Build Your Business: 3 Reasons Why You Lost Your Last Label Sale
Your price was too high, right? Wrong. Here's three reasons why you really lost that last label sale, and what you can do to prevent it in the future.
Transcript:
Hi – I’m Clark Brown – I’m part of the account management team here at General Data.
In labels sales, you win some deals, and you lose some deals. You can’t win them all, but what can you do to improve your win rate? Let’s take a look at 3 reasons why you may have lost your last label sale, and how to overcome these obstacles so you win more, and lose less.
To begin, I want to talk about the number 1 reason salespeople report why they lost their last sale: Price. Most surveys of salespeople indicate this is the overwhelming reason, sometimes as much as 76%.
But I’m here to tell you that if think “price is all that matters”, then you have all but lost the sale.
Look, price is important – there’s no question about it. But it’s never only about price. If it was, then
Apple would have never sold any computers
A Yugo would be in everyone’s driveway
And Starbucks would never have poured a single cup of coffee.
Here’s some strategies to help you deal with and overcome pricing pressures in a label sale:
Number one – focus on quality and value so the buyer is thinking about more than just price.
With cheap labels, you get what you pay for. Many suppliers cut corners with materials, adhesives and other things in order to be able to sell the cheapest label. But from a customer’s standpoint, if the labels are falling off their boxes, or jamming their printers, or the printed image is very poor, then the cheapest price has become a big problem.
Remember – It is far better to buy a great label at a fair price, than a fair label at a great price.
Number two – are you talking to the right person about the right problem?
Successful selling is all about problem solving. Someone in the buying organization needs a problem fixed that your company is uniquely capable of fixing. That person with the problem does not buy on price alone.
Also, sometimes buyers will try to create a comparative playing field so they can use standardized comparisons to create price competition between suppliers. If you fall into this trap, you’re not problem-solving. You have to push to the real problem that needs to be solved.
Number three – creatively address issues such as freight costs, delivery or other logistics.
If any of these are causing pricing pressure, here’s where you can get creative – and General Data can help.
We can help you shop carriers to get a better freight rate. We can also help you analyze price points for different label quantities to find a sweet spot that works best for your customer. And we can help you propose a blanket order – where we inventory your customer’s labels and ship releases to them according to a pre-determined delivery schedule.
Reason number two for why you may have lost your last label sale – Lack of Product Knowledge or Expertise.
Does your customer view you as a label expert? Customers like to buy from people they trust. And customers will not buy from people who they think do not know the products they are selling, and can’t apply product expertise to help them solve their problems. They need to know that you have their best interests in mind when quoting a label solution to them.
You need to position yourself as a label expert to your customers. We can help you with that. We’ve got a lot of resources available to you to help you learn about labels. And your General Data account manager is always available to you – they can arm you with the product knowledge you need, ask the right questions, and help you help your customer deliver real value to their company.
The third and final reason why you lost your last label sale – Not really knowing your customer.
One of the most important commandments of sales is Know Thy Customer.
What’s going on with your customer’s business, or with your contact’s position and responsibilities?
When you don’t know what you should know, don’t be surprised when the answer is “no.”
If they are experiencing a downturn in business, or are going through a vendor reduction or consolidation, or even expanding and opening a new facility - you need to know that and get ahead of it. Understand where their business is going and talk about it with your contact so you can introduce and propose new products that may be a better fit for where their business is going. This will increase your value to them and enable you to supply the products they need even when business is down.
Has your key contact been moved, downsized, retired or had their position eliminated? This will happen….your best strategy is to expand your network within the company before this happens, and nurture additional relationships with other contacts within the company. This way you won’t be caught off guard – and you will have other resources to go to in order to preserve and expand the business you have with them.
The essential question you need to ask is: “Do I know how my customer’s business is changing?” Always be inquiring to understand the changes, so you can be part of the solution instead of a victim of change.
So there’s three reasons why you lost your last label sale. If you have any questions, or would like to discuss this in more detail, just let us know and any of our account managers would be happy to talk to you about strategies to win more label sales.
I’m Clark Brown, and thanks for watching!