Progressive Distributor - Start at the finish

Start at the finish

When selling coated abrasive products, where should salespeople start? At the finish.

When it comes to selling coated abrasives, successful salespeople understand the goal is not to sell more sandpaper. They sell finish. Instead of pushing product, the objective is to help the manufacturing customer achieve the finish they need.

In order to offer effective solutions, salespeople need to know as many details as possible about their customer's manufacturing process. First, they need to know the kind of work being performed (grinding, deburring, buffing), the material being worked on (steel, aluminum, brass, fiberglass) and the tools that workers use to do the job.

But that's only the beginning. It is perhaps even more important for salespeople to understand the customer's work process. If a part doesn't have the proper finish, will it be rejected? If so, what is the rejection rate? If a part leaves one end of a production line with visible burrs or weld marks, how does that impact the rest of the production process? What are the costs involved in changing abrasive materials or changing from one tool to another?

When salespeople have more knowledge about the customer's process, they're better prepared to solve customer problems, says Mike Jones, a district sales manager with abrasives and power brush manufacturer Weiler Corp.

"You can't go in and say, 'Here's the catalog, pick out what you need,'" he says. "Distributor salespeople have to earn their customer's trust. They need to work closely with the people on the plant floor, learning their production process, learning what their needs are. It's only after this relationship-building that the customer is willing to share information needed to do an accurate cost analysis."

He adds that as manufacturers continue to look for cost reductions, a distributor salesperson who can go into a facility and provide a solution that helps reduce the customer's costs will be rewarded with future business.

Distributors and manufacturers of coated abrasives products agree that the most successful salespeople spend as much time as they can on the plant floor. They aren't afraid to get their hands dirty.

"Distributor salespeople need to become an extension of the customer's engineering department," says Jeff Niebuhr of 3M. "There's only so much you can do in the front of a plant. You have to get in the back. You want to be the guy that the people in the plant will call if they have a problem with anything."

Not an easy sale
The coated abrasives marketplace is probably one of the most competitive product groups distributors sell. In addition to market leaders 3M and Norton, hundreds of abrasives manufacturers, converters and specialty abrasives producers compete for business. As a result, salespeople need to be effective at demonstrating why the product lines they represent are best-suited for a particular application.

So, in addition to understanding the customer's processes, salespeople also must be at the top of their game when it comes to product knowledge.

"Abrasives products are complex. The variables are infinite," says Les Branch, vice president of sales and marketing for Garryson. So, distributor salespeople must have enough product and application knowledge to understand which products to recommend in a given situation.

"In a high percentage of the applications out there, end-users could be using something else that would be more productive," says Branch. "It could be our flap disc is better than the flap disc they're already using. Or, they may be using a flap disc when they should be using a resin fiber disc or a depressed-center wheel, which would lower their cost."

Branch says the most successful distributor salesmen carry a pneumatic head or an angle grinder in their car and are willing to go into a plant and demonstrate how the product works.

"You can put a sample on someone's desk and it has no value to that person. It's magical when you go in and show someone how your product can do a better job than what they're currently using," he says.

Test, then re-test
There will always be salespeople willing to undercut you on price and buyers looking to grind down your margins. But experienced, knowledgeable abrasives salespeople understand how to demonstrate total cost savings. It's not an easy sell and it involves a great deal of time and testing. It's not uncommon, for example, for salespeople to make several trips to a plant to demonstrate performance characteristics of multiple products, test various grit sizes, adjust speeds, and experiment with a variety of tools and techniques.

Niebuhr cites a recent example where he worked alongside a distributor salesperson to test abrasive belts used to deburr excess material from aluminum castings.

"We were able to show them that we could extend their belt life by changing the speeds of the abrasive belt, changing the contact wheel and other adjustments," says Niebuhr. "It still gives them the finish they need, but we're giving them a faster cut, which helps our belt last longer."

The result is total cost reduction. Instead of using 10 sanding belts per shift, operators use five. Even though the initial purchase price is 15 to 20 percent higher, the customer realized 15 to 25 percent cost savings. The testing took days to complete because the customer wanted to see how the belts performed for more than one operator over multiple work shifts. Although the effort is time-consuming, Niebuhr says it's necessary.

"I'm not there for the first sale. I want to make the 1,000th sale to that customer," he says. "If I'm there for the first sell, I could just throw a piece of paper on their desk and give them a price. I want to build a relationship and we want to stay in business with each other for a long time."

Put it in writing
Effective sellers put test results in writing using terms that are meaningful to the customer. For example, instead of making a blanket statement such as, "Our abrasive belts last longer," they
produce detailed reports indicating how production improved from 70 pieces per belt to 150, finishing time reduced 20 percent, reject rates fell 30 percent.

"You have to be willing to do a lot of testing and documentation," says Barry Schreiter, sales manager for Merwin-Stoltz, an abrasives and cutting tools specialist in Milwaukee. "The customer might be running a belt and getting 10 pieces and we can upgrade him to 13 pieces. You have to make them aware of that so he can compare his cost-per-piece."

He adds that salespeople must communicate equally well with machine operators, shift foremen, engineers, purchasing people and plant managers. Schreiter says successful sellers also talk to customers in terms of total packages. If a polishing shop uses sanding discs or flap wheels, for example, it also uses air tools, mandrels and dressing compounds.

"These are the kinds of things you can throw together into a package," he says. "Part of the salesman's job is picking up add-on sales."