Click player below to listen
DSR Dave explains when he first started as a DSR that he was known as the “give away guy” by the other sales people. When he surpassed the top salesman in total weekly sales, they would harass him about how low his margin was and that he was giving everything away. Finally, he asked the top sales people how he could make more margins. They all told him the same thing, that he had to learn his products. If he learned his products and how to apply the products as solutions for his customers, that would lead him to the promised land of more gross profit. Miesse explains the step-by-step process he used to get there.
The more you know about the products you sell, the less important the price is to customers. If you can solve your customer’s problems, then the price becomes less of an issue. And the way to do that is with product knowledge.
So this show is about pricing, sort of. When pricing is the most important thing to a customer, you’ve not done your homework on that customer to see what solutions they are in need of that you could be of help. Most of the time, the solution is a specific product.
If you want to make the biggest difference with the “pricing hurdle,” learn those products that your company is best at in your market territory. Which products are those you might ask??
They would be the top 200 items your company sells. Run a report of the items most sold to the least in descending order. You can run it for the last six months or year. Most distributors have a system in place for their DSRs to run this report whenever they need it. If they don’t, just ask your manager to run it for you.
