Winning With Niche Market Sales
Selling to T-Shirt Shops
You'll need a strategy that incorporates skills and determination to sell to t-shirt shops. This is the approach that will help you get started selling to this market.
Many t-shirt shops depend on distributors and vendors. So, many B2B companies build their strategic plans around sales to t-shirt shops.
In any B2B industry, one of the major factors in long-term success is the ability to expand your customer base. On the upside t-shirt shops are plentiful, but the trick is to acquire and retain new accounts.
Niche Selling
New businesses that target the entire marketplace face a long, uphill battle. A better approach is to tailor your business model to an underserved niche.
In the t-shirt shop industry, niches can be based on geographic, demographic or industry-specific factors. For niche sellers, advance research is essential. Don't assume that there will be demand for a niche product line unless you have done your homework and can support your expectations with solid research.
Marketing Mix
Since it's impossible to separate sales and marketing, your company's marketing mix plays a central role in bottom line sales revenue. The industry's leading sellers employ multichannel marketing strategies and place a high premium on channels that funnel messaging directly to decision makers.
Despite the fact that there are multiple way to market to t-shirt shops, B2B sellers can almost always benefit from outsourcing lead generation to a third-party provider. Experian and other vendors maintain accurate and up-to-date lists of t-shirt shops. For many businesses, these lists set the stage for the rest of the sales cycle.
How to Evaluate Sales Staff
Frequent employee evaluations are a must 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 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 t-shirt shops.
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