B2B Selling Advice
Selling to Industrial Fabrics Businesses
As the market recovers, industrial fabrics businesses are gradually bouncing back from the Great Recession and are starting to reinvest. Here is the information you need to get started selling to this market.
Initiative and perseverance are admirable characteristics for sales professionals. But selling to industrial fabrics businesses requires more than an impeccable work ethic.
A strong value proposition and a great strategy are requirements for companies who sell to industrial fabrics businesses. Although there are market challenges, new companies can gain traction by applying a handful of tried and true sales principles.
Casting a Broad Net
The first step in selling to industrial fabrics businesses is to cast a broad net. Strategies that are isolated to the local market are not likely to succeed in an environment that leverages the benefits of long-distance sales techniques.
Although a geographic concentration may be a useful strategy for new sellers, you will eventually need to increase your bandwidth to include prospects outside of your initial range. You can also broaden your prospect base by introducing new products and partnerships into the mix.
Market Aggressively
Effective marketing factors into industrial fabrics business sales success. A combination of tight competition, multichannel approaches and emerging marketing technologies mean that you'll need to flawlessly execute your strategy to capture the attention of decision makers.
A large portion of your marketing efforts should focus on maximizing the number of leads that are funneled to your sales force. Lead lists are a critical resource in lead generation and can be purchased cost-effectively from Experian and other reliable third-party providers.
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 boosting sales and employee morale. In some instances, it may be appropriate to team underperforming sales reps with reps that have more experience selling to industrial fabrics businesses.
Share this article
Additional Resources for Entrepreneurs