Capitalizing on Niche Markets
Selling to Petroleum Products and Equipment Businesses
The problem with selling to petroleum products and equipment businesses is that misguided efforts can threaten your entire plan for success. The hard part is crafting a selling strategy that captures the attention of high value prospects.
In today's economy, petroleum products and equipment businesses are looking for reliable products and great values.
A strong value proposition and a great strategy are requirements for companies who sell to petroleum products and equipment businesses. Despite the presence of market barriers, emerging companies can gain traction by applying a handful of proven sales principles.
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 acceptable 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 petroleum products and equipment businesses.
Market Aggressively
Effective marketing is an essential ingredient in the recipe for petroleum products and equipment 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 channeling leads to your sales force. Lead lists are a genuinely powerful resource in lead generation and can be purchased cost-effectively from Experian and other reliable third-party providers.
Sales Strategy Tips
Effective petroleum products and equipment business sales strategies are concerned about both sales techniques and ROI. Some sales techniques are more capable than others and the ones that maximize ROI need to be prioritized.
Also, it's important to avoid a silo approach to petroleum products and equipment business sales. Companies that strictly segment their sales units lag in the marketplace, especially when they compete against companies that encourage collaborative processes between sales, marketing and other units.
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