Synopsis: – Floor Coatings Manufacturer – New Market Entry
Historically, our client sold directly to industrial end-users. Providing poured in place flooring for labs, entry ways, clean rooms, food prep and others areas requiring sealed or high wear solutions. Our client had superior products and use of its own crews which performed installation. Their sales people dealt directly with plant managers and industrial facilities managers selling a new floor – installed. Even with a premium price, this differentiation enabled them to win a high percentage of the opportunities they saw.
However, there recent decision to start selling to commercial facilities with the same needs had resulted in sales significantly below plan. While there were lots of ideas of what to do next, our client ask us to take a look at the commercial market before they decide the next step. Did they have the right products? Were the sales people calling on enough commercial accounts? Did they need better brand recognition? Was the pricing competitive…?
We conducted primary research with select customers they had sold. The breakthrough came when a few customers explain why they purchased – and how they normally purchase flooring. In commercial markets new flooring and most replacement flooring involves some unique internal approvals. The client’s products were exactly right for some segments like health care – but the sales process was different.
Our work included mapping out the structure, buying process and buying influences in the commercial market and identifying the benefits each group valued. For example, hospitals have a facilities committee with doctors and nurses involved in any change decision. There are architects specializing in healthcare. The general contractors that were working in hospitals had flooring subcontractors they trusted to be on time and on schedule.
Selling these markets required knowing the vocabulary and issues of the medical professionals on the review committees. Getting specified required holding lunch and learn sessions with the specialty architects who served each market. Being on the bid, and performing the installation, required demonstrating to the general contractor he could trust your scheduling.
The breakthrough insight was that laying the sales process maps next to each other, we could see that it wasn’t practical for a sales person to switch back and forth depending on the customer. It’s no wonder a sales person had not sorted this out – why should they take time away from a high win rate segment to try and find out why the commercial sales were failing. No wonder everyone had a theory but no one had facts. Now we could see the client needed a separate sales force that could become efficient as serving these new segments.
QDI conducted training for the initial commercial sales force providing the background knowledge they needed to quickly begin serving these segments. We created case studies and references for both the end users and the general contractors to give the new sales force immediately credibility with the hospitals, architects, and general contractors.
The result was that commercial sales more than double within a year.