Big Game Hunting

After a week of working inside I was back on the road this week. I headed up to Chicago, and Milwaukee. I had several objectives on this trip. The first was to pay a visit to my dealer in Chicago to discuss an upcoming trade show and make sure he can handle a large influx of leads. The second objective was to train and motivate the sales reps from my new dealer in Wisconsin. My final mission was bigger. I needed to get a commitment from Grainger for the 2009 catalog.

What I have learned is that many of my dealers represent hundreds of products and if your not in there face then you are not on there mind. Such is the case with a new and unproven product like The Mule. I traveled to Chicago in June for Kazapoloza and to meet with a prospective new dealer in the area. In sales there are a few cities were you need to have great representation, Chicago is defiantly one of them. Back in June I left a 1 hour meeting with a contract in hand and a motivated rep for Chicago. However as time has passed I have yet to see results. How can a dealer with no competition in one of the largest markets in the US not be selling? We found out the answer to that on Tuesday when I meet with the owners. Apparently they took on our line but never really told there sales reps about it. I outlined a training program for them and saw some motivation in there eyes as we left.

I love that I have the ability to excite and motivate a customer. Sales is 90% passion and hard work, If I can build that into my dealers I will get results. I am committing myself to spending more time with my existing dealers to keep them fired up.

After working Chicago on Tuesday morning was off to Wisconsin for a day and a half in the field with a new dealer. It was great to see a new dealer get some success under thee belt the first day out. I was notified that on Tuesday afternoon we would do a demo for a potential customer. I went to pick up the Mule from the shipping hub and found that it was not charged. This will most likely cause a problem when it comes time to do a demonstration in 30 minutes. A lesser salesman would have canceled the meeting and cut his losses. My boss said to me this is only a good story if we close the deal. So I will try to do it. So there I am standing in front of 10 engineers and a plant manager not to mention a new rep who has never even seen The Mule. My job now is to try to get them to understand the operation of the unit and how it will work in there application. This is normally not a problem except I have a Mule with a dead battery. With kids to feed and a reputation to uphold I give it a go. CLOSED! The lesson is that selling is a lot like poker, the man is more important than the cards. It didn’t really mater if they saw it go because I bring the experience of hundreds of demonstrations. I would prefer however to have a working demo in the future.

After seeing more of Wisconsin than any man should in one serving I was headed to Chicago again to meet with Grainger. I stopped at this great little cheese shop that I have come to love in Milwaukee to pick up some cheese for Kim and a pack of cheddar and green pepper brats form me! (Yes incase you are wondering they were awesome!)

For those who don’t know what Grainger is I will explain? They are the largest industrial distributor in the world. This is like the Wal-Mart of industrial supplies and equipment. A commitment from Grainger will put us in a new league for 2009. I had a chance to get in front of the buyer at Grainger back in March and the meeting went well. There concern was that we couldn’t manufacture the Mule fast enough to meet the demand they would generate. This is a great problem to have. We told him we welcomed the challenge and went on our way. They had been unresponsive for the past few months except when a senior manager with the company ran into us at a trade show in Cleveland. She told us that she loved The Mule and she wanted us to keep pursuing there 2009 catalog. So finally after 8 months of phone calls and e-mails from my boss, we were able to get another meeting with them. I new going in the door that we were lucky to get a second shot at this deal, and I didn’t intend to waste it. There building in Lake Forest, IL appears to have been designed to intimidate sales reps, when you walk in there is a huge waiting area in the atrium were the sales reps wait. You feel like you are being stared on and pre judged from above by all the people working on the upper floors. Then the buyer appears and it is go time.

The negotiation process is kind of one sided. Grainger is so big that they know that they hold all the cards. Hey dictate to us what the process will look like, and then negotiate a price. In order for me to get my best margin I must assess the projected sales volume from a dealer. Most dealers I can give you a pretty accurate answer walking out there door. Grainger is so big that it is hard to quantify. So I must try to get this info from the buyer. I ask straight up “John, do you have any idea how many units you can move in a year?” He knows what my game is because he has been in that seat for a lot of these meetings. There is a long silence and then a crooked smile. “No, I couldn’t tell you” He knows exactly how any of these units he will move in 2009. Now it’s his turn, he wants to know what his bottom line price will be. “any idea what our cost will be on the unit?” Now we don’t want to have this discussion this time because there will be other cost that we need to account for with Grainger such as freight cost and co-op marketing programs. There fore the price we give him needs to be inclusive of those things or else we will eat lot of profits. The answer comes after my own delayed silence: “Well John, we are looking at a price increase this month and we haven’t nailed down the final number yet. We will get back to you this week on that.” This could go on all day, it is like a chess game, we both know what our next move is but we will try to hold off revealing it as long as possible. I love it! This is what my father-in-law calls the art of the deal. It is what drives me to get up at 3:00 AM to get on a plane and fly three hours to get to a 10:00AM meeting and spend all day in the car making cold calls looking for the next big deal. And when it was over we got the commitment that we came for and we go home tired and satisfied. Our iceberg has been melting over the last six months on our other product line. This may be the ship that carries us back to solid ground!

After a long three day trip it is time to relax and fly home. Oh wait one second there buddy you get to fly out of O’Hair. Just your usual Thursday night flight out of Chicago, half of the flights are cancelled and now its time to fight the airlines to get out of there.

Well a few days in the office and then back at it next week.