Up Your Business is an exclusive GEARS Magazine feature in which I share stories, insights, and reflections about business and life.
I recently heard a story about a guy who went to a tree nursery and asked, “When’s the best time to plant a tree?” The salesperson replied, “Ten years ago.” Let that sink in for a moment. How this story relates to this article will become apparent as you read on.
I’ve been asked to speak about Outside Sales at this year’s Powertrain Expo. My presentation is called Turning Outside Sales Inside Out. I promise that those of you who attend will leave with several innovative ideas that can make a significant impact on your business.
Of course, I’ll cover what I call the traditional approach to Outside Sales. I’ll teach you exactly how to make an effective presentation that will always end with a “yes” from your prospect. I call the technique “Putting a Pebble in Their Shoe.”
However, I’ll also introduce tradition-breaking, inside out concepts that will transform your beliefs about what you think you know about Outside Sales and marketing in general. You’ll be excited to get home to implement some of the ideas you’ll discover.
WHY OUTSIDE SALES NOW?
It occurred to me that Outside Sales is a topic that hasn’t been discussed much in recent years. I’m also surprised at how many shops either have no formal Outside Sales Program or if they did, for some reason they’ve now abandoned it altogether. I wondered why this lack of interest happened.
Perhaps it’s because many transmission specialists have expanded into general repairs. They think the idea of getting referrals for transmission jobs is now out of the question because the GR shops won’t refer their customers to a shop that’s competing for the general repair work.
Another reason might be that with the shrinking profit margins on today’s transmissions, shops are less inclined to offer wholesale discounts for fleet or sublet jobs.
Maybe the idea of paying referral commissions to shops that refer jobs your way goes against your grain.
It could be any number of other reasons, but I submit to you that just as the industry has changed so has outside sales. It’s a different marketplace today, and the possibilities for growing your business through outside sales are limitless. It boils down to whether you see an opportunity to fill a need or a bunch of reasons for not doing it.
If you think you know all you need or want to know about outside sales, and you aren’t interested in considering the possibility that it can work for you, you’re going to miss the potential opportunity. Don’t let your preconceptions about Outside Sales stand in the way of opening your mind to this virtually untapped marketing realm.
In one fashion or another, I owe the success I’ve enjoyed in my transmission career to Outside Sales. Furthermore, I owe Terry Greenhut a big thank you, as well. While I performed the job of Outside Salesperson for my business, I was stumbling along with perseverance over skill until I attended Terry’s two day “Sales and Management Seminar.”
You may be one of us who have enough gray hair to remember Terry’s first seminars back in the 1980s. He was a big proponent of Outside Sales. He spent a good portion of a day covering what I call “traditional Outside Sales.” As a result of what I learned from Terry, Outside Sales became the backbone of our marketing strategy and remained so until I sold my business 25 years later.
During those 25-plus years, I honed my skills and experimented with a plethora of creative and even crazy ideas – some worked, some didn’t, and some were ahead of their time. I want to share some of those ideas with you.
A LITTLE HISTORY
On May 1st, 1981, we opened the first of what was to become 10 Transmission Factory locations in Washington State. It was located in Marysville, a small town, even by Washington standards. We chose the name because our original business plan was to only rebuild and sell transmissions to general repair shops, dealerships, and transmission shops.
We thought Transmission Factory was a name that our target customers could comfortably use to help when selling one of our units. They could tell their customers, “We’ll purchase a rebuilt unit from the Transmission Factory for you.” Back then, we thought it just sounded more credible.
We didn’t offer installation. We felt that made us less threatening to shops that might have otherwise perceived us as competition. We wanted to make a clear statement that we were their supplier, not their competitor. As it turned out, that only mattered to some of the local shops, especially the transmission shops, but not at all to the dealerships.
At any rate, the month before we opened for business, I hit the road calling on potential wholesale and fleet customers statewide. Of course, I started close to home and worked my way out in concentric circles until I’d covered most of Western Washington. Every month, I contacted the shops that seemed open to doing business with us. I’d reach out to them with a visit, phone call, or by mail – no email back then. I contacted the other less-interested shops at least once every six months. Ironically, shops that didn’t seem interested and barely gave me a chance to say hello often became customers.
As sales grew, we outgrew our building. In 1983, we built a larger facility. In response to requests for full transmission service and repair, we also added six service bays and hoists. We operated the front half of the building as a traditional full-service transmission shop, and we located the Transmission Factory in the back. We continued to market our rebuilt units through Outside Sales, but we also promoted the traditional operation utilizing many of the ideas we’d learned from any seminar we could find. I was a “seminar junky,” and it paid dividends for us.
Eventually, we added service and installation centers throughout the state. We supplied rebuilt transmissions to each of our centers from the Transmission Factory. In addition to offering traditional retail transmission shop services to the local markets, all our centers were distribution points selling rebuilt units to local shops as well as performing fleet sales and service. Therefore, we never abandoned our Outside Sales commitment. We always maintained a robust direct sales effort.
If you think that Outside Sales Programs only work for transmission specialty businesses, you might want to set that thought aside. You can put Outside Sales to work for your business even if you’ve expanded into offering general repairs.
Some of our shops were in small markets, and we added GR to our service offerings to more fully utilize our capacity. Interestingly, we didn’t experience any significant loss of referrals or unit purchases from our existing GR accounts. However, we always respected that their customers were their customers, and we took overt steps to strengthen their relationships between their customers and them. Additionally, we maintained our direct sales presence in the market.
OUTSIDE SALES ARE PROFITABLE
If you think that Outside Sales Programs produce less profitable sales, you’re wrong. Many programs don’t involve discounting or paying referral commissions at all. Outside Sales can be the single most effective form of marketing for transmission shops and transmission/GR combo businesses, as well.
It historically results in the highest average repair order, and it’s a consistent source of jobs. It’s also one of the least expensive forms of promotion in terms of dollars yielded per dollar invested. Many shops derive over 50% of their entire sales volume from effective direct sales programs.
TRADITIONAL OUTSIDE SALES
Traditionally, our industry viewed an Outside Sales Program as a method to gain sales from direct personal contact with potential commercial customers. The primary objective was to tap into sources of ongoing sales; in other words, targeting business-to-business relationships that produce multiple transactions on a reasonably regular basis. Some examples include:
- Businesses with small to large fleets,
- General repair shops that refer their customers directly to you because they don’t do transmission work,
- General repair shops that sublet transmission work to you, then mark it up and resell it in their shops,
- Shops that purchase rebuilt transmissions from you for resale.
There are many tried and true techniques for capturing these traditional types of accounts. However, by expanding the scope of your vision, you’ll realize that the marketplace is packed with opportunities for reaching other customers in creative and innovative ways – customers that probably aren’t even on your radar in terms of being prospective Outside Sales targets.
It starts with identifying a need or problem that a potential target account has and showing them how you can solve it for them. Zig Ziglar was a legendary motivational speaker who observed, “You can get anything you want in life by helping other people get what they want.”
When you come to Powertrain Expo and attend Turning Outside Sales Inside Out, I’ll share some examples of targets you’ve most likely never considered, I’ll show you their needs and problems, and I’ll give you some creative solutions you can offer to help them. Prospective new accounts are everywhere; I can help you take off your blinders so you can see them.
Here’s a small sample of topics to whet your appetite:
- When you’re doing Outside Sales, stop selling!
- Put a pebble in their shoe.
- Get them to say “yes” every time.
- What is the hardest sales call to make?
- What is the most valuable sales call to make?
- Let me introduce you to your sales team.
- Cross-promotions get other businesses selling for you.
- Make an offer they can’t refuse.
- Don’t spend another dime on advertising until you know these four rules.
- Ghosts can help you get sales.
- Yes, GR shops will refer transmission work to you.
Just like the best time to plant a tree, the best time to start an Outside Sales Program was ten years ago. However, it’s never too late to get started. If you already have a robust program, good for you, but you should continuously look for new ways to improve on it.
This article has been a shameless attempt to encourage you to do something that could transform your business. Attend this year’s Powertrain Expo at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. I promise you that if you do, you won’t be disappointed. I’ve not met anyone who’s attended past EXPOs and not significantly benefitted from the camaraderie and the information provided in the technical and management seminars.
I also promise you this, if you come to Turning Outside Sales Inside Out, you’ll fall in love with at least one idea, and if you use it, it will pay for your trip many times over. Moreover, it will keep paying you – year after year after year.
About the Author
Thom Tschetter has served our industry for nearly four decades as a management and sales educator. He owned a chain of award-winning transmission centers in Washington State for over 25 years.
He calls on over 30 years of experience as a speaker, writer, business consultant, and certified arbitrator for topics for this feature column.
Thom is always eager to help you improve your business and your life. You can contact him by phone at (480) 773-3131 or e-mail to coachthom@gmail.com.
