Professional Distributor - 22

Customer relationship marketing
for the mobile jobber
Sell more stuff and make more money!

BY ALAN SIPE
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Alan W. Sipe has spent the last 42
years in the basic hand tool industry
including positions as president of
KNIPEX Tools North America, senior
vice president of sales and marketing at Klein Tools, manager of special
markets at Stanley Tools, and sales
manager at toolbox manufacturer
Waterloo Industries. Currently, Sipe
is the owner of Toolbox Sales and
Consulting, a company specializing
in sales strategy, structure, development, and training. Sipe can be
reached at alansipe@gmail.com or
847-910-1063.

here are two primary reasons for a mobile
jobber to use a form of social media called
" customer relationship marketing " (CRM)
for business: to sell more stuff and to make
more money.
I'm guessing these are both good things for you
and your family.
What is customer relationship marketing? It's
using what information you know about your customers and prospects to market your products to
their specific needs.
That said, here are some of the objections that
might be going through your mind right now:
* " I don't know how to do customer relationship
marketing. " - It's not that hard, even if you type
with one finger.
* " I don't know which customer relationship
marketing platform to use. " - Read below for
some good ideas.
* " I don't know what to write about. " - We'll talk
about content for products, promotions, and
technical tips.
* " I don't have the time. " - Once you get
started, you'll find there isn't much of a
time commitment.
* " I'm not good with words. " - If I can do it, so
can you.
* " I don't want to look foolish. " - No one cares.
Even if you do make mistakes, as you learn
you'll still be earning more money.
You may also wonder why there's such a
strong need for CRM: " I make my calls every 2-3
weeks and see X number of customers, why do I
need CRM? "
You just answered your own question. By taking a few minutes to compose a message on a social
platform (either you or your support person), you
can communicate with all 200+ customers and
prospects in an instant. Let's say you just took in
a nice storage cabinet on trade-in and you want to
unload it for $700. In 5-7 minutes you can take a
picture of it, send it to your followers, and sell it off
quickly. Otherwise, you may end up keeping the

22 Professional Distributor I February 2021 I VehicleServicePros.com

item in your warehouse until you stumble across
a buyer months later.
Here are a few more ways you can make the
most of customer relationship marketing:
If you don't already have this info, collect email
addresses and phone numbers from every one of
your customers. I know this will take some time,
but you only have to do it once. If they ask you why,
tell them you're putting together an email marketing program informing them of new products and
special offers. Yes, you'll have some customers who
will balk at this. That's fine. Don't make a big deal
out of it. Just say " thanks " and move on.
Next, you'll need to record this information
with a spreadsheet. To get started, add individual
columns for first and last names, phone, email,
brand dealer (if any), and their field of work. The
brand dealer and field of work is very important
since this will allow you to send mailings based on
a technician's line of work, if they have one: P&B
products to P&B specialists, alignment mailings to
alignment technicians, Chevrolet tools to Chevrolet
technicians, etc. As time goes on, you'll want to add
other details, such as birthdays, spouse's name, and
other important points. Send me an email and I'll
email you a basic Excel spreadsheet to use: alansipe@gmail.com.
Now that you've rounded up all this contact
information, you need to decide which form of
customer relationship marketing you want to use.
There are many media platforms you can use
to communicate with your customers. I suggest
considering email as your media form of choice.
It's easy, quick, and gives you significant flexibility
for pictures, videos, and links. Texting is fine, but
you're limited to what you can include with pictures, videos, etc. You could also look into Facebook,
Instagram, and LinkedIn, but since you only want
these communications to go to your select group
of individuals in your sales area, email offers the
tightest control.
You can start by highlighting the email address
column in your spreadsheet, copy and paste it in the

http://www.VehicleServicePros.com

Professional Distributor

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Professional Distributor