Funding Specialist

Our client is a financial platform helping UK SMEs understand and control their business finance by providing business credit scores insights and simplifying access to funding. Our client helps businesses build and monitor their credit scores and connects them to lenders. Our client partners with accountants, advisors, and lenders to ensure businesses have the tools and support they need to grow.

Role Overview

The Funding Specialist Role, sitting within the broader Revenue Team, sits at the apex/end of the revenue funnel within the sales side of the company. The culmination of the work put in at the beginning from the BD/Strategic Partnership side of the business; the work that the Partnership Managers have put into bringing their firms through the ‘Playbook’, is a successful funding search that is ‘ready to go’, i.e. being funded. The Funding Desk contains the vast majority of funding knowledge within the business, and is tasked to stay on top of the ever-changing commercial finance landscape, managing relationships with lenders, whilst crucially managing large pipelines of transactions, all of which are important in the grander scheme of servicing relationships with paying customers who are expecting an A+ service - above and beyond that single transaction.

The ideal candidate will be an expert in one or more products/areas of commercial finance, will be an excellent written and verbal communicator, has experience of influencing buying decisions from senior figures within OMBs/accountancy firms and is able to credibly manage the various stakeholders in a transaction at a high volume, in a well-organised manner.

Job Type: Full-time | Hybrid

Location: Cape Town

Reporting to: Senior FS/Head of Desk

Requirements

• Must have at least 2-3 years of experience in B2B sales
• An in-depth knowledge of one or more commercial finance products, ideally with previous experience either within a lender in a sales or underwriting function
• Excellent communicator, both written and verbal
• Experience of sales, either over the phone or in-person, with demonstrable ability to influence buying decisions from business owners/accountants
• Ability to communicate in a way that presents you as an expert in your field and inspires buy-in from counterparties - while at the same time
• Able to communicate potentially complex financial comparisons/structures in a way that is jargon-free/clear for the layman
• Works and communicates well within a scenario where several people may require updates on a transaction/opportunity
• Well-organised
• Lateral thinker, with ability to come up with ‘outside of the box’ solutions
• Problem solver
• Resilient - able to have tough conversations
• Challenger mentality
• Empathetic
• Able to condense and sort through large amounts of data quickly and efficiently
• Curious
• Quick learner
• Desire to learn and become a subject matter expert
• Team player
• Comfortable at a fast pace
• Works well under pressure

 Software used:

• Salesforce
• Slack
• Google Drive
• Google Sheets
• Talkdesk
• Various lender portals (if required)

 KPI

• Commission Revenue
• Conversion metrics

Responsibilities

Opportunity / Deal Management

• Managing funding searches end-to-end: Handover from Partnership Manager, all the way to close of the search (successful or unsuccessful)
• You will be required to manage the flow of information between all key stakeholders in a transaction
• On any given opportunity, this can be an accountant, their client (and business owner), the Partnership Manager and the lenders
• Ensure that the flow of information is as smooth as possible between all stakeholders, and is supported through the companies platform
• You will manage and maintain a large pipeline of opportunities/deals, ensuring that information is clearly logged in Salesforce at all key milestones

Communication

• Ensure an extremely high level of communication is maintained with all stakeholders in the transaction
• Communication - both written and verbal - must be as clear as possible and without vagaries
• You will endeavour to provide full and clear breakdowns to all stakeholders at important milestones in a transaction i.e. upon offers, or upon lenders declining
• Use your knowledge of relevant products and lenders on the companies platform to ensure that a good range of options have been considered and presented to the stakeholders in the funding search

Lender Relationship Management

• Maintain strong relationships with lenders, keeping abreast of developments within their businesses and a strong understanding of their products
• Ensure that lenders are following platform use best practices and are clear on what is expected of them
• Ensure that Lenders’ information on the platform is up-to-date, including names, logos, descriptions, products and lending criteria
• Explore the possibility of receiving leads/enquiries from lenders’ own inbound marketing enquiries that they are unable to service
• Ensure that commercials and legals are all up-to-date and reflect the status of the current relationship and/or the company’s current/future strategic objectives
• Attend relevant lender/lending specific events aimed at deepening relationships and knowledge of specific product areas 

Education

• You will keep up-to-date with the changes within your field - both from an industry-wide perspective, and from an operational perspective i.e. which lenders appetite has changed and why etc.
• You will demonstrate value and leverage the knowledge that you have gained in a concerted way throughout your team, the wider Revenue Team and to the Accounting Partners that you deal with
• You will look for opportunities to spread your knowledge and learnings internally where possible, for example through Lightning Talks
• Make yourself available for product-specific webinars in concert with Partnership Managers
• Work closely with the PMs and Marketing side of the business to develop collateral such as case-studies, industry/product-specific packs
• Provide feedback to the Product side of the business on what is and isn’t working well, including feedback and suggestions where they arise