Selling to construction industry Specifiers

Specification selling allows manufacturers to create awareness of, and demand for, their products reducing dependence on price to sell. By making clients, architects, engineers and interior designers aware of products' features and benefits and assisting them in the design process a manufacturer can get product "specified" at the start of a project. It is then necessary to monitor progress throughout the life of the project, ensuring the contractor stays with the specification and that products are purchased.

Why not work through our self assessment form to evaluate your specification sales activity.

Strategy Development
We can help you to develop and adopt a specification sales strategy, selecting the best products and market sectors to apply the process to. This could take the form of a workshop to help generate ideas, an audit of your existing activity or customer research to identify the top organisations your team should target.

Performance Measurement
To be effective, a sales team needs realistic targets and to be rewarded when they exceed these. Because of the long time frame and likely involvement of more than one salesman this is very difficult to determine. We can help you set these targets and can also undertake an external audit of your sales team's performance interviewing the specifiers they have worked with, allowing evaluation of each individual's performance based on independent data.

People Development
You may need to establish a new sales team, or add this responsibility to your existing sales team. Either way we can help with development and training. Our expertise includes evaluation of existing team members, and mentoring for both the salesman and the sales manager. We can also deliver in-house training programmes tailored to meet the needs of your business and introducing the concepts of specification selling. Alternatively, we regularly run an open courses "Effective Specification Selling" which individual members of your team can attend.
See details of open training courses Recruitment of staff is also an important process. Good specification salesmen are hard to find and expensive to retain so you need to ensure you find the right people. Although we do not offer a recruitment service within Competitive Advantage, we can introduce you to our partner who can help in this area. We can also be part of the vetting process to ensure that you see the most suitable candidates.
 
For more information click on the links below:
Specifier Communication Channels
Architect Communication
Sell on benefits not price
Selling to Specifiers white paper
Effective Specification Selling training course
Open Training Courses
Training

Sales Tools
Specification selling is about building relationships and justifying regular visits. To achieve this the salesman needs a range of good sales tools. For example; technical literature, case studies, CPD seminars, samples, NBS specifications, product directories and a web site which provides a high level of technical information plus a means of securing details of new projects such as design software. All of these can help to open doors and ensure a lasting relationship with your salesman as the first point of contact for advice. As with technical advice, it is not just about sending the leaflet or sample out in the post, but getting the maximum benefit from these buying signal.
 
We have extensive experience in the design and use of all of these tools and can advise your marketing team, or even take responsibility for developing them. Here are just some examples of how we can help:

Technical Seminars
Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is a powerful tool for opening doors and creating new relationships. Technical seminars are most effective when CPD certified. We can help you select the most suitable certification body and then help you to write the content so that it meets the strict requirements of CPD while also presenting your company in the most advantageous manner. We can also advise on, or even implement, a programme promoting your seminars to the target specifiers.
Having developed your seminar, it is then important to ensure it is delivered in a professional and effective manner. We can work with your sales team to tutor them in the delivery of seminars and build their confidence when facing a technical audience. For more information click on the links below:
Build relationships with specifiers
Delivering CPD Seminars training course
Presentation Skills training course

Technical Literature
Before investing in literature consider researching what your competitors are offering and the content and format that specifiers require. We can research the market for you and either work with your design agency or help you appoint a suitable agency drawing on our contacts in the industry.

Creating Awareness
Advertising and PR are important tools. A strong brand image achieved through awareness of products and successful projects will encourage specifiers to select your products. We can help you develop a promotional strategy advising on the messages you should be placing in the media. We are not a communications agency, but we can recommend suitable partners if required.
 
See our research report Specifier Communication Channels for details of the best communication media.

Sales Leads
Often teams are not using their time effectively and we can work with you to ensure your team target those specifiers that offer the best opportunities. For more information click on the links below:
Sales lead generation
Leverage from Sales Leads training course
Construction Market Segmentation

Customer Relationship Management
Selling to specifiers is about building and maintaining a network of relationships with decision makers in the construction industry. An extremely complex process, this can be best achieved by using a computerised contact management or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Introducing such a system requires a significant investment in money and time and needs to be right first time. Competitive Advantage can support you in this, helping you to define your initial requirement, prepare a specification for tender, select the most suitable software and then introduce it into your company. It is well worth the extra investment at the start to avoid some of the classic pitfalls which have made many companies' investments ineffective.

Customer Research
Research is an important part of the business process, helping you to understand your competitive position, identify opportunities, reduce risks and make better decisions. Competitive Advantage have conducted numerous research projects with Architects, Interior Designers and Engineers our researchers have an intuitive understand of their attitudes. We can conduct telephone interviews or run focus groups to evaluate how your products are used, information required, who influences product selection and what they are looking for in a supplier. For more information click on the links below:
Customer Research
Literature Research
International Sample Research

Architects Omnibus Surveys
A cost effective method of gathering a small amount of research information by having your question included in research. Competitive Advantage conducts surveys amongst architects designing in Residential, Commercial, Educational and Healthcare sectors. For more information click on the link below:
Omnibus Surveys

Competitive Advantage Consultancy Limited     Email: info@cadvantage.co.uk