Businesses in many sectors of the economy have been hard hit by the pandemic. Is there any hope of recouping sales if some of your customers are out of business or don’t order as much as they used to? Yes, there is hope. There’s good evidence that times of economic turmoil are the best times to start or grow a business. You’ve just got to be the pallet business that’s thinking strategically and not hunkering down and hoping for things to go back to normal.
You may be thinking: “Ok great! Let’s grow my pallet business. Where do I start?” We’re glad you asked because this month’s Idea Box is about how you can do something about sales growth. Here are several ideas you can use to begin transforming your pallet business into a sales growth machine.
1. Get Strategic. When was the last time you thought methodically about how you go to market and who you are trying to sell to? If you haven’t done this exercise in a while, or maybe never, then you may want to try using the STP Marketing Model which stands for “Segmenting, Targeting, Positioning.” It’s a framework for simplifying the process of figuring out who your target market is. The reason you want to do this is because you can’t sell to everyone and figuring out who you should be selling to will make all of your sales and marketing efforts work a lot better.
• Segmentation – Divide you market into distinct groups of potential customers.
• Targeting – Select those segments that would be the most attractive to focus on or that are the best fit.
• Positioning – Determine how to position your pallet business for the best target segment or segments.
This model has been around for a while and you can easily find additional resources to help you navigate applying the STP model to your pallet business.
2. Revamp marketing. Marketing is an enormous topic, and it can be quite complex these days. There are more technologies and service providers than ever before to evaluate and deploy in order to connect with buyers to generate leads and sales. Here are some ideas:
• Talk to consultants – You or your marketing administrator, if you have one, can find consultants on Fiverr and Upwork or ask around for a referral. An experienced marketer can help you assess what you have and then develop new marketing programs.
• Talk to product vendors – The technology available to make marketing easier and more effective has exploded. Ten years ago, there were about 700 marketing technology vendors, and today there are over 7,000. Learn about these companies and find one that is a good fit for your pallet business.
• Talk to service providers – There are a lot of companies and agencies that deliver turnkey services so you don’t have to figure anything out and can have someone else do it all for you. A Google search or research on LinkedIn will help you find some likely candidates.
3. Revamp sales. Whether you have a sales team or you’re the business owner and solely responsible for sales, there’s always room to improve. And if there’s been no recent effort to improve the sales game, now is the time. Here are some ideas:
• Training – Now is a good time to get some new sales training under your belt. There are tons of sales training programs and providers. Do your research and get the training.
• Read a good book – If you don’t want to spend time and money on training, you can possibly find an applicable sales training book. If you have a sales team, have everyone read the same book and develop a plan to hold each other accountable for putting the advice into action.
A final suggestion for both sales and marketing is to look into LinkedIn Sales Navigator. It’s a great tool to help you find and connect with your ideal customer. There are also companies and freelancers who can help you set up a program on LinkedIn for lead generation and sales prospecting.
