On Selling Capital Equipment and the Spinach Syndrome

 

Many Sales Managers and or Directors, have this strange idea that the potential clients a sales-person visits, the better. In Industrial Marketing, which comprises of high or medium value systems selling, “cold-calling prospects” is definitely not a good idea. 

Now folks, let me tell you a story. You know how your Maa used to say ‘don’t do that-it invites the evil eye”. and… if you asked why? The answer was invariably “.. That-does-not-concern-you" or “because –I-said-so”? My mother said that my gran had said 'spinach should not be eaten at night'.Now, I had a nice think on this one and I think I deduced the reason. Indian spinach has some green bugs, which in the night, are difficult to see and separate.A 100 years back everything was done by kerosene-lamp-illumination. 
Probably, an important man found a few bugs in his spinach at night. So, what did he do? The man of the house contemplated the question and said " Bingo! I'll just put this rule “no-spinach-at-night" and I won't tell them the reason too”. So most probably, that's the way it happened, with all old sayings too.

                                                                                       

Now, maybe you can appreciate the reason for the anecdote. Cold Calling in sales is something like the spinach and insect at night case. Decision makers in Industrial Plants have no time to entertain sales-people on fishing expeditions. Cold calling was never very popular with customers but it had to be done. This was the situation earlier as without cold calls; there was no way to collect authentic market information. Now as you are aware, information is power. The person with the greater power wins. 

Hence, the earlier Gurus of sales boasted of their cold calling prowess. Sales book even had chapters on how to get past the ogre which was always the tough secretary of the decision maker, chewing nails. What these guru’s don’t realize that times have changed. (Irrespective of how many copies of Spencer Johnson’s Who took my cheese? they may own-they don’t understand change) So, they continue to send new sales people into the market …” a sales person and working in the office…” No! that will never do. These people have sever affliction of what I call “ the spinach syndrome”.

  In Industrial Sales & Marketing of Capital Equipment, the internet has unseated the cold-call from its “ throne of indispensability" . Cold calling now  can be retired off and allowed to stay on for a few years more as an adviser. Information is power. Having information gives you an immense advantage over your competitors. This is all the more true in industrial marketing, where competition is limited but of the best quality and the value of a small order is not less than $25,000

But then comes the million dollar question, how can information be collected then. From the internet of course...this is evolution, you can't stop it so you do the next big thing, you join it. There are many people who will disagree but aren't there always?

How can one collect information from the web? Company web sites hardly give out that kind of  information. It is here that a little bit of creative thinking helps. I have listed out a few types of web-sites below where all information, industrial marketing managers require are available.

(1)B2B trading portals and Business Directories: These give out all the information and all you have to do is to know where the information is. (An example is http://www.processregister.com which has a section on projects. You are given the location, the value and the promoter. The website even has the projects classified sector wise. What else do you need?'

(2)Job Portals: These give out information in the form of “Project Managers required for…” or “We require for our new project…”

(3)Stock Market sites: Watch out for the analysis given in these sites. All new projects from the plan level may be found here.

(4)Websites of Consultants: Consultants often give out details of new consulting jobs they are working on.If you think that you will get full details of a project from tapping into the above or similar resources, you will be disappointed. What you will get is “leads”. Taking these leads, do some research. With practice, you will soon become adept and fast in the research. Industrial selling initiated by researching the web, is called SBR (Selling by Research).

Teach your sales people to research encourage them to do so and I can guarantee you that you will never be short of leads. In many companies, employees are not allowed to browse the net. This is a prime example of the spinach Syndrome. Here, the onus lies on the marketing manager to convince the management that this should not be applicable to the Sales & Marketing Department.

The next time your salesperson visits a potential customer, insist that he or she he knows what the prospect requires. Ask the prospect for a presentation permission. Ask them to tell the prospect how your products can help them save money. During the presentation, practice relationship selling. Show and prove that you know your product. Now, compare this to the competitor’s sales rep that pesters the customer with questions. No prizes for guessing who is more likely to be favored by the prospect for the order! Monetize your sales pitch. Don't say my equipment has 90% efficiency- say "with my equipment your energy costs will come down 20%, which means a savng of $10,000 p.a. (just a figure I plucked from the air)

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Love

Bilbo