by Art Waskey | Nov 9, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly
A distributor asked for advice on creating new opportunities for his company. It was experiencing sales erosion to alternative channels. While sales of the company’s added value items that require technical assistance remained strong, its higher profit-margin products were not being ordered. The distributor bemoaned, “Since the pandemic, 15-20% of our revenue has been lost due to reductions in sales of our basic products.” The company’s bread and butter items— like consumables, safety products, and hand tools — were being shopped online elsewhere.
Digital marketing
Paradigm shifts like digitization are disruptive but can inspire the creation of new opportunities. Mark Dancer notes that digital marketing can be a game changer “by teeing customer opportunities that are assigned to sales or support resources not according to their physical proximity to a customer but by their ability to deliver the right experience at the right time.”
Enterprise Selling
To identify and deliver these right experiences have your field sales team use Enterprise Selling. Capitalize on your long term local customer relationships and your team’s command of the latest technological developments. Find the opportunities inside the customer by asking their executive team these questions:
- What are your company’s strategic objectives for the next one to three years?
- Where are you the strongest against your competitors? Where are you lagging?
- What business problems are you focusing on with your customers?
- What are some of the latest trends in your industry?
- How will these trends affect your company?
- What is unique about your position in the marketplace?
- Where are you most vulnerable?
Use Insight
Today’s customer is awash in information — and it can all look alike. To make a good decision, he needs insight from a knowledgeable supplier. Introduce ways your customer can save money and increase earnings using your products. In “The Challenger Sales, Taking Control of Customer Conversation,” Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson relate, “We have found that 53% of loyalty was by the sales experience – namely the supplier’s ability to deliver unique insight to the customer.”
Creating Those New Opportunities
Get creative in your approach to selling. For example, Mark Dancer suggests, “Local distributors
and manufacturers could band together to pitch ‘quality of business,’ which is achieved through
their coordinated local products and services.” (Read the whole article here). Use
your product knowledge and insight to create new opportunities and recover revenue lost
to digital channels.
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by Art Waskey | Nov 1, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly
A brief history of sales
Sales techniques have always adjusted to economic and business trends. For example, the industrial revolution made products available in large volumes for the first time. This created the need for distributors to sell and stock inventory locally. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, corporate sales cycles were introduced by companies like IBM, General Electric, and General Motors. These commercial giants wanted goods sold on their timeline. Eventually purchasing agents railed against this sales technique and relationship selling was ushered in. In the 21st century, solution and consultative-based selling techniques were added. Today, in response to digitization, a new sales process I call enterprise selling has come into play.
Enterprise Selling
By definition, enterprise is a project or undertaking that is difficult or requires effort. It is also defined as a business or company. Enterprise selling is the business of capturing sales in today’s fast paced digital economy and it requires renewed effort.
An analysis
A simple SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis yields insight to the changes needed in the distributor sales force network. The Strength of the distributor is its local connection to the customer. Proximity allows for better communication and options for delivery from nearby warehouses and facilities. The largest Weakness for the independent distributor is its relatively small eCommerce presence. This can lead to the loss of market share. The bright spot is the Opportunity. As a result of their local relationship, distributors can offer significant and unique solutions to their customers’ needs. The Threat of market share loss to digitization can be mitigated with a rapid sales process adjustment.
Develop Relationships
Building on progressive insights, such as the writings of Roy Chitwood in World Class Selling and Matthew Dixon and Brent Adams in The Challenger Sales, Taking Control of the Customer Conversation, the next generation sales process must occur with collaborative partnerships. To recapture revenue lost to alternate channels and retain existing sales, a relationship among key influencers must be developed.
The Opportunity
You have the same sales opportunity today as you did pre-digitization, but you need a new plan of attack. Use enterprise selling to offer significant and unique solutions for your customers’ needs. Become a strategic partner to your customers. Get tips and tricks like the above in The Art of Sales books. Or subscribe to the FREE monthly articles here.
by Art Waskey | Oct 27, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Information technology is at the root of so many alterations in the way we do business, both internally and externally. We all need to learn, and continually be adjusting to change.
Study the customer
I was reminded of the importance of this at a workshop I recently attended on software trends. The software developer hosting the event specializes in providing independent gas distributors with customized, integrated ERP software solutions. Their products help streamline the many internal processes essential to running a gas distribution business.
The developers carefully studied their customer’s business in order to create software applications that met their specific needs. This brings to light the importance of recognizing business pattern changes and making adjustments accordingly. The innovations provided by the software developers will keep internal business functions up to date. Likewise, we must be ready to make adaptations to our sales process to keep it functional in the digital age.
Sales Channels Shift
The impact of online sales to the distributor channel is being felt. In their February 23, 2021, podcast, the Distribution Strategy Group predicted a 5-year revenue channel shift in commercial sales. The group sees distributor revenues potentially dropping an additional 14%, from 66% to 52% of all commercial sales. Manufacturers direct sales, on the other hand, are expected to rise by 7%, moving from 22% of the total to 29%. Gains in other channel sales are also projected to be up 7%, rising from 12% to 19% of total sales. This analysis serves as a wakeup call for distributors. The distribution channel must realign its outside salesforce practices to meet the challenge of the shifts created by digitization.
Get Ready– Adjusting to Change
Is your organization prepared to meet the new demands in the field sales process? Get ready to adjust to the changing sales landscape by studying your customers shifting buying habits. Fine tune your sales process to meet customer need.
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by Art Waskey | Oct 12, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly
A focused mission yields results. The most effective leaders of the 20th century all had a razor sharp focus on a cause. Fully engaging in a mission is essential to success. Consider how these individuals approached their goals: John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Mao Tse-tung, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi.
Make a Difference– Engage Your Mission
Like the leaders above, you must be committed to making a difference to succeed. Consider these two characteristics when engaging in your mission.
- Significance – According to Stephen Covey (franklincovey.com/the-7-habits), a landmark study done by the Harris Polling Group found that only 15% of the employees in an organization could identify their company’s most important goals. Only 19% were passionate about helping them achieve those goals. Are you clear about what is significant to you? When you understand your significance, you act accordingly. Ifpeople have intrinsic satisfaction in your work, they will affirm you. Both Martin Luther King and Gandhi believed that individual equality and worth was significant and people joined in following their example.
- Purpose – Purpose is significance in action. John F. Kennedy spoke of this when he said: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” (jfklibrary.org). Your purpose should include a strategy with specific measurables for what you expect to achieve. Most people never decide what matters to them or the steps they need to take to get there. Find your purpose and make a plan. Keep moving forward despite setbacks. Stretch your gift and take it a step at a time.
Implement your mission
Examine and define what is most significant to you. Implement those findings by developing a meaningful plan that includes the steps to activate your purpose. Win business by being fully engaged in your commitment to your mission and success.
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by Art Waskey | Oct 5, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Know your customer
So much has changed with the pandemic, including in sales. Commercial Insight Selling is on the rise! What do I mean by that? Read on…
As we edge our way back into a post-pandemic world, we find that customers’ buying habits have changed. The arms- length sales transactions enabled by digital platforms have enabled us to do business when an arms-length (and then some) was required. To keep the doors open during lockdown, distributors were forced to find ways to move customers to eCommerce buying platforms on their websites. Fortunately, these have been largely successful and customers have embraced them. However, making a sale using digital tools and techniques is quite different from traditional methods. Sales managers and reps alike need to find ways to adapt. We have seen historical transitions in ways to sell before. The late 20th century saw a move from transactional sales to relationship selling. In the early 21st century we saw a focus on solution selling. I believe the next sales model is commercial insight—knowing what your customers need.
Win customer loyalty
In their seminal 2011 work, The Challenger, Taking Control of the Customer Conversation, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, set the stage for the sales strategies needed for this digital transition. “Customer loyalty is won out in the field, in the trenches during the sales call. Over half of customer loyalty is not what you sell, but how you sell.”
Education leads to commercial wins
A company’s outside sales force feels the impact of digitalization most acutely. While the inside sales team continues to operate from their computers and phones, many of the ways the outside team sold through personal contact with the customer are no longer in play. However, one of the major drawbacks of eCommerce is its lack of the very thing it has eliminated — personal interaction, and somewhat with that, insight to serve the customer. If you have a question or problem, getting someone to respond when there is an urgent need is near impossible. This puts the distributor’s field sales force at a distinct advantage. With their product know–how, they have an opportunity to teach the customer something new and valuable about their business. Using commercial insight reliably leads to contract wins for the distributor and the supplier.
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