Last week, I wrote about my tour of Syracuse-based distributor Haun Welding Supply. This week, I tagged along with some of my colleagues for a tour of Liftech Equipment Companies, a distributor of material handling and construction equipment. President Joe Verzino took the time to show us around, and was glad to answer all of our questions. Although not in gases and welding industry, the company has some very innovative strategies that I think translate across markets.
Verzino explained to us that Liftech’s outside salespeople have a limited number of calls they can make. For his salespeople, it’s around 6 per day, between the time it takes to travel and really take care of each customer. At 6 a day, that’s 1340 sales calls per year. With limited appointments, salespeople can’t waste a lot of time on cold calls; they must maximize every opportunity.
Instead of leaving it up to the salespeople to find all of their own customers, Liftech created a new position—now filled by a former sales manager—who creates a list called the “Top 200.” The list starts off with their “1:2” accounts, consisting of current customers. These accounts have about a 50% chance of leading to a sale. Next are the “1:4” accounts, which include dormant accounts and former customers, and figure to have about a 25% chance of a sale. As customers drop off the Top 200 list, it is populated with leads from the internet, advertising, attending trade shows, manufacturer recommendations and so on. Salespeople get the greatest return by focusing on this list.
By keeping to 1:2s and 1:4s, Liftech avoids the “1:14s,” the name it gives to completely new accounts who have never done business (cold calls). In addition to getting the most out of the call, Verzino says the practice has helped them expedite the time it takes to get their outside salespeople successfully selling.
What do you think? Could something like this work for your company? How does your company maximize the outcome of sales calls?
