The bank's field examiner cuts availability by $400,000 overnight, no missed payment, no covenant technically broken, and the CFO starts searching that same afternoon.

Tuesday morning, the bank's field examiner finishes the exam and cuts availability by $400,000 overnight, no missed payment, no covenant technically broken, just a reserve the credit agreement always let the bank impose. The CFO makes payroll Friday anyway, barely, and starts searching that afternoon. Across town, a company two weeks from a Chapter 11 filing needs a DIP facility signed before the first-day hearing, and debtor's counsel already burned through the three national names on the usual list.

The shortfall creates the search, not the banker relationship

The banker who already has three national ABL names on speed-dial is how most of this book still arrives. That banker sends the file they already planned to send. They do not send the CFO who never called them, and they are in no hurry once the covenant is the reason the relationship is ending.

When the line is maxed and inventory is sitting on the floor, the CFO does not wait for that banker to think of someone. They search the same day, because availability, not the calendar, is the deadline.

Mezzanine is junior capital against cash flow and a sponsor. Factoring buys invoices outright. Neither is an ABL facility against a borrowing base. Three different leaves on this hub, three different collateral structures.

What a buyer is actually searching

The search starts after the bank letter, not during a planning offsite. The CFO types the exact thing they were just told: asset based lending, ABL facility, borrowing base line, DIP financing. They are not comparing logos. They want a firm that still lends against the inventory the bank just haircut.

Last month the revolver worked fine. This month availability dropped, a covenant got called, or counsel said the incumbent will not fund next week's payroll against this base. The query is specific because the problem is specific, and a generic "business loan" campaign catches the wrong CFO entirely.

Bankruptcy and restructuring counsel search too, later the same week: who can still close an ABL when the company is in, or about to be in, a case. That is a LinkedIn audience, not a Google dump of "ABL lender near me."

Objections we hear

My bank already does ABL. Then this page is not for that CFO, unless the bank just cut the line. Specialty ABL exists for the file the incumbent will not hold anymore.

The reporting is too heavy. Borrowing-base reporting is the product. A company that cannot produce an eligible certificate is not an ABL borrower, and no ad campaign fixes that.

I'll wait for my banker to introduce someone. The banker who wants to keep the relationship introduces a name already on the list. The banker who just called the covenant is not hurrying, and the CFO already searching is not waiting to find out which one this is.

Availability can disappear without a single missed payment

A CFO who has never missed a payment often assumes the facility is safe. Most ABL and revolving credit agreements give the lender broad, one-sided discretion to impose or increase reserves against the borrowing base for shrinkage, dilution, rent, taxes, dozens of line items, without the company ever triggering a formal payment default. The reserve cuts availability directly, and in substance, that is a default, just not one the credit agreement calls by that name.

Priority works the same way underneath the surface. Under UCC Article 9's first-to-file-or-perfect rule, a new ABL lender coming in behind an incumbent bank's blanket lien needs a real intercreditor or subordination agreement to get paid ahead of that existing claim, not an assumption that a new facility automatically jumps the line. A company that treats the reserve or the priority question as a technicality can find real cash, and real leverage, sitting on the wrong side of both.

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Who this is actually for

Firms that actually underwrite against a borrowing base, not a form-factor "we do ABL too" tacked onto a commercial bank's page. The lead worth the spend is a company with real, testable collateral, a facility large enough to justify the exam, and a live problem with the incumbent bank. A pre-revenue company googling working capital is not that lead.

Geography follows where a firm can exam and monitor the collateral, not a national boast. If a firm does not take certain industries, the campaign should not bid as if it does. This is a poor fit for a lender that still wants the banker to bring every file and has no appetite to be found directly by a CFO in a shortfall week.

How the campaign runs

Google ads for CFOs and owners searching asset-based or ABL facilities, not one generic "business loan" campaign burning spend it was never built to win. Keywords are custom to the collateral types and industries a firm actually takes. Brand bidding and competitor-brand bidding only when the strategy calls for it. Details on paid search.

Foundational work in parallel: the website, local directories, general search appearance, so the click lands on a firm that reads as a real ABL underwriter, not a mill. A landing page may be included; a full website is quoted separately. Directories and bios on online profile development.

LinkedIn ads aimed at bankers and bankruptcy counsel, paid placements and lunch-and-learns, never a message sequence. No InMail. No connection sequences. No DMs. That channel does not run here, under any name.

Why we're not generalists

A generalist agency will not take the time to learn how this practice wins work. The file count is too small and the underwriting mechanics bore them. They want a big budget and a lot of traffic to a thin landing page. We run a tight campaign for a firm that closes fewer files at a higher value. That is the entire point of this page.

Most agencies cannot tell a CFO with a real, testable borrowing base apart from a startup googling working capital, and the bidding shows it. The reporting, the field exam, the reserve mechanics, that vocabulary has to be on the landing page, not a working-capital brochure that could describe any lender in the market.

How fast this can run

Ads can be live in under a week. What slows it down is approval on your side, the keywords, the spend, the collateral types, the page the click lands on. Directories, bios, and a site a buyer will trust take longer. That trust layer is why the click stays. It is not the same thing as going live on search.

How this is billed

This is Visibility Program work, not the outbound program. You pay ad spend directly to Google and, where it runs, LinkedIn. ROI Wire bills a retainer that scales with that spend, not a flat project fee and not a percentage of closed files.

A landing page may be included at no additional cost. A full website build is always quoted and billed separately. Foundational services, copywriting, directory work, and the reputation surfaces a CFO checks before trusting a firm with a real shortfall sit under this track as the credibility layer, not a correspondence program running in parallel.

What is not included

We do not build a solicitation list of middle-market CFOs. We do not write, mail, or phone borrowers who have not searched or asked. We do not underwrite or fund the facility ourselves. We make the firm findable. The firm does the work.

This is not factoring, mezzanine, or merchant cash advance. Those are different pages on this hub.