Your best customer orders regularly, trusts your advice and has been dealing with you for years, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting most of their business, especially when they’re buying products from another supplier simply because they don’t know you carry them. Before you spend more money chasing new accounts, take a closer look at what your existing customers are purchasing elsewhere and why you’re never asked to quote.
You’ve been dealing with them for years, you know their business, they order regularly and you’d probably put them near the top of your list if someone asked who your best customers were, but how much of their business are you actually getting?
I’m not talking about finding a reason to sell them something they don’t need, I’m talking about the products they already buy, the equipment they already use and the supplies arriving at their location every week with somebody else’s name on the packing slip, even though you could have supplied them. And you may have no idea it’s happening until you’re visiting their facility, notice a delivery or hear them mention an order, and when you point out that you carry the same thing, they give you an answer you’ve probably heard before:
“I didn’t know you sold that.”
Now, you can blame the customer for not looking at your website or reading the information you sent, but if a customer who has dealt with you for five years still doesn’t know what you can help them with, you need to take a closer look at how you’re communicating. Because somebody else is getting paid for that gap.
They know what they buy from you, which may be very little of what you sell
As a distributor or equipment supplier, you know your product lines, the manufacturers you represent, what you can source and which alternatives will work when the usual product isn’t available, but your customer’s understanding of your business probably comes from whatever they first bought from you.
If you helped them find a particular piece of equipment, that may be what they associate with your company, and while you’ve spent the past three years adding products and expanding what you offer, they’re still calling you for the same thing and buying everything else through suppliers they already had in place.
From their perspective, there may be no problem to solve, their orders arrive, their staff have what they need and they have no reason to investigate whether you could supply more of it.
From your perspective, you’re putting time and money into finding new accounts while an existing customer, who already trusts you enough to place an order, is spending money elsewhere on products sitting in your warehouse.
Before you decide you need another hundred prospects, it’s worth finding out what your current customers are buying without you.
Your sales report only tells you about the orders you won
An account spending $25,000 a year with you might look quite good, particularly if that number has been consistent, but it looks different when you discover they spend another $75,000 on products you also supply.
Those figures are an example, but this is where I’d start asking questions, because a customer can be loyal, happy with your service and ordering regularly while you’re earning a fairly small portion of their relevant purchasing.
You may also be missing changes within the account, perhaps they’ve opened another location, added a production line or hired someone who now handles purchasing, and because the usual orders keep coming in, nobody has had a proper conversation about what else is happening.
That’s the problem with judging an account entirely by its order history, it tells you what has happened between your two companies, but it leaves out everything you were never invited to quote.
You won’t always be able to put an exact dollar figure on what you’re missing, but you can certainly find out more than you know now.
Start with the order beside the order
You don’t need to turn this into a six-month research project, choose ten customers you know reasonably well, pull up what they’ve purchased over the past year and look at what would logically be needed alongside those purchases.
If they bought equipment, where are they getting the replacement parts, accessories and consumables, and if they regularly order supplies for one department, what are the other departments using?
If you supply one location, who looks after the others, and if they buy products for a particular job, are there related items they’re ordering separately that you could include?
The point is to go into the conversation with something relevant, because “we carry lots of other things” gives the customer very little reason to pay attention, whereas “I noticed we supply your equipment but we’ve never quoted on the replacement parts, is there a reason for that?” gives you something useful to discuss.
You might find out they didn’t know you carried the parts, but you could also discover that your competitor keeps them in stock, offers a delivery arrangement you don’t or has an agreement with head office that your contact can’t change.
Those answers matter, because knowing why you aren’t getting the order gives you something to work with, even when the answer isn’t what you hoped to hear.
Please don’t respond by emailing everyone your entire catalogue
I understand the temptation, you’ve realised customers don’t know everything you sell, so you send them everything you sell and consider the communication handled.
But now you’re expecting a busy customer to work through your product range, recognise what applies to their operation, compare it with what they currently purchase and contact you to discuss the possibilities, all because you sent an email saying, “Did you know?”
You know your products better than they do, so use that knowledge to make the connection for them.
If a customer buys one type of equipment, show them the related products that fit that equipment and explain why they might want to purchase them together, whether that’s fewer separate orders, compatible components, local availability or having one person to call when something goes wrong.
And make the next step easy enough that they can actually take it, ask for the specifications for their next order, offer to quote the items they’re already buying or arrange a conversation with the person responsible for that category.
“Here’s something relevant to your operation, and here’s how we can help” gives your customer a reason to respond that a warehouse full of product names never will.
The information needs to live somewhere other than your head
This is where a good conversation can turn into absolutely nothing, because you find out the customer has another location or needs a quote next month, then you get back to the office, deal with three urgent orders and never follow up.
If you’re the owner and most of these relationships run through you, you probably recognize how easily that happens, and your staff can’t act on information they’ve never been given.
Record who purchases what, which other suppliers are involved, when contracts or equipment are due for review and what you agreed to do next, then assign the follow-up to someone with a date attached to it.
Your CRM should help you do this, but even before you get into systems, somebody needs to be responsible for turning “we should talk about that” into an actual quote or conversation.
The same information can make your marketing more useful, because now you can send customers information based on what they buy and what their business needs, instead of sending the same general product promotion to everyone on your list and hoping it lands.
Give your best customers a reason to buy more from you
You aren’t going to win every purchase, and there will be perfectly good reasons for a customer to maintain relationships with several suppliers, but losing an order because you couldn’t meet the requirement is very different from missing it because the customer never knew you were an option.
I’d want to know which one was happening before spending more money chasing new business.
At Prowl, these are the conversations I want to have before deciding what marketing a company needs, because the answer might involve better product information on the website, more relevant customer emails, a proper account review process or getting sales and follow-up organised so opportunities stop disappearing between conversations.
What matters is whether the work helps you earn business, and in this case you already have somewhere practical to start, with customers who know you, purchase from you and may be quite willing to buy more once they understand where else you can help.
Your best customer is buying from someone else, and before you spend another dollar trying to replace that opportunity with a new lead, find out what they’re buying and why you aren’t being asked to supply it.
How much business are you missing from customers you already have?
If this article has you wondering what your customers are buying elsewhere, let’s talk about how you currently manage those accounts, what customers know about your products and where a more deliberate approach could help you earn more of their business.
Book a conversation with Debi Katsmar at Prowl Communications, and bring one or two customer examples so we have somewhere useful to start.
About the Author:
Debi Katsmar is the founder, CEO, and marketing strategist behind Prowl Communications, a Niagara-based marketing agency and consulting firm helping Canadian B2B businesses with marketing strategy, website strategy, CRM systems, lead generation, sales and marketing alignment, Fractional CMO support, and Fractional Director of Operations support. With more than 40 years in marketing and over 35 years leading her own agency, Debi helps business owners stop guessing and make clearer decisions before spending more money on marketing, systems, or growth initiatives.
