We had several major chains in our company. In my territory we had a few independents and one major chain. I called on two offices of this major chain of stores. Indianapolis and Louisville. Their stores were the main reason for our employees doing business in the states I covered. The company covered six divisions in the eastern and the mid southern region of the country. My goal was to maintain the accounts that we had and to seek out more business to increase the number of accounts on each route.
Managing people was nothing new for me and making new account calls was also nothing new for me. I loved making cold calls on new potential customers. The company really made it very easy for me to achieve new business. Introducing new products to the customer was something I loved to do as well. The company really along with my belief in their products and services made my job easy. The hardest problem I had was the type of people we had for the most part were not sales people. I tried to encourage and instruct them on how to sell. They were for the most part just service oriented route delivery people. I could handle that I had maintainers work for me on other routes at the other companies I worked for. So I knew what to do. Go get the new business myself.
I believe that most people in the sales world that do not succeed is not necessarily because they did not have the ability to sell when it came to gaining new business, it was mostly because they had on blinders giving them tunnel vision. In other words, just focusing on the job of the day and trying to finish the day out and go home. I on the other hand would see a sign for a town that was a few miles off the beaten path and I would take the road to see what was there.
If was gained a new account I would ask all of them the same question. Who else do you know that you might think could be interested in our services? I always picked up a store ad and looked to see if they had other stores that they were maybe in the same ad group with or if they had other stores in their chain. In almost every case if you did a good presentation and sign up that customer, they would give you a referral.
If I did not have time to call on a potential new account I would write the store name and location on a tablet that I kept in the car with me. When there was time I would schedule an area of that territory where I could call on as many of these potential new accounts. This was cold calling at it’s best.
Cold calling takes more than calling just on that store. You must investigate. Investigate the community around the store, see if they have competition. Make a note see if I have competition in and around the town. Check their pricing, look to see what kind of service level they have from the competitor, do they have broken machines or dirty chemicals. Then before you make your new account call, check the account the same way. This is the way to gain new business. It takes time to do it right, that’s why a lot of sales people don’t succeed. They must take the blinders off.
