Becoming a professional sales representative does not happen overnight and requires an investment not only on your part but that of your company if you are to bring in the most business for your market area.

I recently had a conversation with a new distributor representative in this industry where he told me he scored very well on “consultative marketing,” which I believe is a key to your future success. Too many of your peers have the reputation of trying to market (dare I say hustle) whatever is overstocked or selling poorly since it is taking up warehouse space and needs to move. Although some of these individuals live quite well using such tactics, others end up failing and leaving the business since their volume drops off once a customer figures out their tactics.

Please understand that I am NOT suggesting you simply conduct “how to” classes and never ask for their business. I am suggesting that you will have a far higher closing rate if the customer trusts you and relies on your advice and guidance in solving problems. Admittedly there are some customers who either know (or think they know) everything about cleaning and are simply looking for the best price regardless of supports available. Once they get the lowest price they sometimes will then squeeze the distributor for training and other supports that actually cost them to provide. One of your biggest challenges will be to be able to read the customer and decide on what approach works best for a win/win outcome.

We will continue these thoughts in a future article.

Your comments and questions are important. I hope to hear from you soon. Until then, keep it clean...

Mickey Crowe has been involved in the industry for over 35 years. He is a trainer, speaker and consultant. You can reach Mickey at 678-314-2171 or CTCG50@comcast.net


posted on 4/5/2016