[FUNd]

Great stuff. And all true. Why bother asking "how's your credit?" on a non-credit driven product? You'll find out later how the credit is - when you get the app in. You're supposed to be talking about what's in it for THEM to apply. Asking about their credit is more of a "What's in this for ME?" type question. Don't worry about wasting 10 minutes talking to a guy that may not be qualified.

Any conversation is good, and can be profitable. Have something to offer every client, even it its digital literature for $99.95 on the FCRA rules for cleaning up your credit. Who cares. Sell them something valuable and beneficial on every call.

[John Galt]

We all know it is really not "a non credit driven product"... if they had credit they wouldn't be here. The effect of credit is still inherent, each template or model differs but we all take it into consideration to some extent however minor. Sorry to say but if you're selling the FCRA stuff for whatever, the Corporate credit stuff is 1-3K plus a % of loans.

[jotucker1983]

When you are selling our type of product, in my opinion, as a broker you are much more a "match-maker" than a sales consultant. The actually art of "selling" is a very small part of the process, compared to that of being a very efficient and resourceful "match-maker".

Let me break this down further.

With our product, you aren't paid on selling anything, you are paid when you match a merchant that needs alternative funding at particular terms and with a particular risk profile, with a lender that funds merchants within that particular risk profile and at terms the merchant is looking for. So the bulk of your time shouldn't be spent "selling" or "convincing" a merchant on anything, the bulk of your time should be firstly on constructing your Funder Network, and the second portion on screening merchants who would be a "good fit" for one or two of your Funders.

- You should research merchants who are in situations of needing alternative funding for whatever reason such as maybe a UCC, a guy adding a location, etc. Then, you would be calling on those merchants, letting them know what you can do and telling them your cost for capital breakdowns, if they are OK with your short payback cycles and high cost, it's time for pre-qualification.

- You want to do serious pre-qualification on them from asking about their credit, tax liens, bankruptcies, landlord payments, cashflow situation, time in business, the whole nine yards so you can see if you even have a Funder that can potentially approve them. If the merchant refuses to do this, they aren't serious about needing capital and are wasting your time.

- So you get the pre-qualification done and let's say you have a Funder in your Network (or outside of it) that can approve them, now you are going to spend time chasing the merchant to get all of the required items and submit to said one or two Funders.

- Let's say one Funder approves and at the terms the merchant wants, then the next portion of your time will be chasing the merchant for closing items and answers to the Lender's questions during closing. Everything gets in eventually, the Lender funds, you are paid within 24 - 72 hours.

You can be the "best salesperson" in the world, in that, you can "talk" a merchant into sending you over an application. But that means absolutely nothing if the merchant's risk profile cannot be funded by one of your Funders, OR if the merchant isn't serious enough to send you the additional items and answer additional questions from Underwriting.

In my opinion, I think Brokers should try (to the best of their ability) to submit 10 apps to a funder and get 3 - 5 funded, than to submit 30 apps and fund 1.