factoring brokers

Business Money Dinner

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The annual Business Money Dinner is always a good time to meet up with old friends and make new ones and last night’s do in Birmingham was no exception. The food and comedian were dreadful but they were amply made up for by the eye candy from Warwick University in the next room.

One of the things that I always find interesting is which factoring broker is sitting at which factoring company’s table as it gives a good idea of who is in favour with who and last night there were one or two surprises. Equally surprising was some of the absences as many of the high profile broking outfits were noticeable by their absence.

Many thanks to mine hosts for an excellent and amusing evening

Factoring brokers and the internet

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More and more supposed factoring brokers are using the internet to attract customers. Unfortunately this means that anyone with some web design skills can throw together a site and try and generate some factoring leads but it can’t be in the customers best interests if the person behind the website doesn’t know the first thing about factoring.

Anyone who keeps an eye on Google will have noticed a new website has recently appeared on page one with what on the surface appears to be a decent website containing a few fairly standard articles about factoring.

The website contains logos from Venture, Bibby, Lloyds TSB, Aldermore, Close and Hitachi which purports to give the impression that the company has a relationship with each of them, but does it?

There is an invitation to submit details on a contact form but nowhere on the site does it have an address or telephone number and having looked up ownership of the domain in Nominet I have never heard of the owner and neither has anyone that I have asked although a quick Google check shows that as well as articles about factoring he has also published articles about getting rid of spots and how to cook a pizza.

Most internet savvy people would never deal with a website that doesn’t have either an address or telephone number but unfortunately many of the potential customers won’t be as wary.

This isn’t the only one as I came up with another last week that have a highly professional and expensive looking website with branches in Glasgow, Birmingham, Newcastle, Bristol, Manchester and Nottingham which makes it look like a pretty sizeable outfit.

It even has testimonials including one saying “We found ****** to be absolutely terrific. They arranged an invoice factoring deal for us quickly and efficiently. Would certainly recommend them” and this was signed by DL, Operations Manager of ABC Ltd

Intrigued to find out more about this high profile outfit I looked up the ownership of the website to see that it registered to the very same ABC Ltd who gave it such a glowing testimonial and a bit more research shows the website owner is a actually a contract cleaning company.

I have often said that factoring companies should be regulated and I also think that it would be in the customers’ best interests if brokers were also regulated as I’m sure that you can’t get best advice from a broker unless he knows the industry, but unfortunately the poor old customer has no idea if his broker knows what he’s talking about or not and it seems that there are a lot around who don’t.

Save money and use a factoring broker

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I like to think that the major advantages of using the services of a specialist factoring broker like myself is that many of the factoring companies don’t perform as well as they claim and I know the market sufficiently well to steer companies away from the poorer performers.

Whilst some companies might approach me with this view in mind I’m sure that many would rather approach the factors directly believing that it would save them money on the basis that if I receive an introductory commission from the factoring company they would get a cheaper rate by going direct as the factor wouldn’t then have to pay me.

I received an email last night from a prospective client asking me to quote an approximate rate for his business. I spoke to my contact at the factoring company that I thought to be most appropriate who quoted me a rate which I subsequently emailed to the prospect.

I received a telephone call this morning from him saying that he wished to go ahead at the quoted rates but he was quite surprised when I told him which factoring company it was as he had already approached them directly and they had quoted a significantly higher rate.

Another factoring broker who thinks it’s acceptable to steal intellectual property

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One of the problems that being top of the search engine rankings causes me is that there are always unscrupulous people out there who rather than develop their own websites just copy mine.

Since I started this blog I have commented twice on unscrupulous rogues that have copied my website and now another one has crawled out of the woodwork.

factoringandfinance.co.uk and ajmartinco.com are word for word copies of www.factoringsolutions.co.uk with only the chap’s name and phone number changed. I telephoned him to ask him why he had stolen my intellectual property and he denied it saying that it hadn’t been copied.

One would have to be pretty stupid to try and make a case out that his website is original, especially when the source code still includes a link to my stats package complete with site name.

I repeat what I have said before – would you trust someone who has such a cavalier approach to other people’s property?

I certainly wouldn’t.

Factoring Brokers – what should they do to earn their money

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I had a call this morning from someone who having read my website and blog wanted to check that the factoring company that they were about to sign up with were OK.

Chatting to the prospect it turns out that he had used a well known high profile “broker” who had supplied him with a list of factoring companies for him to contact including Bibby, Lloyds TSB, Hitachi and two others whose names he had forgotten.

I was rather surprised as I thought that the whole idea of using a broker was for them to source the best deal for the company and not just to give them a list of companies with no added value at all and I doubt whether the factoring companies themselves will work hard to win a deal and offer the most competitive terms if they are aware that every time they get a lead from this “broker” that half a dozen others have also touched it.