Selling to an Industry
Selling to Crude Oil Businesses
Without a doubt, crude oil businesses are attractive sales targets for businesses with an eye on growth. Product quality, cost and service are all important considerations – so businesses that sell to crude oil businesses need to review their delivery model.
The proper application of fundamental techniques and technology-based solutions clearly influence outcomes. But in a B2B sales environment, they may not be your most valuable assets.
For small businesses that sell to these companies, the industry's positive growth outlook makes the solid execution of fundamental sales principles more important than ever.
How to Evaluate Sales Staff
Periodic staff assessment is essential for companies that sell in this industry. Businesses that achieve significant market share hire top-end producers and routinely evaluate them against performance goals and benchmarks.
Although annual reviews may be enough for other business units, sales units should be evaluated quarterly with monthly or weekly reviews of sales totals. Training, coaching and sales incentives can be useful for improving performance and revenues. In some instances, it may be appropriate to team underperforming sales reps with reps that have more experience selling to crude oil businesses.
Marketing to Crude Oil Businesses
Marketing strategies for crude oil businesses are always adapting to the marketplace. Businesses that sell in this market have to be diligent about staying on top of trends, marketing channels and technologies. Although they aren't a one-size-fits-all solution, online marketing channels such as social media sites and email campaigns are rising to the fore.
In order to feed new crude oil business leads to your sales team, you will need to identify a process for generating high quality leads. One of the ways to perform consistent lead generation is to obtain updated lead lists. Vendors like Experian Business Services provide reasonably priced lead lists that can be sorted and filtered to your precise specifications.
Developing a Marketing Plan
A solid marketing plan is the foundation of a winning sales strategy. Your team might be stocked with top-tier sales professionals, but if they aren't supported by strong messaging and effective marketing channels, your products will never see the light of day.
Keep in mind that crude oil businesses are fast-paced operations with little patience for long sales cycles.
A strong marketing plan helps to focus your selling proposition and deliver messaging in channels that are successful with your customer base. When combined with a sales plan, a marketing plan serves up an intentional selling strategy that delivers results.
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