Each week, we’ll interview one of our experienced Finance Officers for a brief question and answer session about something interesting from a recent deal, along with tips and tricks to make your finance process easier, and their unique perspective on the industries and customers we work with.
This week, we caught up with John Brock in our Kansas City office who talks about a deal he got done where the customer wanted everything finished before the end of the year… with only a short window to get it done!
Q: So, over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about unique situations in the commercial lending process here at American Equipment Financial Services, but a lot of them have been credit-based, with customers who had poor credit, but were able to work with us to get a deal done through focusing on other factors like cash flow. In this deal you were telling me about, the unique factor was more on how quickly it need to get done, correct?
A: Yeah, it was a situation where not only were they trying to get it done quickly in order to obtain the equipment and make the purchase before 2018 was over for tax purposes, but that also meant they were trying to do that during the holiday season, in which they were going out of the country to England to spend the holidays with their family.
Q: So this is a once a year type of unique situation?
A: It’s a once in my career of being here in which I’ve had those two situations occur at the same time.
Q: How many days before the New Year did this deal initiate?
A: It was a little bit over a week before January first when they initially pre-qualified in our system.
Q: In this case, where you needed to be speedy, did the equipment in this case make a big difference as far as how quickly you were able to get them through to approval and funding?
A: This was a dump truck… It was titled, so it takes longer.
Q: What were you able to do to help make it faster, or what processes were you both able to do in order to make it as fast as possible?
A: Keeping in mind that they would not be in the country, it made it a lot better knowing that I could be in control of the process for them. I was dealing with the lender and the dealer, and working through everything that we needed. I made sure that I got everything I needed from her up front so that when it came down to it, really all we needed to do was get docs signed, and have her brother-in-law pick up the truck.
Q: So just having details ironed out ahead of time?
A: Yeah, and having the ability to take the processes over for them.
Q: What were the specifics of those processes that you took over that were unusual that you maybe needed explicit permission?
A: Well, so like working out their insurance and stuff like that. It was all things that I got from her ahead of time so that when as soon as the deal got to a point where we were ready to go I had called her insurance, and worked out everything they needed from a policy standpoint so that all they needed to do was confirm it with the customer that the policy was going to change to ‘x’ and once they got their approval from that, it was done.
Q: So, part of that was your experience in knowing what needed to get done to be able to gather that information from the customer.
Right.
Q: I’m assuming it was their ability to get those things to you because they had a sense of urgency as well, it kind of goes both ways?
Absolutely. I mean, granted, they knew that they wanted to get a lot of things done before the end of the year, and I knew that they were leaving town early, so I had to set a little bit of a sense of urgency with them, but ultimately, they were very helpful in getting me what I needed to make sure it happened.
Q: In the end, were you able to get it done in the time that they had asked for.
I was. We got it funded on December 30th, I believe.
Q: With time to spare!
With time to spare.
Q: And they were satisfied in the end with everything?
Yes, everything went smoothly, and they were glad that we were able to get it done before the start of the new year.
Next week we will check in with another one of our finance officers to continue to give prospective on how we are able to help customers just like you! Stay up to date and learn more from our valuable resources at www.AmericanEFS.com/The-Bottom-Line
