Is My Technology Company a Good Fit for GreatAmerica?

Characteristics that Make a Mutually Beneficial Financing Relationship

Every day, we speak with a handful of MSPs who are new to financing and are looking for ways to win more customers, make more money, diversify their offerings, and distinguish themselves from competitors. The first step to starting that relationship with GreatAmerica is having a conversation with us to understand what you want to accomplish and evaluate whether we are a good fit for you, and if you are a good fit for us as financial technology providers.

Since we have these conversations daily, we wanted to take some time to answer some frequently asked questions about the criteria that businesses need to meet to qualify with GreatAmerica.

We evaluate every technology company that applies to work with GreatAmerica. There is no black and white on any one of these criteria, but below are some general guidelines.

Tenure

What we look for: At least two years.

Why: When looking into a relationship with a new Solution Provider, we take into consideration their tenure because it provides a track-record of the organization. A longer tenure typically illustrates consistent success and growth of an organization. While start-ups can be growth-minded and hungry, they often don’t have the time or resources to implement financing.

Employees and Annual Revenue

What we look for: Minimum of 5 – 10 employees and minimum of $500,000 - $1,000,000 in annual revenue.

Why: Similar to tenure, employee count and annual revenue gives us a picture of a company's ability to implement financing. The relationship between employees and annual revenue is equally important. If you have successfully outsourced a number of your operations, employee count isn’t as telling as annual revenue. That said, we’ve learned that the more employees and organization has, the more resources that are available to their customers. Happy customers lead to more success!

Business Credit

What we look for: A company credit history with multiple commercial relationships - free of collections, liens, bankruptcies, or write-offs.

Why: We check business credit for a couple reasons, the overarching concept is that we are creating a long-term relationship. This information helps us evaluate what offerings are appropriate and would best serve the technology company (for example: branding or managed service billing). It is also a key fraud prevention step - our single largest risk for fraud in lending is a bad provider. Reducing fraud helps us offer more competitive rates and provide more services to our providers.

What makes a technology company a good fit for GreatAmerica?

Just because a technology company meets the minimum requirements, does not automatically make them a good fit for GreatAmerica. Our most successful customers understand the value of offering financing as a business strategy. It is common for technology companies to try out financing before deciding if it is a strategy they want to invest in.

Our ideal (and most successful) customers lead with a monthly payment and include that option on every sales proposal. They see GreatAmerica as a strategic provider that is vital to their success. Other characteristics include a company:

• Who understands buyer behavior is changing and wants to provide their clients additional avenues to acquire technology
• Who wants to adopt monthly payments as a sales strategy in order to increase MRR, sell larger projects, shorten their sales cycle, and make it easier for their clients to say yes
• That values effective communication - with us, their team, and their customers
• Who trusts us when we say our mission is to help them achieve greater success
• Who wants a mutually beneficial relationship

What makes a technology company a poor fit for GreatAmerica?

It is critical that GreatAmerica only onboards customers we can support. Because of this, we are selective about who we work with. It is not productive for us to onboard a technology company and then never do business with them.

In addition to the qualifiers above, companies who only occasionally offer financing won’t realize all the benefits a financing relationship can bring, and ultimately may not be a good fit for us. Our goal is to build a lasting relationship to grow your business, not only through financing but also through sales training, integrations and customized program options.

Top Questions About Who We Work With

During initial calls with technology companies, we frequently get questions about who we work with, and how we work with them. Below we’ve listed the question and answers to each.

Does financing apply to my technology products and services/offerings?

We are able to finance technology infrastructure, end points, networking components, unified communications, collaboration, professional audio/visual, physical security, surveillance, software, and mobility and wireless. 

Can I use GreatAmerica one time?

GreatAmerica focuses on long-term, value-add relationships. One-time transactions don’t see as much benefit from working with us. That said, it is common for technology companies to try out financing on interested customers a few times before deciding if it is a strategy they want to invest in and we are often happy to help you explore that as a business growth strategy.

Additionally, GreatAmerica doesn’t take referrals and work directly with your customers. We are unlike a traditional bank that has loans available for any business need. We value our relationship you, the Solution Provider, and respect the relationship you have with your customers. We strive to build trust that we will treat your customers with the same care and professionalism that you do.

What is the minimum deal size I can send to GreatAmerica?

Once you are set up as a GreatAmerica customer in our system and have discussed program details with your account manager, it is time to start funding deals! Our sweet spot for transactions is between $5,000 and $250,000, and that is where most of our technology leases fall. We do have deals which fall outside those parameters and have special pricing, policies, and processes to address them. We enjoy helping our customers and are willing to customize your program to accommodate your most typical transactions.

Do you have a low rate?

Is our rate the lowest in the industry? No. Is it competitive? Yes. We like to be transparent about this topic when we get asked this question, because we don’t have the lowest rates out there, but also not the highest.

The following are typical components our financial analysts use to build appropriate lease rates: equipment/software type, lease type, transaction size, term, useful life of equipment/software, cost of sales, and cost of operations. Finance companies like GreatAmerica typically borrow money, and we call that cost of funds. We then factor in the items mentioned earlier in to calculate the lease rate.

Related: How does lease pricing work?

Do you work with companies outside the U.S.?

We currently only work with technology providers in the United States.

What is the Solution Provider approval process?

The approval process for you will happen after an initial conversation with your sales rep. After we have a better understanding around your organization and goals, we will send over an application form.

This application asks for business tenure, revenue, revenue split/hardware breakdown, vertical focus, product line information, peer groups and industry associations/events. Once you send the information back to GreatAmerica, it takes one to two days for our team to review the application. If you have a current finance opportunity, communicate that with your point of contact and we will work as fast as possible to get you and your customer approved.

Why does GreatAmerica operate differently than other finance companies?

The reason we operate the way we do is for two primary reasons.

The first is to gain a better understanding of our prospects’ business and programmatic needs so that we can be the best provider possible for you and to help you achieve greater success.

The second is that our process helps GreatAmerica evaluate business risk and opportunities associated with potential customers.

Something that makes GreatAmerica stand out from other finance companies is the fact that we focus on helping Solution Providers grow through a mutually beneficial relationship. Since we view our relationship with you not as a referral provider but a true collaboration, we want to ensure we are working with somebody with similar values.

GreatAmerica is Committed to You

The key here is relationship. Technology companies get the most value out of GreatAmerica when they also invest in a relationship. We have a lot of value-add services, like managed services billing, and quoting integrations that you don’t get if you are just financing a deal for the occasional customer.