Admit it, you’re exhausted. This week’s presidential election has left our nation physically and emotionally spent. How many hours can one person spend staring at the Electoral College map? Suddenly, everyone is an expert on the voting proclivities of Wayne County, Michigan.
Well, we’re here to provide a respite from politics, so take five minutes to peruse our State of the Industry focus on elevating sales in a sea of sameness—pandemic edition. We’ll open this month’s overview by canvassing our dealer panel on the merits of taking a verticalized approach to sales.
Brooklyn-based TGI Office Automation had been embracing a verticalized philosophy prior to the pandemic outbreak, increasing sales training to address the particular needs of a specific industry or department. According to Vincent Colaianni, director of sales development, TGI performed a review of its client base and identified the firm’s top 10 verticals.
“We put together training tools for these 10 verticals; identifying the correct people to speak with, as well as pinpointing pain points they may be experiencing, where TGI could help,” Colaianni said. “These tools also provided insight into that industry’s buzz words, roles, key documents, terminology, and compliances that they need to adhere to.”
For Pearson-Kelly Technology of Springfield, Missouri, the dealer’s approach is less tailored toward verticals, but rather identifying personas that mesh well with the environments in which it excels. Reps are territory-based, supported by a cadre of subject matter experts. On the IT side, Pearson-Kelly has reps who are more fluent in speaking to education or health care sectors, according to Lee Flood, executive vice president.
“What’s been more important to us, from a marketing perspective, is looking at where we do well and who are the organizations we want to partner with,” Flood noted. “It’s about defining our ideal customer profile. It seems there are certain verticals where, as an organization, we’ve done better. But when we start to look at that ideal customer profile, it’s not as verticalized. It’s more about a certain persona, a certain type of environment where we do well.”
Like Pearson-Kelly, Advanced Imaging Solutions (AIS) of Minnetonka, Minnesota, has territory reps adept at selling any item from its product and service portfolio across the vertical spectrum, supported by specialists. According to Stephanie Keating Phillips, director of solutions, AIS segments active calls into categories such as production/industrial print, managed IT/voice solutions and traditional MFPs.
“As a company, we have had an aggressive marketing tactic to discuss our industrial print offerings with a focused list of potential clients the last few months,” she said. “These businesses are in a vertical group that is more focused with a longer and more involved sales cycle. With these clients, we are sharing conversations on anything from industrial print solutions to embellishment. We are also utilizing our relationships with our manufacturer partners to dig deeper and move quicker within this specialized vertical.”
St. Cloud, Minnesota-based Marco has long embraced a vertical selling approach, with specialists aligned with construction, health care, manufacturing, finance and legal. Steve Gau, president of the copier division, has been paying particular attention to individual sectors in light of the pandemic. Altered business conditions have created a need for monitoring trends in the education and health care spaces in terms of watching parts and supplies utilization.
Scott Whitt, vice president of sales for Hendrix Business Systems of Charlotte, North Carolina, notes that some of his reps tend to develop more focused areas of expertise. However, they have a defined focused area of net-new they are responsible for, whether it’s a geography or a named account list. A degree of accountability is involved should competitive business encroach on that focused area.
Still, Hendrix does provide a degree of leeway. “We allow (reps) to be entrepreneurial in spirit, so if they’re reading the Business Journal or have a relationship that they can take advantage of, they are free to go outside of their specific assignment and pursue the opportunity, as long as it is not already being actively worked by another rep which must be reflected in our CRM,” Whitt said. “This approach works well as long as you employ solid citizens first and good salespeople second. Hendrix adheres to that philosophy.”
