by Jimmy Lamb of Sawgrass Ink
Do you wait for customers to contact you or do you go find them? Many B2B sales organizations in retail locations make the mistake having a sales strategy of waiting on new business to walk through the door (reactive strategy), rather than pursing opportunities outside their walls (proactive strategy).
Getting your “feet on the street” can yield significant gains in sales revenue as it greatly expands your marketing reach with very little investment. One of the most successful strategies is to incorporate promotional products into your menu of printed media products in order to satisfy a wider range of needs for your prospective clients.
According to figures released by the ASI (Ad Specialty Institute), US Companies spent over $16 billion on logoed promotional products in 2009. That is an astounding figure, but how do you compete effectively to earn your piece of that pie? In-house spec samples!
Spec samples are one of the top sales tools for turning leads into revenue. The concept is that you apply a prospective customer’s logo to a promotional item and then present it to them during your sales call. It’s an instant “icebreaker” that injects excitement and creativity into the sales presentation and helps you stand out from the competition, most of whom are equipped with nothing more than a catalog and some stock samples.
Sublimation makes it quick, simple and inexpensive to produce a variety of spec samples in-house. You can produce items in the morning and make sales calls in the afternoon. Timing is critical when it comes to making sales, so having the right tools at your disposal can be the difference between closing sales and losing sales!