theLeaseBlog - Leasing Jobs

My last post, (Technology Financing- the forgotten opportunity !) , created quite some dialogue, on theLeaseBlog site as well as directly by e-mail. Thank you all for your comments. One of the areas the discussion touched on was “first class sales people” and the fact that it was becoming increasingly difficult to find them in the leasing industry.

I have some theories on the subject and this comes from my 16 years in predominantly the technology leasing market.

When I started out in Leasing in 1990, it wasn’t part of a well thought out career plan…it was by accident, lets face it, when we grow up we usually want to drive fire engines not finance them !

Over the years, of the people I have met, at least half have joined the industry by pure luck or through some association with the equipment that was being leased.

Then there are those who left school or University and joined one of the main clearing banks and in short succession and with little pre-thought, found themselves “carrying a bag” from one bank customer to another selling asset finance. I havn’t once met someone who, on finishing their education, decided Asset Finance was the world for them.

With fewer bank based lessors in the market, attracting, employing and training the new crop of asset financiers, is it any wonder that there has been a slow erosion of the talent pool. It is now not uncommon to find “seasoned” sales reps who cannot calculate a lease rate without reverting to the use of a pre-determined rate card.

But should we be worried, after all, there are now more international lessors around, surely they will naturally carry on the on-going training and development needs of the industry ?

To my knowledge, traditionally this has not been the case, with many US lessors and manufacturer captives in particular relying on recruiting pre-trained sales people and expecting very quick returns.

Where it exists, the “employee development and training” budget is quite often the first budget to be hit when business is not so good and yet it could be the one area that could transform the fortunes of the business if carried out effectively. A well trained employee, not only is more able to carry out their role but they also feel more valued by their employer and thus they are more likely to be loyal…seeing they have clear development opportunities by staying where they are.

Clearly without a compelling story on training and development it will become harder to attract good young talent into the industry and as such it must fall to all lessors to put training and development higher up their priority list.

Without this, the industry risks facing a slow decline in standards and creative thought brought on by lack of investment in its key asset…ie people. I know I may be criticised here for sensationalism however I would like to know whether these words ring true with you or whether you feel I am out of step with the current reality.

Maybe your company has an excellent training programme, if so, please tell us about it.

Maybe you havn’t had any technical training for years, please tell us how you feel about that.

Whatever your viewpoint, please take the time to share it and add it to the debate.