Is your building material brand constantly searching for the recent industry trends, thinking about what products to develop and pondering on which marketing strategies to work upon?!
Sales Representatives
Why look elsewhere when you can get answers to all the above queries in-house – Your very own Sales Team. Sales Representatives are your frontline soldiers on the battlefield that is the market. They spend most of their time on the field and gather real-time data and gain insights that are vital to your business.
Provide constructive feedback
What you as business leaders must engage in is inconsistent active listening which must be a regular part of your sales management process. But it isn’t as easy as it sounds. It involves complete concentration from your side without any pre-defined bias so as to avoid judgements in the initial stage. Providing constructive feedback on how the sales team can excel at their job is also a part of this process.
Employing the “5 Whys” strategy
Employing the “5 Whys” strategy while conversing with your sales team is a basic tool to identify the root cause of an issue faced by the executives. This can help you take actionable solutions to the real problems at hand.
Let’s take a look at a sample case to understand this method better.
On-Field Sales Team’s Stated Problem: It is impossible to grow sales for our existing product; therefore, it has to change.
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1st Why? – Apparently, all specifications decisions in our line are made based on cost pricing alone and we are losing business to cheaper priced products.
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2nd Why? – The competition’s cheaper product is inferior in quality and will need to be replaced every 3 years. Our product is more durable and hence, costlier, which architects don’t prefer.
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3rd Why? – Architects have to work on projects within a certain budget; hence pricing becomes very important. They need to please their clients as well and therefore do not wish to take an extra effort to specify our higher priced product.
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4th Why? – Nowadays, architects are also responsible for business development, and so they need to please all parties at stake. Hence, they will not refer our product when a cheaper substitute is available.
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5th Why? – The architects or designers do not see any personal gain they will reap by doing so.
Thus, as observed above, the principal barrier to sales is not the price point, but the lack of awareness of the benefits obtained from the product by the key individual who would benefit the most – the builder.
Now, the top management, along with the Sales team can devise strategies to target the builder – Problem Solved. Therefore, effective communication and cooperation with the Sales team can help solve the deepest of problems faced by your brand.
Hope this article helped you gain insights about the B2S (Specifier) space and Building Material industry. Is your building material brand struggling with Networking? Not satisfied with the performance of your product in the Market?. We Could Help!
Contact us at: +91 98862 59953, +91 90356 20490, Email: info@magnate.co.in
Magnate Architectural Auxiliary Services
Connecting Architects | Interior Designers | Builders – Pan India.
