The Fastest Way to Grow Your Building Materials Sales

The fastest way to grow your building materials sales is also the easiest and it’s free.  The easiest way to grow your building materials sales is to forget just about everything you know about your customers.

The Vice President of Marketing for a building materials manufacturer stopped me at a trade show to share how it worked for her.

She told me that she bought each of her sales reps a copy of my book.  (Please ignore the shameless plug for my book and read on to get the idea.)  Their sales targets were roofing contractors.  She instructed each of her reps to read the chapter in my book about contractors before every contractor call for the next two weeks.

She literally told them that just before they got out of their car for the call, that they were to take 15 minutes and read the contractor chapter. They were to do it before each call for two weeks.  If they had two or three calls in a day, she expected them to read the chapter each time.

After two weeks, she asked the reps to share their experiences.  They told her that the sales calls were a totally different experience.  They couldn’t believe how the customers opened up and shared things they never thought they would share.

The discussions were much deeper.  The sales people said they had never felt such a level of trust from the contractor.  From these discussions, they were better able to see how their products were actually a good choice for the contractor.  This resulted in more sales than they normally would see.

I speak at or meet with building materials companies at least twice a month.  I check back with them a few weeks later to see how I have helped them. The marketing people will frequently tell me about improvements they have made in their marketing approach.  The sales people will always share with me how I helped them to see their customers in a new light that has resulted in better relationships and sales growth.

I have heard this from sales people who call on architects, dealers, builders, distributors and even big boxes.

Two Most Common Sales Problems

1. Inexperienced sales people are frequently given some basic sales and product training.  They are usually not given customer training.  They have little or no idea how their customers business works. They may get to ride along for a few days with an experienced sales person. The problem with this is that they learn all of the biases and incorrect beliefs of the experienced sales person.

2. The experienced sales person thinks they know all about their customers.  The result is that they have closed down to new opportunities and wonder why they lose a customer to a competitor.  They will frequently blame it on pricing, but I see it more often as the other guy took the time to understand the customer and better meet his needs.

The result of both of these is that the customer frequently assumes there will be little value to the sales call and his time may be better spent somewhere else.

Four Ways to Get a Fresh Perspective and Grow Your Sales – Quickly!

1. Attend my Building Materials Sales and Marketing Workshop.  Click here to learn more.

2. Go to my website and search by customer type.

3. Sign up for my newsletter.

4. Buy my book.