adminBy Kelly Flynn, national sales director, John M. Floyd & Associates (JMFA)
From Thanksgiving Day through Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2017, more than 174 million Americans shopped in stores and online, spending an average of $335 per person. They saved maybe $50 here or $100 there. And that’s great for families buying gifts for the holidays. But when it comes to your financial institution, you can do better. Much better. We’re talking up to seven-digit savings over the life of your vendor contract(s). All it takes is some expert contract negotiations — made easy by someone else doing most of the work for you.
The art of negotiating
Extensive negotiating experience with bank and credit union vendors is essential to maintaining an upper hand in the negotiation process. Where you may not know what the very best deal is or what concessions and “extras” to ask for, a professional negotiator — with a database full of this precise information — knows the vendors and their contracts inside and out.
Perhaps you want to stay with your current vendor and keep things professional to maintain a pleasant relationship. Here’s an example of how renegotiating with its current vendor gave an institution the opportunity for a 14 percent savings over its previous Internet banking contract.
Or, it’s possible you’re not sure if you want to continue with a vendor. An expert that is familiar with service contract terms can get a vendor’s best offer plus help initiate the request for proposal (RFP) process with other trusted providers, so you can compare offers before making a decision. (This can also be done with great success during mergers and acquisitions, where the new entity has to decide between two overlapping vendors.)
Or, maybe you’re not sure you even want to renegotiate with a vendor. That’s quite alright! You should expect a professional contract negotiator to provide a free evaluation to give you a projection of just how much they can save you on any or all of your vendor contracts.
What would you do with big savings?
By taking advantage of the opportunity to score the very best deal, you can utilize the savings to spend or invest in a number of ways. Imagine what you could do if you saved $50,000 in a year on your service contracts. With that money, you could:
- take a staff of 20 out to lunch for 200 days;
- purchase 33 high-quality laptops;
- buy 100 top-of-the-line ergonomic office chairs;
- implement a company rebrand or a multi-channel marketing campaign;
- host an amazing office holiday party AND a great account holder appreciation event;
- invest in service upgrades for your account holders;
- make a difference with a charitable contribution to a non-profit in your community; or
- send several employees to industry events across the nation.
The list goes on, of course — $50,000 can do a lot. And depending on your current contract terms, that could be a conservative estimate.
What’s the risk?
Unlike the possibility of getting bruised and battered during your Thanksgiving weekend holiday shopping trips, JMFA Contract Optimizer offers the possibility of finding savings in your service contracts, with no risk! Our services are 100 percent contingency based — if we don’t save you money, you don’t owe us anything. It really only takes about 20 minutes or so to get the ball rolling with a free analysis of your service contracts, and we think you’ll be astounded by the results. Take that, Black Friday!
