Do you miss out on growing sales because your clients pigeonhole you?

Do you have trouble introducing your clients to new products and services? Does their memory seem to spring back to what you used to do or your initial offering to them? Do they seem to pigeonhole you in a certain category, unable to see or acknowledge that you offer other products or services?

This is a common problem for many businesses, especially when they start out as one thing and evolve into something more than a ‘one trick pony’. For instance, one of our client companies has recently merged their new product business with their service and spare parts business, requiring their sales people to promote and sell both offerings. They are finding that their clients are having trouble incorporating the new model in their perceptual bandwidth. The sales people keep finding that their clients keep associating them with one or the other of their divisions, not both. Now the sales people have a part to play in this as well – they must make sure that they represent the whole business message every time they meet with the client, while attending to the specific need to the client at that time. Not always an easy task as the sales people can have their own difficulties adapting to the new format with some falling back into their comfort zones.

The challenge to get both clients and sales people on board is to have a clear message that is easy to understand and a contextual framework by which all of your products and services hang off. Ultimately the sales people and clients can understand what the whole business is about and where they all fit in.

I too, have direct personal experience of this when I set out in my own business. Back in 1995 when I launched Barrett I had very little of my own product to sell at the time other than my consulting and facilitation skills – essentially I was the product supported by other people tools, mainly assessments. I happened to be a licensed distributor for the Call Reluctance assessment – SPQ*Gold where I could sell direct and build sub-distribution licenses.

The SPQ*Gold was relatively new to the market back then and had a real competitive edge, and I did such a good job selling it, my business became the number three distributor in the world for this tool. However, I knew strategically that if I was to grow my business on solid foundations I either needed to secure distribution license agreements or develop my own products. It was in 1998, three years after I started my business, that I made the decision to make my own products, with an aim to have more than 80% of my revenue come from my own products such as sales training modules, sales simulations, sales recruitment kits, sales performance management systems etc and less than 20% come from other product manufacturers. To build my own products takes time, energy and investment, and 16 years on I now have over 200 items on my IP Register.

As I began to introduce my Barrett-built products a funny thing happened with my existing clients. They couldn’t see my new product offerings. Instead, they kept pigeonholing me as ‘SPQ SUE’. It turned out I had done such a good job growing the brand of SPQ*Gold in the Australian marketplace that people thought it was my product, when in fact it was not. I did not have an exclusive license arrangement and I knew that if I did not rectify this perception problem I would be at risk of being the unofficial sales and marketing arm for the makers of SPQ*Gold and therefore put my business at risk. If they ever came in and took away those licenses I would be left with nothing, yet I would have been the person that would have done all the heavy lifting in the market place.

As I transitioned from the majority of my revenue coming from other product supplier sources, I not only had to invest in building good quality products and resources, which takes time, but I had to begin to change the perceptions and mindsets of my clients so they could begin to expand their views about what my business was capable of.

Little did I know how long that would take. They just seemed to hold on to ‘SPQ SUE’ for such a long time and didn’t want or couldn’t see that we were able to offer so much more. There appeared to be a myopia, a near-sightedness that existed, but they weren’t to blame – it turns out I had done such a good job building loyalty and brand awareness for this tool and my expert use of it that I had inadvertently confused my brand with another company’s key product. In short, it took me only three years to get them to think of me as brand ‘SPQ SUE’ but it took me another six to eight years to finally get them to see what else we had to offer that wasn’t just SPQ*Gold, such as sales and sales management training, sales assessments, sales coaching and sales consulting. I had to rework my business brand to represent a Sales Transformation and Sales Mastery Business rather than just an assessment business. Now with careful planning, consistent messaging and persistence we are known in our own right and SPQ*Gold is only part of what we offer.

So to avoid being pigeonholed by your clients here are some tips:

• Make sure your message is very clear and across everything you do.
• Make regular and consistent contact with clients and prospects to ensure you keep them updated about your service or product offerings, ie. eNewsletters, product updates, face-to-face meetings, etc.
• Make sure your new products or services are presented in a way that makes sense to your clients and market place.
• When meeting with clients make sure you uncover all of their priorities, which can give you the opportunity to present your broader capabilities and make them aware that you are more than just one thing.
• Know how to present your complete offering as a system which can work as a whole or in parts.

Next week I will write about the decision we made to shift from being mainly a distributor of products to a product manufacturer in our own right and the challenges and lessons we had along the way.

Remember, everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett practices as a coach, advisor, speaker, facilitator, consultant and writer and works across all market segments with her skilful team at BARRETT. Sue and her team take the guess work out of selling and help people from many different careers become aware of their sales capabilities and enable them to take the steps to becoming effective and productive when it comes to selling, sales coaching or sales leadership.To hone your sales skills or learn how to sell go to www.barrett.com.au.