8 Proven Ways to Leverage UCC Data

Whether you sell, service or finance capital equipment, Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filings represent a wealth of knowledge you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else. Since UCCs are filed when capital equipment is financed, the records typically contain equipment details (such as manufacturer, model, serial number, etc.) as well as buyer info. As a result, you can put this valuable information to use in a number of ways including lead gen, determining market share, forecasting inventory, and more.
Below are eight proven ways you can leverage UCC data to gain deeper insight into your market, generate results, and grow your business.

1. Focus on Proven Buyers

Focusing on buyers of the type of equipment you sell will provide valid, actionable leads to your sales force. Getting this information into the hands of your sales force will ensure that they’re focusing on prospects that are proven buyers, have recent financing activity, and working capital.

2. Make the Big Players a Priority

Through an examination of UCC records, you can gain insight into the financing history of buyers in your market and get a feel for the count of equipment they may have in their fleet. The larger the fleet, the more potential the buyer has as a prospect.

3. Monitor New Buyers in Your Market

New buyers who find their way to your competition can put a big dent in your market share over time.  Make sure you’re aware of new buyers in your territory so that you’re a step ahead of the competition.  By reviewing UCC records with your sales staff on a monthly basis, you’ll be more likely to identify new buyers in your market, faster. This will signal a great time to build a relationship with these buyers at the beginning of their purchasing life and put you in a position to help them build their fleet, and then maintain that relationship through parts and service.

4. Increase Parts and Service Revenue

For the typical dealer, parts and service can add up to 50% or more of their total profitability, and yet very few allocate any marketing resources toward the effort. Since the manufacturer, model, and year are often included on filings, you can use UCC records to identify buyers of used equipment you service and proactively target them for preventative maintenance and wear-parts replacement. This tactic is especially profitable in today’s economy when many equipment owners are opting to extend the life of their existing machines, rather than purchasing new.

5. Identify Prospects Ready to Buy

Remain diligent with your UCC review and capture and you can begin to build a database of UCC activity in your market. Gather data for a sufficient period of time and you can start predicting purchasing behavior based on the typical financing period for the equipment you sell; this is where the real power of UCC records begins to develop.

For example, if you were to capture a finance transaction four years ago, and you know the typical financing term for that equipment is 60 months, you could infer the buyer’s financing is about to expire. This equates to both an aged piece of equipment that may be in need of replacement AND freed-up cash flow.

6. Use Purchasing History to Forecast

Understanding a buyer’s purchasing habits gives you a key advantage.  Going back to your database of captured UCC transactions, even after a short period of time you can begin making observations of buyers in your market. If you see a spike in a buyer’s purchasing activity during a particular quarter, or if you identify a buyer who only purchases during a given month, you’ll know the best time to contact a prospect during their sales cycle.

In addition, knowing a buyer’s history can really give you an advantage when making a sales call.  If you know they buy new instead of used, if they’ve been loyal to a particular brand, or if there’s a certain make or model they favor, you can have a much more educated conversation with your prospect.

7. Know Your Market

In addition to knowing your buyers, knowing your market is integral in identifying the competition, as well as giving you an idea of what parts you should be stocking so you’re able to service the equipment located in your territory.  Using your UCC database, you can use programs such as Excel or Access to tabulate market share for the equipment you sell. Use this insight to determine individual sales success or to ensure territories are correctly balanced.

8. Set Goals Based on Market Potential

When you set sales goals, it’s important that you base them on where the current market potential lies in addition to prior years’ sales. Knowing where equipment is selling well, or not so well,  will enable you to set more realistic, achievable goals.

The last four sections mandate the development of a UCC database to identify trends and predict activity. While not impossible to do, it may require dedicated resources to: acquire UCC records from your Secretary of State; analyze and filter the filings for your industry and the types of equipment you sell; standardize and insert the data into a relational database, and run reports.

For 20 years, Equipment Data Associates has done just this through a meticulous capture of UCC data from all 50 states and eleven industries, and that information is now available through our online tool, Catapult. Click here to view an automated, personalized demonstration or to request a live demo.

Ross Conroy is the Marketing Manager at EDA
rconroy@edadata.com | 704-814-1371