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“Ask questions, ask questions, and ask even more questions of your customers and prospects because you never know where their answers will take you!” –Ben Bowers
Ben Bowers of Martin Bros. Distributing, Cedar Falls, Iowa has been inducted into the AFDR DSR Hall of Fame as the DSR of the Month for March 2017.
This DSR of the Month likes to be a customer first when calling on prospects. Bowers says that he tries not to act like a Salesman and prefers to keep it real casual so he does not put any pressure on them like many DSRs do. He does let them know what line of work he’s in so he can keep the dialogue going if he feels like they would be a good fit and it could be a good partnership for all parties involved.
Ben believes you ought to leave something behind on every sales call so the prospect knows you have some reason to come back. You could put a point of sale in their hand, an idea in their head, and/or a sample in their mouth.
Bowers keeps competition out of his accounts by being proactive and helping them with their business. He feels like they hired him as an employee when they agreed to do business with him. Many times they’re not working on problems that arose from products or orders, instead it could be something he noticed that the customer had NOT noticed.
In his audio interview, Ben uses his company’s DISH Magazine to help customers and prospects on trends and to show them all the resources that will be at their fingertips when they’re doing business with Martin Bros.
Hall of Fame advice from Bowers on this DSRLive audio interview:
- Time management is of the upmost importance to a DSR’s success.
- Ask your customers questions in order to learn, even if you might know the answer, because it might lead down a different road than the discussion was heading.
- Keep your customers focused on making money and growing their customer base, and then work hard to keep them HAPPY, because PRICE will become less of a factor.
- Timing is everything when you’re calling on prospects; avoid going in when they’re busy.
- BRING VALUE to every call you make on a customer/prospect; value that you can come back with on the next call.
- ACH = Less A/R hassles and more time to work on the customer’s business.
- Best place to double your business is to GROW WITH THE ACCOUNTS YOU HAVE!
Congratulations to Ben for this prestigious award, and keep up the great work!
DSRs, Be a Resource…and Sell Something!
