5 Ways to Support Your Sales Team
In today’s competitive plumbing and HVAC marketplace, your sales team is charged with the difficult task of making your company’s product or service stand out in the crowd. If they don’t have the tools they need on hand, your highly trained sales team could be spending their valuable time hunting for materials or creating their own (likely lacklustre) marketing pieces. Their success is ultimately your success, so it’s up to you to stack the deck in their favour.
Here are five ways to ensure your team is armed with the tools they need to make an effective pitch and – most importantly – close the deal!
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#1 – Sales Material
It would be unwise for even the most charismatic and persuasive sales rep to go to a meeting empty-handed. Whether your company offers a product or service in the plumbing or HVAC market, physical sales materials can complement your sales team’s verbal pitch and provide an important, tangible resource for your client to refer to after the meeting.
Depending on the nature of your product or service, you can choose the most appropriate format to present your information, such as brochures, posters, spec sheets, promo items/samples, press materials, etc. If you have a number of marketing pieces, consider bundling them together in a branded presentation folder – this will help your sales reps keep the materials protected and organized and will also make mailings a breeze!
In addition to producing hard copies, make it easy for your sales team to access downloadable versions of these sales materials on your website. This also makes it easy for your team to distribute materials to clients through links in emails.
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#2 – Training & Educating
It is imperative to ensure that all members of your sales team are fully prepared – not only knowing the ins and outs of your product or service – but also being familiar with the marketing tools that are available. Schedule regular internal emails to your sales team informing them of any new or updated marketing materials and be sure to ask for their input before creating something new. As your eyes and ears in the plumbing and mechanical marketplace, your sales team will have a unique perspective into which marketing materials work and which don’t.
When introducing your team to a new product or service, don’t forget to clearly highlight the key features and benefits (from the perspective of your customer) and how your offerings are better than those of your competitors. A quick reference chart that clearly demonstrates how your product is different than others on the market, could also be a useful sales tool.
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#3 – Demo Days/Lunch & Learn Events
An open house or lunch ‘n learn provides a unique opportunity to promote your company to a captive audience…without your guests feeling like they’re being held captive. You can make it easy for your sales team to organise and host events by having all of the supporting materials ready to go.
You can’t have a Lunch n’ Learn without attendees! Be sure to craft both digital and printed invites so they can be distributed easily by your sales reps and any co-hosts like wholesalers or strategic partners. We suggest creating a simple invite template which you can use again and again. Simply start with your branding, tagline and a promise of a free lunch; you can fill in the where, when and what once each event has been finalized.
Whether the event is held at your facility, a customer’s location or co-hosted by a wholesaler, be sure that your brand is well represented. This can be be accomplished by using multi-purpose pull-up banners, which are easy to set-up and ship across the country to your sales team as needed. We talk more about pull-up banners in this post.
Finally, once your sales rep has made a great impression, you’ll want to move attendees through your sales channel towards making a purchase. This could be with a sample, persuasive sales materials or with a ready-made promotion card offering a discount on their next order. Whatever it is, just make sure the materials is on hand and ready for the sales rep to utilize.
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#4 – Online Image Gallery
Any time your sales staff is hunting for marketing materials is time they’re not spending on representing your business. Whether an image is needed by a wholesaler for their website, by a customer for a co-branded piece or for a feature in a trade publication, a well stocked image gallery is your sales rep’s best friend.
It can be accessed via laptop or smartphone by your sales team during client meetings, or a sales rep can include a link to the gallery in an email. Be sure to use only high quality images in your gallery and consider investing in the services of a professional photographer to present your product or service in the best possible light (literally and figuratively speaking). Just don’t forget to let your sales team know when a new picture has been added to the gallery.
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#5 – Ready-Made, Co-Branded Marketing Materials
One way to show commitment to your customers is by putting your brand right next to theirs in a co-branded marketing piece. This could be done in a flyer, poster, social media post or print advertisement.
Let’s say your company produces high-efficiency air conditioner units. Among other sales channels, like home builder and wholesalers marketing, you rely on HVAC contractors to recommend and resell your products to homeowners.
In the scenario above, you could support your important HVAC contractor network by providing them with ready made advertisements that sell your product to their customer. Just make sure the advertisements are of the highest quality and that messaging, wording and imagery is suitable for homeowners.
Co-branded materials are a great way to show your contractor customer that you not only care about their business, but that you’re ready to team up to make sure they succeed. Plus, free, high quality resources are always appreciated and help to build loyalty.
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What’s next?
Each of these important tools is just a first step in providing your sales team with the resources they need to represent your business. Remember, the time they take to search for resources or call your office for support, is time away from selling to your customer. The first step is to ask your team which one of these five tools would help to make their job easier and implement from there.
We have over 20 years of marketing experience in the plumbing and mechanical industry and are experts when it comes to supporting Sales Representatives (at one time, over 150 individuals across North America, to be exact). If your sales team needs support to grow your business, consider outsourcing the job to us. We know what it takes to provide support tailored to the unique requirements of regional markets to turbo-charge their sales efforts.