A 2021 Outlook for KLC

Today we sat down with Marc Keepman, Chairman and CEO of KLC Financial to talk about the continued outlook for the company through 2021.

What are some things that KLC is excited to begin doing this year?

We’re really looking forward to expanding our reach this year. We are introducing more marketing support on the vendor side to continue to support the growth of our vendors’ business. We are bolstering our vendor finance offerings and adding a lot of capabilities there, one being KLConnect. 

KLC offers a web-based, self-service platform that allows you to track real-time progress for individuals and teams. We’re really excited about this offering. We know that vendors need immediate access to information about how their transaction is going. Whether it is one or a dozen, they need to know, in real-time, the status of their transactions. We’re always in the process of getting transactions funded. This portal gives the vendors easier, more immediate and accurate access to all of their information without a phone call. 

What has made the expansion of the vendor finance program viable?

We’re thrilled to have financing available to support our vendor financing program, more than we’ve ever had previously which is very exciting. We’re eager to support more customers and vendors to ultimately do more transactions with the greater amount of capital we have been able to generate recently. 

KLC recently joined the Bank Holding Company Association. How can this relationship help the business in the coming year?

This relationship helps develop additional lender partnerships that are both suppliers of capital and leasing opportunities. Oftentimes, banks face a customer wanting a piece of financing the bank isn’t able to offer because they don’t have the leasing or structures like KLC does. They also may not offer deals for specific types of equipment, or, the customer has already borrowed as much as the bank is comfortable with. The relationship between us and the bank is all to help the bank find a financing solution without them losing the relationship it has with that existing customer. KLC can help extend that borrowing capability while preserving the bank’s relationship with the customer.

How have this past year’s recent hires set up the company for success?

What we did first nearly four years ago was to invest heavily in systems. We wanted to add people so we could grow the business, but we needed to increase our systems’ capabilities to make them stronger and more robust. When we did add more salespeople, and they brought in additional business, we were and are able to flow it through the system, have ample capital to do so and have the system strength to process it on a timely basis so that our vendors and customers are happy. We really wanted to wait to get the people in once the larger plan to support them was in place so they could do their job at high levels of success. Now, our salespeople are bringing in additional relationships and the systems are flowing as they should.