Selling to Specifiers

A key construction sales activity for any business that wants to reduce dependence on price and create demand for its products.

Specification selling is a complex process. It is not just about selling to architects but involves all members of the construction team – client, consultant, engineer, architect, quantity surveyor, main contractor and sub-contractor. It is about creating awareness of your products and the benefits that their use can bring to a project. With the complex nature of today’s projects, benefits will be different for each of the influencers and extend beyond simple performance to include many factors such as ease of installation, sustainability, warranty and modern methods of construction.

It is also a whole company activity, not just the job of a salesman. To be effective you need to develop a strategy for marketing to specifiers. Delivering targeted communications via the internet, literature, PR and advertising in a format which suits the recipient, which will be different for an engineer or an architect. A key to success when directing marketing activity towards architects is the use of high quality technical advice either over the phone, from the web site, via CPD seminars and of course during sales visits. Having used marketing communication to get the specifiers attention, the salesman must orchestrate the relationships between the different members of the team understanding who has most influence.

This is a core competence of Competitive Advantage and Chris Ashworth is a regular guest speaker at industry events on the subject. We have published reports on specifier communications, run training courses and publish white papers on selling to specifiers.

For more information see: