Customer Case Library: How to Become a Powerful Salesperson?
*Note: Due to privacy protection, the customer name, salesperson and component number in the following content are pseudonyms.
Building trust is not easy
June 2022
According to Cytech Systems Sales Manager Scot, this OEM customer in the elevator industry in North America (hereinafter referred to as Customer E) was very urgent when he first came to us. At that time, Customer E was just short of one material to complete the project.
Thanks to Cytech Systems' long-term, active expansion of overseas markets and accumulated word-of-mouth effect, customer E learned about Cytech Systems' brand in many overseas channels at that time, so he took the initiative to contact us.
As we all know, the elevator industry belongs to the industrial field. Customers in this field have extremely high requirements for material quality, and Customer E is no exception. Therefore, communication begins with research on the qualifications of Cytech Systems and the quality of goods.
Cytech Systems is one of the few independent distributors in China that has established its own QC Lab for External Visual Inspection, X-ray and Decapsulation, which will ensure the goods quality of Cytech Systems to a great extent.
Despite this, after establishing basic trust in Cytech Systems and requesting materials in short supply, Customer E was still unable to conclude a cooperation because the price was slightly higher for a while.
Through continuous digging, continuous communication with channels, and several rounds of iteration, we finally found the batch of materials for which Customer E received the price. At this time, the final transaction price of this batch of materials was much lower than the first communication.
When asked again, "Why do you put in so much effort to win this customer?" Scot said frankly that he values the customer's potential.
In general, winning every major customer is like fighting a tough battle, and the landing of every order is also a refinement of the entire Cytech Systems team and the entire business process.
Sensitively explore long-term needs
After establishing trust in cooperation for the first time, Scot said that the subjective initiative of sales should play a greater role, "I will proactively ask customers if they have materials in short supply to facilitate early intervention."
As an OEM customer of considerable size, Customer E has actually established its own complete channel. Even if there is no shortage of chips in the general environment, customers will not be able to get the goods as scheduled due to the original factory production line cycle.
Customer E was very satisfied with the goods. Scot, relying on his keen intuition from many years of sales experience, continued to track and serve customers, and discovered that customers actually had long-term demand for this material.
Take the initiative to cost down
Scot said, "Since the customer has purchased twice in a row before, and this material is a general-purpose IC, I judge that the customer has long-term demand for this material. But in the process of finding goods for customers, we will not limit ourselves. Instead of looking for the package currently ordered by the customer, we look for different packages of the same material at the same time, compare prices, and try to give customers a cost down."
It is reported that there are many types of electronic components, and different manufacturers have different naming rules for material numbers; and for the same material, in order to meet the use needs of different customers and material storage needs, the original factory often has Tape&Reel, Tray or Tube and other different packaging forms; in addition, even in the same packaging form, some materials will be divided into different packages according to the customer's usage.
Therefore, being familiar with the material packaging and material number naming rules of different manufacturers has become a required internal skill for all sales of Cytech Systems.
Sales value that cannot be replaced
In the process of communicating with Scot, the technical sales manager of Cytech Systems, we also discovered some core elements of Top Sales:
For example, subjective initiative. On the one hand, when a customer orders the same material twice, he is keenly aware that it may be the customer's long-term demand, and proactively looks for the corresponding spot stock to serve the customer;
After establishing initial trust with the customer, how to deepen this trust in daily communication and learn more about the customer's production plan, procurement cycle or quarterly/annual usage of certain materials will all be fed back into a more considerate approach to the customer and this series of processes will in turn enhance trust, thus forming a positive feedback loop.
On the other hand, in the process of looking for spot goods, we actively think about how to cost down customers, such as exploring different packaging materials.
All in all, this must be based on solid professional knowledge, and it is inseparable from the care and sensitivity of the sales staff.
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