus your business card helps you target people who have internet access and email when you include your URL or web site address on all of your cards.
To help you make the most of your offline marketing, here are a few tips from the pros:
1. INSERTS - Ask for media kits from print publications that target your industry readers. Find out their rates for inserts. And have their advertising department help you create a marketing insert for your products and services that targets Internet users and includes your URL and email address. Do include a phone number (toll-free, if possible) for those who have technical difficulties or prefer to call. Make a perforated business card as part of the insert.
2. TEACH - Hold affordable (or free) offline classes at a local community center or other educational facility. Share your knowledge in your area of expertise with attendees. And make sure to distribute handouts with complete contact information, including your website and email address on a business card.
Be pro-active and post-active by announcing your classes in a press release to the local media; radio, television, print publications. And follow up by inviting students to enter feedback and referrals in your website form after the class if over. Capture their contact information, enter it into your database, and follow up regularly - sending them your ezine and product / service announcements, both via email and regular postal mail.
3. ORGANIZATIONS - Target your offline marketing to groups of people who will actually be interested in your product or service; i.e. local associations and organizations. Check your Yellow Pages for groups near you and find out when their meetings are. Call ahead to make sure guests are welcome. Then go and network at an easy pace, not fast. Slowly work your way into the group and make sure it would be a good fit for you; you'll want to give at first, then you'll receive later on (maybe after your first year, even).
Gradually distribute your business cards - with your website and email address on them. Volunteer to teach about your area of expertise if the chance arises, of course distributing your marketing materials with our website and email address on them, too.
Use caution, before rushing to join during or after the first meeting. Take your time to make sure the group would be a good fit for you and your business operations. Sometimes group operations are lacking or suffer due to board member turnover, the economy, new industry laws, etc. So you might benefit from waiting to join for several months down the road, or trying a different group all together.
So reach out and advertise offline to compliment your online strategy. And remember to include your website and email address on all of your marketing tools. And always have a few of your business cards with you.
About The Author:
Bill Costas is an expert at building businesses from the ground up. One of the best methods that he has found is simply by using business cards. Find out more at http://business-organization-card.com.
Tips for Successful Negotiating by Phone
Most of us negotiate something every day. Whether it's getting our kids to willingly clean their rooms, or hammering out an elephant-sized contract with more details than a politician has "special-interest" donors, our ability to haggle effects our results. Here are some useful negotiating tips.
1. Define Your Negotiables Other than Price. Inexperienced, unconfident, or plain old lazy reps take the easy route and drop price at the first sign of the other person seeking to get a better deal. Instead, first determine what you could offer, if needed, that has high perceived value to them, but little cost to you. For example, moving up the delivery date if they need it quickly, extending the warranty period . . . some distributors and suppliers like to throw in some products the customer isn't buying. This has high perceived value, and gets the customer to test the new product, which might pay off with future purchases.
2. Analyze Your Strengths, Their Needs. Before calling, list what you know they require and emotionally want, what you have, and what you want. You might know that this buyer always tries to pound you on price, but you also know you're working from a position of strength because you're the only one who has the quality of product he needs.
3. Set Your Objectives. Just like every call, define, "What do I want them to do as a result of this call, and what do I want to do?"
4. Aim High, Set Minimums. As part of your objectives, swing for the fence! Think big. Set the most favorable objective possible (one that is within reason). The richest sales reps I know can't believe anyone would think otherwise. Likewise, set minimums that you're willing to accept. You'll know how much you have to play with.
5. Prepare for their Possible Tactics. It's easier if you know the person. For example, knowing that Joe always starts with an outrageous request helps you prepare your counter-tactic. Otherwise, you need to dry-run through possible demands and tactics along with your responses so you're not blindsided into giving away something you didn't intend to.
6. Gather Information. As with all sales calls, the more you know the better.
7. Don't Give More Information (or Anything Else) than Necessary. I've seen sales reps offer price concessions that weren't asked for ("The price starts here, but I might be able to do a little better."), and give up information that the customer used to ask for more concessions ("You mentioned another customer had additional training manuals thrown in free. I want those too.")
8. Don't Split the Difference. It's human nature, but it costs you money. Let's look at the math. Your asking price is $50. They offer you $30. You counter with $40 and they figure splitting the difference is fair. Your tactic: come back with a pained tone of voice, "I might be able to do $46 or $47." It's more likely you'll end up better than $40.
9. Trade Your Concessions. Get something in return. If you get them the better volume price, ask for a commitment for a blanket purchase order. One-sided giving rarely makes for a healthy relationship.
10. "If I, Will You?" A tactic to accomplish the previous point. Before agreeing to what they want, get commitment on what they'll give in return. "If I'm able to move your request to the front of the line, will you increase the order by 500?"
I believe I read this in an ad in an airline magazine for a negotiation seminar: "You don't get what you deserve; you get what you can negotiate."
About The Author:
Art Sobczak helps sales pros use the phone to prospect, service and sell more effectively, while eliminating morale-killing "rejection. To get FREE weekly emailed TelE-Sales Tips visit: http://ww.BusinessByPhone.com