What follows is an updated story from my column in Sign Builder Illustrated, which suggests an organized approach to building sales through phone prospecting, direct mail and networking.
Tough times don’t last; tough people do.
According to the Progressive
partisans and liberal pundits, happy times are here again. Yippee! Unfortunately,
few are reaping the rewards of the Obama recovery. Since 1989, the rich did get
richer. In fact, they became a lot richer. Back then, the top 5% wealthiest Americans
owned a paltry 54% of the nation’s wealth. Now, the top 5% own 63% of all
wealth.
If you are not part of those
happy few, where does that leave you? The vast, too frequently silent majority
of Americans got poorer since 2008. Median household income has declined to the
income level in 1995. With added burden of Affordable Care Act, new
governmental regulations and higher operating costs, 2015 could be challenging for
many small businesses.
Unfortunately, even if you are
the president of the United States, there isn’t much you can do to change world
economic conditions. Instead of crying
in your beer or just drinking more of it, what you can change is how you conduct your
business. As my former boss (and former Marine) Gordon McAllister would say to
encourage me during the depths of the recession in the early 80s: Tough times
don’t last; tough people do.
His point was that you need to
make your own opportunities, if you want your business to survive. So if you’re waiting for business to walk
through your door, lots of luck. In
tough times, if you want to survive, you have to chase it down, hog tie it and
drag it home. I have news for you that
you may not believe. Some of the
companies that are proactively beating on doors are prospering in spite of the
economic climate.
In this article, I will
suggest some ideas for preserving your business base and uncovering new
opportunities, as well as controlling costs.
Telemarketing: Pick Up The Phone.
In an era when we are inundated
with text messages and e-mails, have we forgotten our telephones? Now is the time to pick up your phone and
reach out and touch someone.
By regularly calling your
existing base of customers, you can keep your name in the forefronts of their
minds. You can identify new
opportunities, as well as recognize potential threats from your
competitors. And by doing so, preserve
the business that you have and minimize your attrition rate.
Telemarketing can economically
unearth new customers and protect existing ones. Although prospecting on the
phone is no substitute for face-to-face selling, it’s the next best option (and
a cost effective one at that) in communicating with a customer on a one-to-one
basis.
When I worked for a fleet
graphics screen printer many years ago, we built up our new business by phone
prospecting. Working the phones is
certainly not any easy job and may not be for everybody. But it sure is a fast way to determine which
companies operate either a fleet of vehicles or a chain of stores with an
existing graphics program; who has purchasing authority within these companies;
and when they are likely to purchase these products.
I don’t believe that you can sell
a new graphics program on the phone. But
for my money, there’s no better way to find out fast who’s hot and who’s not.
Prospect for New Opportunities at Current Customers.
Sales is not about persuading
someone to buy or do something that they would not ordinarily do. Instead it’s about helping them in their
decision-making process get what they need and in many cases already want.
The best way to unearth these
needs and desires, buried deep inside the dark recesses of your customer’s
brain is to perform a needs analysis.
While this process sounds very mysterious, complex and clinical, it
simply involves asking your customer the right questions so you get a feel of
what it’s like to be inside their skin.
Here are a few basic questions:
What competitive threats are your customer’s biggest challenges? In today’s
tumultuous economy, what changes have your customer made in their business?
What actions has your customer taken to increase their sales? Only after
getting answers to questions such as these can you determine how you can best
provide a graphics solution to satisfy the customer’s current needs.
By conducting a needs analysis,
you can quickly determine if the prospect needs your products and
services. If there is no need, then
there’s no need to waste your time with the prospect.
Follow up on old sales leads.
Nobody likes a quitter. But from
time to time, even the best sales people give up too soon. How many times have
you thrown in the towel before the fight was over?
Most people give up on prospects
after a few sales calls. Study after study indicates that most sales aren’t
made until the fifth sales call. In a slow economy, what better time is there
to revisit your old leads?
One effective way to follow up is
to combine direct mail, telemarketing and face-to-face selling. Here’s how.
Mail the old prospects a packet reminding them of your products and
services. Several days later follow up
with a phone call. Did they receive the
information? Did they have a chance to look at it? What did they think? If there is a spark of interest, set the
appointment for your sales call.
In your phone conversation,
qualify the prospect to see if there are any upcoming opportunities. If your prospect is a retailer, be sure to
probe for and identify needs for window graphics and store window displays,
Point-Of-Purchase graphics, in-store signage and wall graphics. In these tough times, store owners are
desperate to generate store traffic and sales.
If they don’t, they’re out of business.
During the depths of the recession, I visited some of the
largest POP companies in the Midwest and on the West Coast. Most of these
screen printers and digital printers were busy because they were servicing the
retail market and they were proactively soliciting business. Note: I used the term “proactively”. They were not waiting for business to walk
through their front doors.
Direct Mail.
Do you dread the thought of
picking up the phone to prospect? If you
are, join the club. Telemarketing is
tough work. And not everyone is cut out
to do it. If you can’t get over your
phone fear, you have an
alternative. Send them a direct mail
package.
Today snail mail is more
effective than e-mail. A well-designed direct mail package can deliver your
graphics message better than electronic marketing, because it is much more
visual and takes a little more effort to discard than just pressing the delete
button. Obviously, E-marketing is all
the rage, and everybody is doing it because it is a cheap way to reach a large
audience. And because everybody is doing it, very little of it gets read.
Direct mail works. Famed car
salesman, Joe Girard, who set still unbroken industry sales records, used
direct mail and telemarketing to build his business and ensure a steady flow of
customers. Each month he sent out post
cards to key prospects to keep his name in the forefront of their minds. When the prospect was finally ready to buy,
who do you think they called? Joe
Girard. You can do the same.
When I worked for a large fleet
graphics screen printer, each week we mailed hundreds of direct mail packages.
A few days after mailing, we followed up with a phone call. Combining the phone call with the mailing,
dramatically improved our response rate.
If you have added new equipment
and new services to your shop, such as digital printing, use direct mail to
promote it.
Networking
I never liked the term
“networking”. The whole idea of social
gatherings arranged so sales people can pump other sales people for information
sounds phony and sleazy. Networking
doesn’t have to work that way.
Sales is about building relationships. Developing good relationships takes time and
consistent effort. If the focus of your
business is fleet graphics or building graphics, devote some time to building
genuine and authentic friendships in the industry.
In the fleet graphics business,
the best people to develop relationships with are trailer sales people and the
equipment leasing sales people. They
will know long before you will who it buying or leasing vehicles and when the
deal is going to happen. These sales
people know who the key players are and in some cases will make the
introduction for you. If that’s not enough,
the leasing sales people can also roll the graphics package. Could it get any better that that? Believe it not, it can. On a lease deal,
before the equipment is turned over to the customer, all of the vendors get
paid.
Networking in the store graphics
market is no different. When he started his sign company, a sign maker in Boise, Idaho told me that he made a concerted effort to get to
know the commercial builders in his city.
They introduced him to architects, who in turn introduced him to the
interior designers, who used his services.
As his network of contacts grew, so did his business
.
Conclusion: Sink or Swim
Since the financial downturn in November of 2008, I visited many shops that have prospered during the tough times. I have also visited many
shops that have struggled.
What’s the difference between the
busy shop and the one with no business?
In a crisis, the natural response is either flight or fight. The busy shops are fighting. They are exploring new opportunities. Their
inside people are making outbound calls at the slow times. And their sales people are pounding on doors.
In his book, The Winner Within,
basketball coach Pat Riley tells the story of going on a whitewater rafting
trip. The first thing that the trip
guide told him was that at some time during the trip, each one of them would
all fall out of the boat. He also told
them that if they expected to survive, that they had to take an active role in
their own rescue. It’s sink or swim.
No matter what you do, at some
point in time we all fall out of the boat.
In facing challenges in your business or personal life, your success in
negotiating troubled waters largely depends on the actions that you take.
Hingst began his career 42 years ago in the graphic arts field creating and producing advertising and promotional materials for a large test equipment manufacturer. Working for offset printers, large format screen printers, vinyl film manufacturers, and application tape companies, his experience included estimating, production planning, purchasing and production art, as well as sales and marketing. In his capacity as a salesman, Hingst was recognized with numerous sales achievement awards.
Drawing on his experience in production and as graphics installation subcontractor, Hingst provided the industry with practical advice, publishing more than 150 articles for publications, such as Signs Canada, SignCraft, Signs of the Times, Screen Printing, Sign and Digital Graphics and Sign Builder Illustrated. He also posted more than 325 stories on his blog (hingstssignpost.blogspot.com). In 2007 Hingst’s book, Vinyl Sign Techniques, was published.
© 2016 Jim Hingst
No comments:
Post a Comment