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Mark Hunter, is The Sales Hunter. He provides selling tips and consultative selling advice to thousands. His commentary is based on the work he does in sales training and sales motivation with numerous companies in the US and around the world.
3 comments:
If I understand correctly, the weight of your steel is causing some real shipping problems. In reality, it may or may not be an issue when the customer realizes how critical the steel is. Let me give you an example. A salesperson called me saying he couldn't get a food company to buy his cleaning equipment because it cost more than his competitor's. I told him to ask the food company how much it would cost them if they had to shut down production due to a bacteria problem or some other type of issue caused by a failure to sanitize properly? By weighing the expense that the company could endure up against the very small amount of his cleaning equipment cost, it became a no-brainer for them. The problem had been that the food company was comparing the pennies they were trying to save when they should have been looking at the dollars they were at risk of losing.
Are they at a competitive disadvantage if they do not stock the item? Do they claim to be "full setrvice/line" store? Is the item usually purchased by some of their hihger volume or most loyal customers? Also, do a breakeven analysis on the cost of shipping; i.e., can the cost be offset with higher volume?
Pricing advantages will always go to those who purchase larger quantities, but let's not get too wrapped up in price because there are far more important things to focus on. You need to be emphasizing the quality of the product, the timeliness of the delivery, customer support and a number of other benefits. The real issue in sales is determining what benefits the customer expects to receive from doing business with you, which you can only discover by taking the time to ask them questions and getting to know their business. I can cite a number of examples where companies gladly pay more for something than what others pay because of the benefits they receive.
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