4 Key Steps to Grow Your B2B

[Mo Elyas]

I received this email from my Larson rep and thought I should share with you all. This question has been asked and this goal has been difficult for most of us. Here is what Larson says about getting more corporate work:

4 Key Steps to Grow Your B2B

If you'd like to find more opportunities to grow B2B sales, here are four key steps to success:

1. Create a separate identity or brand: Make it clear you are serving the business market. This could mean a new name that makes it clear you sell to business, new brochures, new business cards, and a new way of introducing this division within your main company.

2. Identify specific products for commercial projects: Identify a selection of products dedicated to this type of customer who generally needs less expensive products to meet their budgets. By carefully selecting these products, you can be sensitive to pricing requirements while maintaining a profit margin that makes sense.

3. Focus on service: Businesses are too busy to come to you. To compete in this market, you must be available to go on site, help find the art they need, deliver the finished projects, and install them. Service is more important than price in building B2B sales.

4. Price appropriately: Instead of using your POS system to price these projects, it's best to determine the actual cost of the materials and labor involved and then apply a markup that is compatible with your margin goals. If you choose the correct materials for this program and factor in the efficiencies you gain in creating frames in bulk, you will be able to make the same or even better profit margins selling to businesses.

These four steps are essential in building sales to businesses. Create the proper identity with the products and service businesses want, and you will grow sales.

 

[Russ Wood]

Some good Ideas Mo.

I strongly agree with number two through for four our industry, but I question number 1, about having a different brand because:

1. Most commercial customers have probably not even heard of you in the retail sense, so a name change for framing doesn't really matter [it does in some industries, but probably not framing.

2. Many commercial customers have employees who need retail framing. If they ask their purchasing department who the framer is, and you portray yourself as a separate company that only does B2B, have you just shot yourself in the foot?

3. One way to get commercial business, that has worked for me is by asking your current customers where they work and what they do. This sometimes leads to commercial business. So if I contact my customer about commercial work about framing, if I have a different company / brand name does this lead to confusion?

Some additional observations about commercial.

1. You will not compete with most commercial customers if you price by your POS, unless you have a very unique product that the competition can't match. [I quote painted bevels, IF I am the one initiating the quote].

2. I refer to ISO and [PPFA standards] for materials when quoting prices, particularly with companies that have purchasing departments. They are familiar with ISO, and when you say your materials meet ISO xxxx, and PPFA level I Matboard standards it might just give them pause to check if the competitive quotes meet these standards, and if not, they wonder if there will be any personal there be any fallout to them [the purchasing agent] because they knew the competitive framing materials did not meet recognized standards.

For example, recently I received a request for quote for 15 frames from one of my business accounts, where they were reselling to the end customer. [I was the only one quoting to my customer, but others were quoting to the end customer]. But the request came in at 4:30 PM on a Friday, and was due Monday morning at 9:00 am to the end customer. Outside frame dimensions were to be X by Y and end customer would approve framing, mats, etc., only if we received the bid. Payment in 30 days....

This suggests that the end customer already had a framer picked out, but needed to have some other bids on file. So the probability of getting the quote was low:

So, I quoted single window Solid Museum Rag, and CC glazing. I mentioned that "the mats and glazing all met ISO standards xxx, and PPFA standards, and I could requote with lower quality materials if they chose to use materials that did not meet these internationally recognized standards."

Well, we got the order! Apparently the other framer had no idea about these standards, and the purchasing manager was not willing to go with lower level materials.