You’ve made a commitment and the effort you have been putting in is paying off in dividends. Quoting is easy and with laser accuracy. You are responding to RFQs faster than ever and you’re being awarded more (and better) jobs. Order entry is now a science. Your team is converting quotes to orders in seconds and efficiently handling any fringe cases that may arise. The production process is no longer hitting speed bumps thanks to ultramodern scheduling, seamless part/order tracking, and readily available operator instruction. Inventory is accurate, your customer communications are fully documented, and you’ve been effortlessly sending POs for months. All of this is resulting in more parts out the door at an ever-increasing pace and your customers are thrilled with the transformation they are experiencing with your service.
What is left to improve? A modern solution, designed specifically for your industry to unlock massive opportunities for marketing and sales with data.
How to Improve Your Job Shop Marketing Strategy
Automated data collection and reporting opens doors for advertisements that pop, especially in the manufacturing job shop industry. Confidently and proudly display/plaster your on-time delivery metrics, parts processed statistics, quality data, expedited order performance, and more on the front page of your website! Advertising these data-driven numbers will provide confidence to your prospects to trust you with their business.
Give your customers the white glove experience. Top-notch customer satisfaction goes a long way, and any positive experience will be shared among colleagues and peers, generating huge referral potential. Make them feel respected with your specialized customer-facing documentation; their logos (and your branding) on all quotes, shippers, packing lists, certs, and invoices. Identify your ‘Dream 100’ customers by analyzing production data and ramping up efforts to better serve them. Establish criteria based on this customer and put in marketing efforts to start targeting similar plants. Show trust to those that deserve it and share the customer portal with them. This transparency will bolster your relationships with these customers, again creating huge potential for referrals and organic growth.
How to Improve Your Process Manufacturing Sales Strategy
A sale always begins with relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Use data from your modern, industry-specific software to establish deep credibility with your customer base, such as:
- Confidently offer expedited timelines and hit them.
- Negotiate fair prices and win-win contracts using historical production data.
- Utilize the ‘who touched what parts and when’ part tracking and audit capabilities to offer assistance in any quality-related discussions.
This data will turn you into the expert, which will lead to trust, bolstered relationships, and more sales.
How to Improve Quoting to Boost Sales
From a product perspective, modern software enables efficiency in quoting, various mechanisms for negotiation, and data for strategic sales decision-making. It also is something to show off. Impress prospects, investors, and peers when they walk into your facility and see the high-powered, modern operating system in action!
The process for job shop quoting offers a massive opportunity for efficiency improvements and time savings. A single screen and intuitive information prompt auto-populates a customized quote .pdf, which can then be sent with the click of a button directly from the platform. Offload much of the price derivation work by having your current pricing formula built into the platform. This allows anyone to prepopulate known information, establish a base price, and then pass it along to senior leadership for approval. A central hub for your estimating team to work in drives consistency across the organization, enables RFQ response at lightning speed, and eliminates the late nights and weekends at the plant to finish up proposals (that were requested a week ago!).
Once quoted, easily defend your pricing and rule the negotiation process to produce win-win agreements. Use your system and data to show prospects and customers reports on:
- Historical part run data including quantity of parts, on-time delivery, and quality metrics.
- Special requests and delivery. For example, a track record of expedited work produced with excellence.
- Feature-driven price adjustments. Charge more after identifying parts with high rework potential.
- Most efficient order quantities per part, line, and finish. Establish robust bulk order pricing that serves both parties.
Lastly, strategic decision making does not just happen. Success in sales, the backbone of any enterprise, is not predictable nor sustainable when acting on a whim. ‘Data’ has been mentioned 10+ times already but it’s worth stating again: data, data, data.
You will have data for customer analysis. Quote conversion rates, margin reports, their on-time delivery of parts to you, etc. Your time is valuable (see how to save time here), and appropriately designate it based on how well your customer treats you!
You will have data and newfound confidence to fire bad customers, those that are a pain to service (time and opportunity cost!) and those that are low margin and cause significant headwinds in your financial picture. Replacing your single, lowest margin customer with a winner will have a profound impact on your bottom line. But you cannot do this without having the data.
You will have data and infrastructure in place to support a business transition, should that be in your 2-, 5-, 10-, or 20-year plan. Think about it from your future buyer’s standpoint.
- Are you buying a business that is run in someone’s head and on paper, and that individual is the one selling the business?
- Or are you investing in a business that has structure in place to operate, no matter who leaves, and supports enterprise growth?
Steelhead is a growing tsunami in the ocean of MES and ERP software for process manufacturers. With the rapid growth and ever-increasing brand awareness, it is only a matter of time before your customers become in tune with the Steelhead brand and realize the tremendous advantage of awarding business to those with robust operational infrastructure. The Steelhead Experience is synonymous with reliability, quality, and convenience. This is your sales and marketing advantage.
About the Author
Chet Halonen is a Sales and Deployment Engineer at Steelhead Technologies. His experience, from technical roles at vehicle and large machinery OEMs and interpersonal roles in officiating and sales, allows him to personally connect with people from all backgrounds and efficiently work with them to identify where Steelhead will streamline their operations. Chet is passionate about getting our customers the actionable production data they need to maximize their profits. Connect with Chet on LinkedIn.