Niche Market Sales Tips
Selling to Building Contractors' Referral Services Businesses
The area of building contractors' referral services businesses is fertile soil for companies that take the time to understand the market. Product offerings, cost and service are all important considerations – so businesses that sell to building contractors' referral services businesses need to demand excellence from their team.
Despite robust demand for products sold to building contractors' referral services businesses, breaking into the market can be challenging.
Don't be intimidated by the speed of the marketplace. Although speed is important, solid business principles and common sense will make the biggest difference in the success or failure of your selling efforts.
Review Mechanisms
It's also important to regularly assess your personnel and overall selling strategy. Internal review processes should leverage metrics and sales benchmarks as well as direct input from building contractors' referral services businesses themselves.
If necessary, don't hesitate to adjust your strategy or personnel mix to accommodate changes in the marketplace.
Cost Analysis of Your Selling Tactics
Every part of your sales strategy should be targeted for cost analysis. Business owners sometimes ignore cost considerations and instead, choose to invest in sales strategies that fall short of ROI expectations.
For example, even though it might seem logical to increase the size of your sales force to expand your base of building contractors' referral services business customers, the additional labor overhead may make hiring cost prohibitive -- or at least unattractive compared to other less costly strategies.
Reaching Prospective Customers
Prospecting turns names into promising leads.
Networking can dramatically improve your team's prospecting abilities and conversion ratios. However, it's important to make sure your sales force isn't so focused on conversation that they miss the point of prospecting, i.e. the identification of likely buyers, key decision makers and high value industry contacts. In other words, the type of people you meet is just as important as the number of people you meet when prospecting for building contractors' referral services businesses.
Lead lists are useful because they narrow the field for your team. Third-party lists from reputable vendors (e.g. Experian Business Services) provide a database of likely conversion targets, making it easier for your company to balance the quantity and quality demands that are prerequisites for effective prospecting.
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