Equipment Suppliers: Stop Selling the Price, Start Selling the Repayment

A customer walks into your showroom and asks about a $150,000 excavator. You quote the price. They nod, say "I'll think about it," and walk out to figure out how to pay for it. Some come back. Plenty don't.

Now imagine a different version. Same customer, same machine. But instead of quoting $150,000, you say: "That's roughly $650 a week over five years. How many extra jobs could you take on with it?"

Same machine. Completely different conversation.

The sticker price is killing your deals

Most equipment suppliers sell on specs, features, and total price. That's logical. But it puts the customer in the wrong headspace. They hear $150,000 and immediately start thinking about whether they can afford it. Whether the bank will approve it. Whether now is the right time.

The total price triggers hesitation. The weekly repayment triggers a business decision.

Equipment finance in Australia is a $40 billion-a-year market. The average finance amount sits around $117,000. These are not small purchases, and almost none of them happen in cash. Your customers are going to finance the machine whether you bring it up or not. The question is whether you control that conversation or hand it to their bank.

Sell the weekly number, not the total

When a customer hears "$650 a week," they don't think about borrowing $150,000. They think about whether $650 a week fits inside their business. That's a cashflow question, not a capital question, and it's dramatically easier to say yes to.

Across the common equipment categories, that looks like this:

Indicative only, based on a 5-year term. Subject to lender approval, terms, and conditions apply.

The supplier who can put a weekly number on the table, right there in the showroom, removes the biggest barrier to the sale: uncertainty about affordability.

Turn the repayment into an ROI conversation

This is where good suppliers become great ones.

Once you've established the weekly number, the next question isn't "can you afford it?" It's "does this pay for itself?"

Take the excavator at $690 a week. If your customer is a civil contractor who can take on two extra small jobs a month at $3,000 each, that machine generates $6,000 in additional monthly revenue against roughly $3,000 in repayments. It's cash-flow positive from month one.

Or take the $50,000 CNC machine at $230 a week. If it lets a fabrication shop bring outsourced work in-house and save $1,500 a month, the machine is paying for itself and building capability at the same time.

This reframes the entire sales conversation. You're not asking the customer to spend money. You're helping them see that the repayment is smaller than the return. That's not a finance pitch. That's a business case.

The questions that close deals:

• "If this machine costs you $650 a week, how much extra revenue could it generate?"
• "What are you spending on hire or subcontracting right now that this would replace?"
• "What jobs are you turning down because you don't have the right equipment?"

These are the conversations that move a customer from "I'll think about it" to "let's do it."

How to make this work in your showroom

You don't need a finance licence to have this conversation. You need a referral partnership with a finance broker who can back it up.

Here's the setup:

1. Get indicative repayment ranges for your most common equipment. Your broker partner can provide these based on typical terms and rates. Print them. Put them on the quote sheet. Make the weekly number as visible as the sticker price.
2. Train your sales team to lead with repayments, not price. The conversation shift is simple: instead of "this machine is $150,000," try "this runs at about $650 a week over five years. Let me show you what that looks like against the work it'll help you win."
3. Warm-handover to your finance partner when the customer is ready. A phone call, a digital referral link, or an in-person introduction. The broker handles everything from application to settlement. You keep selling.
4. Track what converts. Know which equipment lines generate the most finance referrals, and where deals stall. Your broker should keep you in the loop.

A good broker partner brings a panel of 50+ lenders, turns around straightforward applications within 24 to 48 hours, and handles all compliance obligations. Your only role is the introduction.

The EOFY accelerator

With June 30 approaching, the instant asset write-off gives your ROI conversation even more weight. For FY2025-26, businesses with turnover under $10 million can immediately deduct eligible assets up to $20,000. For larger purchases, accelerated depreciation may apply.

When a customer is already looking at a machine that pays for itself through extra revenue, and they can also claim a tax deduction this financial year, the case builds itself: "If you're going to buy this machine anyway, doing it before June 30 means you get the tax benefit this year. And our finance partner can get it settled in time."

That's not a hard sell. That's arithmetic.

Interested in adding finance conversations to your sales process? Emu Money partners with equipment suppliers across Australia, connecting your customers with finance options from 50+ lenders. Talk to our partnerships team.