Evolution Framing Dealer Persona - Opportunity to Closing

In this sales playbook you'll find the basics for handling a dealer that is open to buying. So, this playbook focuses on moving a qualified customer forward as a potential sale and future business partner. This playbook takes you through the basic process of what to know, do, say, ask and show in order to move the client to closing.

What to Know!

If the dealer is willing to purchase our product our strategy or talking points are going to shift and should focus on:

Counter-person education - Even if you get them to understand the basis of what the product is and how to use to it; they need to be able to sell it. They have to be able to repeat the basic benefits of the product to the contractor and homeowner.
You need to know the distributors in the region if not traveling with a rep that sells other products to this store. Another strategy is to play the "I'm knew at selling this, can you tell me who your best distributors are and what makes them great?" You may get an answer and you may not on this but it can be very informative.
Inventory turns and amount of margin will typically speak to both the head counter-person that is normally commissioned or receives a bonus. The same can be said for the location manager.
Be prepared to set the expectations for success on both sides. Do not let them completely drive the expectation. Be aware if their expectation is too great this may not move to close, setting yourself up to try and meet something unrealistic without them vesting into the product is not a good business move.

Write your awesome label here.

What to Do!

Offer Education and Potential Sales.

Education: Whether its a lunch and learn with the head counter person. Offer a few hours during a slow period or partnering with a distributor and having a live event at the dealer location to educate and drum up sales; Education will be a large part of the success of the dealer location.

Why is that? Ask yourself this: Who is the independent rep selling this product. It's not the distributor rep. It's the head counter person at the location. They can and will advise contractors or homeowners to buy a product if it's easy to understand and explain and their is benefit in it for them. This makes them very influential to the sales.

Imagine the contractor that does some deck building comes in either asking for a discount or return on some culled lumber. You want that counter person saying well let me tell you how you can be done with dealing with these issues with wood and upsell a better deck to your customers.

Offering Pull-through:

In line with this discussion you may want to offer contractor pull-through. In order to move them to close you might have to ask them what will it take. If the issue comes down to more sales or guaranteed sales then talk to them about contractor pull-through.

Stick to selling points that will resonate with them from the discovery session. Pulling the STEEL vs Wood sheet is a good rundown comparison if you're attempting to cover this quickly.

Set Expectations:
Ensuring that we set clear expectations as we get clear expectations from the customer.

What to Say!

Will vary depending on the type of customer or person that you are talking to and what is important to them. The bigger points here are to speak to the product's benefits they care about, while not overdoing it. Here's a basic summary pitch, you can replace warranty and rot with any point that hits home for them:

Basic Pitch: Fortress Evolution Steel Framing is a great product to offer to your current deck builders, home builders, commercial builders, landscapers and retail customers. Fortress Evolution Steel Framing is a solution for most if not all your customers building a deck with the issues they currently deal with when using pressure treated lumber. Steel is much more consistent than wood and it will not rot, it comes with a 25-year warranty. The need to stock the material initially, is not necessary; which means it wont affect your inventory budget, but will increase your sales.

Key points to talk about:

Inventory turns/sales
Education - Tell them the different ways we support this including online videos that can save them time trying to explain it to a contractor or new hire.
How they can deal with stocking
How to deal with rough estimates and quoting
Have the inventory conversation

Objection handling - We really don't have time to work with folks to put together a quote - Send it to the distributor or fill out the form on our website. (Additionally, you can set them up with the base sizes working up an estimated price range for them based on the cost to their customer) This makes ballparking for them easy. They can add this as laminated pages in their SKU or lookup binder/book.

Objection handling - Stocking, we can't stock it here
Say that's okay, I have distribution in the area that will handle delivery or can drop off here X amount of times a week/month.

Objection handling - Education - We already have too much on our plate
We can talk to the contractor and explain to them how to sell our product at the kitchen table. Reach out to the distributor and see about using co-marketing funds to sponsor an event at the dealer location where they invite the contractors and their employees to lunch time cookouts. Setup several hour sessions around lunch-time for this purpose. You can partner with a distributor to make a this a larger event that will drum up sales for the dealer.

Objection handling - We will reach out to the distributor -
Identify if this is someone that just doesn't have time or if they just want you out the door. You can push a little to close to test this. If they stated they are interested offer to call up the distributor on their behalf to work through the details while standing their. If the distributor rep is with you, they should actively pursue closing the deal.

Setting Expectations of what we will do:
*Minimum one PK session w/Dealer Sales/Counter Team
*Two Lunch and Learns/Contractor events
*Minimum one Sales Skills seminar
*Industry Insights and Best Practices
*Quarterly Check-in’s for status update
*Incentives for milestones achieved (at discretion of Fortress Territory Manager)

Write your awesome label here.

What to Ask

Ask about a little further detail on their contractors. Explain to them you can help support with some pull-through by speaking with their contractors.

Who are your most loyal contractors that do deck building?

What are they currently buying to build decks with?

How much do and how often do they buy?

Ask about their distribution and delivery needs. You will need to know what our timeframes for delivery are from a distributor in the area before beginning this conversation.

If you do not have a distributor rep with you, ask them openly about who their best distributors are?
Ask them about delivery needs, how often, how much?
Understand their process by asking how they typically deliver to the contractor or if the contractor is coming by and picking the material up.
Ask them about how many decks wood they need in inventory in order service their current contractors.
What is your expectation on inventory turn? (Understand that we will the install for the first time in order to help increase sales)

You'll need to get an idea of what they expect in regards to lead time. We need to understand what their expectation might be.

What is the average lead time needed when you ask for a project to be estimated?

What to Show!

Stick the example builds if talking estimations. Some contractors might have their own engineers, and if the dealer is aware of this you may want to bring up the cad drawings information, or show where to get it from. Install videos, and guides, code testing and product guides are all items that could and should come up if they are willing to buy and will need to be onboarded.