Welcome to our first monthly sales tip from the fertile imagination and broad experience of Bill Foster, national sales manager for graphics with Herculite. In this first installment, Bill advocates for selling value rather than price for enhanced profit margins.
When it comes to evaluating sales strategies, virtually every business has a basic question to answer – do we want to sell commodity products or are we a value-added provider. It’s a valid and essential question.
Companies focused on commodities are, of course, driven primarily by price. By definition, a commodity is an undifferentiated product with the same features and benefits regardless of the brand or the provider. With commodities, it’s a race to the bottom with the lowest price provider declared the winner. As a result of this focus on price, margins are thin and customer loyalty is even thinner.
Organizations and brands that focus on value have an entirely different outlook than commodity specialists. Companies focused on value emphasize the ultimate benefits of their products and services and look for ways to differentiate themselves within a specific market segment. It’s a more complex and challenging approach, but the rewards include higher margins, loyal customers and strong brands.
Bantex Digital Media is an excellent example of a value-focused brand, offering an opportunity for distributors, wholesalers, OEMs and sign shops to form deep and loyal relationships with their customers based on superior profits margins from upscale applications.
Through robust design and technical engineering, Bantex Digital Media provides premier color and image clarity for vinyl banners and signs. The brand positioning – “Bantex ColorSure Technology™” - encompasses a broad range of value-added benefits. While there are numerous commodity printing materials on the market, none can compare with the quality and the U.S.-based customer and technical support from Herculite.
So what will it be for your company – commodity provider racing to the bottom or value-focused brand that’s building customer relationships to withstand the test of time?
