Smart Sales Strategies for Niche Markets
Selling to Gourmet Restaurants
Need to drive more sales? There is a big growth opportunity for emerging entrepreneurs to sell into the gourmet restaurant market. The difficult part is crafting a selling strategy that targets high value prospects.
New technologies and innovative sales techniques have value. But in a B2B sales environment, they may not be your most valuable assets.
Quality products, a good strategy and a lot of hard work are requirements for companies who sell to gourmet restaurants. Despite the presence of market barriers, emerging companies can gain traction by applying a handful of proven sales principles.
Putting It All Together
Ultimately, there is no single strategy that can guarantee conversions in your efforts to sell to gourmet restaurants. It's often a combination of techniques that converts prospects to customers.
Although it's easy to get caught up in the micro-level details of the selling cycle, sellers in this industry need to maintain a macro perspective that combines techniques with selling strategy.
How to Find Gourmet Restaurant Leads
Leads are the foundation of successful selling. The first step in lead generation is to survey the local market. From there, you can widen the field to include the yellow pages, Internet searches and trade listings.
The names of gourmet restaurants you obtain through your own efforts need to be qualified through phone calls, emails, and face-to-face conversations.
But the most dependable source of qualified sales leads is often a third-party lead list provider. For consistently high quality lead lists, we recommend Experian Business Services to our business partners. Experian has a reputation for providing accurate and filtered lead lists that can be used for direct mail and other marketing efforts directed toward gourmet restaurants.
Hiring Staff
Your sales force is your most valuable sales asset. A first-rate sales strategy is ineffective if your sales team is unable to do their jobs effectively.
Most gourmet restaurants appreciate the value of sales professionals who are informed and prepared. When a customer has a problem with an order, they typically reach out to their sales contact so it's imperative for your team to be trained in techniques for service after the sale.
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