Page 62 - Lighting Magazine August 2018

Does size Matter?
58 enLIGHTenment Magazine | august 2018
www.enlightenmentmag.com
As the way of doing business evolves, it’s chang- ing the playing eld a bit. I look at my own buying habits, for example, it’s Friday night at 8 p.m., and I tell [Amazon] Alexa to reorder dog food. Like clockwork, the 40-pound bag of dog food is deliv- ered to my front door before noon on Sunday by a U.S. Post O ce vehicle. I receive a text advising me of delivery that even includes a picture of the drop-o . Sad to say, I no longer shop at the local pet store because I’m taking advantage of the available technology to make the process more e cient for me.
 Richard Alan: As we package groups of our products together for each sales call, the key is to pull out the right “weapon” that will grab each indi- vidual customer’s a ention — otherwise, you’re just handing out catalogs. We study each customer’s his- tory and possible variables as we prepare for each sales call. Those things can change daily so you have to stay current from one month to the next.
EM: WHAT ArE your bIGGEsT cHALLENGEs?
 Richard Alan: Whether you’re a large or small rep rm, or any size in between, managing customer expectations is the toughest part of the job. Amazon has destroyed traditional consumers. Everyone thinks everything should be “Prime” all the time. We represent products that are made when they’re ordered. They’re not mass-produced and si ing in a big warehouse just waiting to ship. Consumers with discretionary income tend to be more patient in waiting for their new lighting because they have an appreciation for the quality they are ge ing.
One of our other challenges is time manage- ment. We want our sales team to be selling, not doing paperwork. Salespeople aren’t traditionally known for their paperwork skills, so we hired a former legal secretary to handle that for us. It re- quires a lot of time and detail; having a back o ce support person has been a huge help. In fact, it has worked out so well that we’ve hired a second person. Beyond reports for our manufacturers, they generate data that is very helpful to our sales team in the eld about their accounts.
EM: WHAT do you coNsIdEr THE rIGHT TypE of vALuE-Adds for your cusToMErs?
 Jon McMahan: I’ve described my career as “climbing the ladder.” Literally. I go shoulder-to- shoulder with our customers, hanging lights and assisting in whatever capacity they need. Beyond the appreciation, it gets you more face time with customers. If you can provide that type of value- add – and do it with integrity and passion – you’ll develop solid relationships of trust.
We also build curated, custom displays for our showrooms. Rather than use a cookie-cu er dis- play, we give customers something beautiful that stands out on their oor.
 Richard Alan: We watch for any vacuums that need lling. For example, we noticed that many reps in our markets weren’t hanging prod- uct for their showrooms. If you don’t hang your own product, it doesn’t get hung. We now employ three full-time merchandisers whose job is to con- tinuously visit our accounts and hang our xtures. They also do some sales when the opportunities are there. I anticipate that we’ll bring on three more merchandisers next year. 