In 2024, Secured Research completed a sales and marketing research project of six vendor finance sales teams and eight middle market direct sales teams in an effort to uncover how the industry is evolving go-to-market approaches. The research revealed that the default direct sales approach in the industry too often revolves around a basic question: “Do you have any capital expenditures that need funding?” And for vendors, “Are you happy with your existing vendor finance partners?” (They don’t call themselves vendors, by the way.)

While experienced sales leaders will scoff at the usage of these introductory tactics, the data reinforces their commonality of use. What’s more troubling is that these questions are usually followed by a generic overview of the financier’s capabilities, including claims of strength, speed and flexibility — factors that ultimately fail to distinguish one company from the next.