One Company Does it Right
By Dave Kahle
It is refreshing to see a company go against the trends. In an era where the overwhelming majority of business owners have pulled back, reduced their sales and marketing efforts, and cut out any investment in the growth of the business or its people, one company has done the opposite. As a result, they are prospering.
Here’s the story.
BLDI is a boutique environmental consulting firm consisting of engineers and geologists serving lending institutions, real estate developers and M&A firms with complete environmental analysis, risk assessments, due diligence and remediation. The 11 member business, soon to be 12 with another office, began adopting the training from The DaCo Corporation intensely about four years ago.
Joe Berlin, BLDI’s president, believes in the importance of sales training. ”Our challenge at the time was that, although we had engineers who were competent in their profession, we needed to be able to show that to our customers and prospects.”
He worked with Dave Kahle and the DaCo Corporation. Working together, a strategic plan was developed that matched the business’ strategic goals with their selling efforts. The staff was trained in The Kahle Way® and regular monthly coaching sessions were held thereafter.
“If we hadn’t done that, my business would be in trouble!” says Joe. “The environmental consulting industry has seen reductions of over 30% lately and my competitors are really struggling in this tough economy. However, my business is up over 15%! It all comes down to our focused sales efforts.”
Mr. Berlin goes on to say that it is difficult to differentiate yourself simply by giving good customer service. “Most everybody gives good service”, he claims. “At BLDI, we know about sales and the benefits customers receive from consistent sales contacts. It’s the daily focus and the daily follow up that makes the difference.”
“Margins are tough”, says Mr. Berlin. Reacting to the knowledge that several of his competitors are letting their sales people go in order to reduce costs, he exclaims, “I can’t imagine letting my sales rep(s) go, especially in this down economy.”
Bottom line. In a segment that is down 30 percent, his business is up 15 percent because he invested in sales.
I thought you’d enjoy his story.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 8:09 am and is filed under Business to business sales, Sales management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
