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Hi! My name is Jeffrey Taylor and I am the author of two popular equipment leasing books used by equipment leasing companies all over the world.  SELLING LEASING IN A TOUGH ECONOMY A Leadership Primer For Equipment Leasing Professionals By Jeffrey Taylor Introduction I have worked continually with the equipment leasing industry since 1981 and, as a result, became an expert. I have loved every moment of my career educating thousands of leasing professionals all over the world. Unfortunately, as I see the world in 2002, many leasing professionals are unprepared for the rough times ahead. The concept for this book came in a dream. Often, I awaken suddenly with an idea for an article or lecture. Four years ago, I dreamt of writing a book to help leasing professionals less fortunate than me. I realized that too many leasing professionals were losing sales due to lack of knowledge, bad behavior, marketing to the wrong people, saying dumb things, and not doing their homework. It is through this book that I hope to correct this problem. Experience tells me that no one enjoys looking at themselves and grading their performances. It is difficult, painful and intrusive. To get to a new horizon one has to first figure out where they are. Too many people lie to themselves, or believe that things will happen for the better if they just wish. Unfortunately, to be successful requires a lot of hard work, time and effort. I believe that with proper guidance and education, everyone can become financially successful. Where possible, I have tried to simplified complex human behavior. If I am wrong, please forgive me and allow me some room for error. Chapter 1 – Welcome to the Equipment Leasing Industry So you want to sell leases for a living? Let me ask you something? Are you prepared for the tough times ahead? Are you ready to join an industry that’s in trouble and under attack by accountants, tax professionals, the US government, SEC, IASB and the world community? Do you want to associate yourself with Enron, GE, Tyco and Global Crossing? Before you respond, let me continue. Are you ready to battle everyday with other superstars? Are you prepared to starve until you make your first big sale? Can you afford to wait 3-6 months before you see a commission check? Can you see yourself selling a product that has been labeled by the press as “smoke and mirrors”? Let me give you some advice. I’ve been consulting to the leasing industry for more than twenty years. I’ve seen the good years and I’ve seen the bad. Believe me, things are going to get worst before they get better. Why? Because there are thousands of lessors chasing too few deals and not enough good credits to go around. Some lessors will eventually give up, shut their doors and sell their existing deals for cash to pay off their creditors. How do I know that this is the future? To find out the answer, I guess you'll have to order the book. To order Selling Leasing In A Tough Economy Click here  THE FUTURE OF EQUIPMENT LEASING By Jeffrey Taylor CONTENTS Chapter 1 A Brief History of Equipment Leasing Chapter 2 Leasing’s Most Innovative Products Chapter 3 FASB 13 Chapter 4 Footnotes and Disclosures Chapter 5 The Unconsolidated Orphan Chapter 6 Auditors Lose Their Way Chapter 7 Avoiding Income Taxes Chapter 8 September 11, 2001 Chapter 9 Enron’s Descent Into Hell Chapter 10 Sarbanes-Oxley Chapter 11 FASB and PCAOB Chapter 12 Accounting Crimes In The News Chapter 13 CEO Entrenchment Chapter 14 Forensic Accountants Chapter 15 Fighting Corporate Crime Chapter 16 The Future of Equipment Leasing INTRODUCTION For twenty-five years, I educated more than 20,000 equipment leasing professionals in the U.S., Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Kuwait, Malta, Mexico, Nigeria, Portugal, Singapore and the U.K. By most standards, I am a world expert on the subject. Although I prefer Google, Yahoo and MSN, pick any search engine you want. Type in the phrase, ‘FASB 13’ or ‘lease accounting’ and one of my websites will show up on the first page in the organic listings. Since 1981, I promoted and aggressively defended equipment leasing, because every Chief Finance Officer (CFO), Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and tax attorney believed in it. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Equipment Leasing Association (ELA), major leasing companies, Chambers of Commerce, and the accounting community firmly endorsed the product. World-class equipment leasing companies spent billions on advertising and paid million dollar salaries to their best sales producers. Lease vs. buy analysis effectively concluded that leases were superior to loans in all major aspects and many lessees chose off-balance sheet financing as the superior way to finance asset acquisitions. Even with all of the tumultuous accounting and tax changes over the years, I still believe in the benefits of equipment leasing. What has become clear to me; however, is that the equipment leasing landscape has been permanently altered, departing drastically from the ‘anything goes’ mentality of the 80s and 90s. In less than 10 years, the equipment leasing industry slid down a slippery slope, never to return to its former glory. Did the equipment leasing industry create the rules that guided equipment leasing? Certainly not. Nevertheless, the industry had a major influence on the rule makers, which included the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the U.S. Congress. Through the power of legislation and accounting guidelines, a multi-trillion dollar industry was built on a single concept; let a company pay rent for the use of an asset and never report it on their corporate balance sheet. Equipment leasing became so powerful that if any CFO did not use it, he was subject to belittlement by his financial peers. Airlines, trucking firms, banks, computer companies and medical device manufacturers used it to grow their businesses without reporting billions of financing on their balance sheets. In many cases, businesses set up phantom companies to create transactions, which had no economic merit. Yet, they generated billions in tax savings. In addition, there were third-party transactions that utilized Wall Street to provide air cover on shaky deals. Media companies financed airplanes, aircraft manufacturers shored up faltering airlines and hardware/software vendors sought offshore treatment to generate billions in profits to satisfy the ever-increasing demand of the Wall Street community. In hindsight, the euphoric experience of assembling multi-million dollar leases mesmerized many senior finance professionals. With so many people capitalizing on these rare opportunities, we did not spend a lot of time analyzing the pros and cons of off-balance sheet financing. We saw opportunity and took calculated risks, based on the information and business environment at the time. Since the fall of Enron and the passing of Sarbanes-Oxley, many corporations now seek greater involvement from their auditors, review boards and credit agencies to dissect complex transactions. In fact, we are now entering a new era; one in which corporations perform costly due diligence before a transaction is signed-off. Without knowing them personally, I am sure that the heads of Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing and Tyco did not want outsiders to tear apart their most complex transactions to determine their underlying motives. Now that juries have heard testimony, many corporate chieftains have paid with jail time and fines. To put losses created by Enron into perspective, experts have taken three-and-half years to complete their analysis. Sadly, 6,500 Enron employees, who had the majority of their savings in Enron stock, may have lost their entire savings. Due to the confluence of corporate misbehavior by formerly respectable companies, equipment leasing companies need to change their ethical standards in order to survive. Documenting and following ethical standards should be a company’s first line of defense when attacked. By building a strong set of ethics and educating employees about why they should adhere to rules, businesses can enhance their standing in both the public and private sectors, thus allowing them to grow their market share. Ironically, the U.S. leasing community can never achieve the highest moral standards. There is too much competition for financing beyond U.S. borders. If companies in Russia, India and China can finance companies throughout the world using Internet-based models, the U.S. cannot achieve a higher moral standard on their own. It requires every business community to play on a level playing field. And, that will never happen. No business leader will ever yield advantages provided by government or the marketplace without a fight. Current conditions, especially meeting quarterly earnings targets, tempt CEOs and CFOs to manipulate and misinterpret accounting and tax rules. No legislation or company policy will ever guarantee honesty in the executive suite. It has to come from within every chief executive; a moral beacon to do the right thing for all stakeholders. Senior executives cannot expect to sit in positions of authority for personal gain and get away with it. For this book, I start with the time President Ronald Reagan took over the ailing U.S. economy legitimizing equipment leasing and I end with President George W. Bush and Congress squashing the equipment leasing industry. Among the many books that I have written, this one has been a real pleasure. It has allowed me to break away from documenting dry accounting, tax rules and regulations and provided me the opportunity to share with you my vision for equipment leasing in the future. If the equipment leasing industry wants to expand, let alone survive, it must change the way it develops new financial products and conducts business with manufacturers, vendors, dealers, distributors, lenders, insurance companies, accountants and lessees. To order The Future of Equipment Leasing Click here |
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