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Component Manufacturing dverti$er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$er
December 2016 #09209 Page #77
How to Conduct a Tour of Your Building Product Plant That Will Grow Your Sales
I have been on many building product plant tours. Most of them are not very effective and are really missing an opportunity to gain new customers and more sales. By Mark Mitchell - Whizard Strategy
Why Most Plant Tours Are Not Effective Plant tours are too often taken matter of factly and not as a serious marketing tool. They are seen as an opportunity to build relationships and impress the customer with your facility. Facilities don't impress customers. They are impressed by how your facility is able to help them. There's an old rule in marketing that the only time you show the plant is when it's for sale. Don't reduce your plant tour to a walk through version of an aerial photo of your plant. How much does it cost you to make a sales call? How invested is that customer in you and your company? How much do you spend on your website, advertising, trade shows and other marketing programs? How deeply engaged is the average visitor to your website? How much of their time are they spending on your website, reading an ad or in your trade show booth? Sales are made one customer at a time and your customer's time is the most valuable thing they can give you. If they are going to take the time to visit your plant, you owe it to them to make it worth their while and to put your best foot forward. If your customer is showing this level of interest, this is a real opportunity to close the deal and to reaffirm their decision to go with you. It can also dramatically set you apart from the competition, making it harder for them to take the customer away from you.
Most Plant Tours Are About Features Instead of Benefits Marketing is seldom involved in the plant tour unless they are a department the customer walks by on a tour of the office. The plant tour is usually given by the plant manager or a senior executive. They describe, "This is how we do this" and not "We do this to benefit to our customers by xxx." They show their newest and biggest equipment and tell the customer, "We spent $00,000,000 on this and it can produce 000 units per hour" rather than, "We made this investment as it allows us to better meet our customers needs, for x, y and z." They'll say, "It's too bad you weren't here earlier today so you could have seen this process." If you're serious about plant tours, you make sure they get to see these processes, even if they cause the plant some inconvenience. They frequently walk past plant workers as if they aren't even there as opposed to greeting the employees, introducing them, describing their responsibilities and maybe even letting them describe their job themselves. No matter how automated your plant is your customers realize people are still important. Customers, on a tour can also tell a lot about your business by the reactions and body language they notice from employees. If they look like they hate their jobs or you or just see it as a job, that also tells the customer about you and how they will probably be treated.
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