Sales & Marketing, I love the saying “NOTHING HAPPENS UNTIL SOMEONE SELLS SOMETHING”. Your “NEW” Life Safety Trade Association has ten major areas that we focus on. When you “HIT” on one of our “Drop Down” menu buttons; you will find a wealth of information. The following is a List of areas that help our members improve sales. We hope that you will improve your sales by using our new Programs. Using these tested programs will lower your “Cost of Sales” and improve your bottom line, which is your Net Profit.
1. CROSS MARKETING IS WHERE WE INVEST A LOT OF EFFORT. The Average Life Safety Businesses may have 8 to 12 “Profit Centers” that they use to develop their total Sales. We spend a lot of time trying to get our Members to focus on “Cross Marketing”. A sales person or “Route Sales Person” may be responsible for the sales activities around 3 or 4 of the “Profit Centers”. At the end of the month this persons’ Manager wants to know how well they did to improve sales over the last 3 months . This same salesman must know a lot about his companies other Profit Centers. With this knowledge, he can do “Cross Marketing” in areas that he or she are not responsible for. They may know nothing about Fire Sprinkler Inspections, but they know enough to develop a lead for that other specialist. You may want to look at our 4 Page “Document” # S – 127 “WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CROSS MARKETING LIFE SAFETY PRODUCTS & SERVICES”. The “Documents” the Life Safety Association Produces are educational, and give you many of the details you need to improve your sales. When you can help your best sales People improve their Income, you are improving your net profit and your “Equity Gain”.
2. FINDING, HIRING, MOTIVATING AND DIRECTING YOUR BEST SALES PEOPLE. This is an area of The Life Safety industry that gives most Owners and Sr. Managers a difficult time. We have all hired a New Sales Person who interviewed well, management was excited that they had a winner who was going to help take the Company to a higher level. 3 months later the new person was not covering his overhead, they were not improving and Management had to let the person go. After doing this several times, many owners give up trying to build a larger sales department, and just continue with a slower growth. The largest & Best Life Safety Businesses get past these road blocks. Our Association finds so many of the key elements that help the Best get past “THE BUMPS IN THE ROAD”. We have a dozen “Documents” that help build a Larger, Productive, and Profitable Equity Building Sales Department. You may want to ask for our “Document” # S- 128 WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HIRING & KEEPING THE BEST SALES PRODUCERS”. I have had a high level of success over the years hiring technicians as Sales People that had many years of experience Installing Life Safety Products & Services. They were tired of “Climbing Ladders”, and had the confidence that they could “Cross Over”. We find many of these new Sales People in the NICET Community. You will want to ask for the “Document” # S – 129 WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HIRING NICET PEOPLE TO JOIN OR MANAGE YOUR SALES DEPARTMENT. The Life Safety Business that hires the best trained NICET People is the Company that is picking up “MARKET SHARE”.
3. MARKET SHARE - MARKET SHARE - MARKET SHARE. This is a most important area of interest for all our Members. Yes, there are “Tens of Thousands” of Life Safety Businesses all looking for a larger part of the Market Share. If one Vendor lost a customer, they lost Market Share; if you gained that New Customer you just gained Market Share. Your Association wants its members to always be gaining Market share. We can write a BOOK on Market Share, but we will help you improving by providing you with a Dozen “Documents” to help you get there. One of the Programs we are working on this week is about My Alarm-Security Sales in “Industrial Parks”. Around the “Beltway” in my Washington DC Market area there were 120 identified Industrial Parks, after being in Business for about 5 years, I had an average of 4% of the market share, after developing a strong marketing program, four years later I had about 15% of the Market Share in 80 of those 120 industrial Parks. That was Millions of Dollars of new Businesses and thousands of R.M.R. Monitored accounts worth Millions.
4. THERE ARE OVER 50 “PROFIT CENTERS” COLLECTIVELY IN THE LIFE SAFETY INDUSTRIES. You can go to the front page of our web Site and hit on the “PROFIT CENTER” button and you will see the entire list with a couple of paragraphs talking about each of the 50 plus Profit Centers. The Life Safety Association has produced 4 pages “Documents” getting into the most important details about each Profit Centers. Now the Association is Creating additional 4 Page “Documents” talking about how to market each “Profit Center”. Most all of our Educational Programs are on the Internet, so you can read them on your own time schedule.
5. THE LIFE SAFETY ASSOCIATIONS NEWS LETTER each month will focus on one or two Sales & Marketing Programs and one or two of the “Profit Centers”. We will focus on 2 Vendor- Members that are providing special Products or Services to the Association. Our Vendors have many ways to help with our Marketing. Vendors spend a lot of their Capital Investment, looking for “Leads” for their Member Partners.
6. PARTNERSHIPS ARE A MAJOR PART OF “THE LIFE SAFETY ASSOCIATION MARKETING PROGRAMS. We like to see our Members build many “Partnerships” with our other Members. You will want to find the Members that do the Life Safety Work you do not wish to do. However, your Customers want you to do as many Life Safety services as possible. They like to work with one Great Vendor, then with 3 or 4 other vendors to cover their needs. We suggest many ways for our “Partners” to work together, but it is up to each member to decide how best the relationship will work for them.
As always we keep expanding on the information we provide to you. Every month we will add several pages to this “SALES & MARKETING” section, and add many “Numbered” “Documents” that give you a lot more information.