Dealers depending on lenders to maintain sales velocity

As the equipment inventory market moves closer to pre-pandemic levels, dealers are relying on lenders to maintain velocity to close sales and retain customers. 

With sales potentially taking years to go from prospect to customer, the financing must keep up with the transaction or the customer could be lost, John Boy, finance and sales administration manager at Anderson Equipment Co., said during a panel discussion this week at Equipment Finance Connect 2024. 

“The longest part of the process is prospecting. Our salespeople go out trying to find partners to work with on selling construction equipment and forestry [equipment], it takes forever,” he said. “It could take months, or it could take years to earn that trust and get that commitment from that customer, so once they finally get that commitment, it’s our job on the financing side to not slow that process from commitment to close down.  

“We want to make sure we have velocity going through that, and we want to be the closers, the Mariano Riveras of the world,” he said. 

By the time the sales process reaches the financing stage, the transaction should be almost complete and straightforward to finish for the customer and dealer, Boy said. 

“When we’re working on it, we’re just mopping up right in the ninth inning, and there should be no hiccups. There should be no surprises,” he said. “We have to make sure that, when we’re working with lending partners, we’re using that intensity and velocity to make sure that we’re maintaining that happy closing speed for both us and the customer.” 

Post-pandemic buying environment

During the pandemic, dealers could work around a slower sales process because inventory sold as much as 18 months out, but that has changed significantly, Sean Walsh, vice president of finance at Baltimore-based Peterbilt truck retailer The Pete Store, said during the panel discussion. 

“We’ve moved into a place where the trucks are being built in six weeks,” he said. “We have stock inventory, which we haven’t had, so we had to re-coach the salesmen and the finance team to remember how we handled stock inventory, velocity, and how quickly you need to go to market if you want the deal on the truck.”  

With truck dealers continuing to navigate inventory challenges, the ability to have a smooth sales process can help capture or recapture a customer, Keith Anglace, regional finance manager at Allegiance Trucks, said during the panel. 

“We were getting customers who have not bought an International product in the last five years,” he said. “With the lack of inventory, we’re getting our backup customers, we’re going to bring customers in. So with a seamless transition through the whole sales process that when we make it to the finance end of it, we’re going to earn those customers’ trust for the next couple of products.”