What kind of sales tools do you need to help you demonstrate your product effectively? All too often, the response to that question is, “What kind of sales tools do we have the budget for?” But if you go in with that mentality, you’ll only end up shooting yourself in the foot. Your “budget” should be however much it costs to create sales tools that work. You may think you’re saving money by going with a cheaper option. But in reality, you’re only costing yourself money in the long run.
Budgeting for Ten Times the Cost
A company that sold tools, equipment, and furnishings for dental offices wanted to create sales tools to help them illustrate their range of products. These products included everything from carpeting and counter tops to the dental chairs and all the equipment that a dental office might need. Therefore, the sales kit needed to include things like carpet and counter top samples, working examples of the various tools they sold for demonstrational purposes, and a variety of other things. What was their budget for this undertaking? $30 per sales kit.
Fortunately, this company was able to change its mind fairly quickly and see that $30 simply wouldn’t create the kit that they needed. Not only would it not be able to represent their available products accurately, it simply wouldn’t look good or professional. A cheap $30 kit for such expensive equipment wouldn’t stand out from their competitors or entice people to make a purchase. In fact, it could have just the opposite effect. Therefore, they’d really just be throwing their money away.
Instead of the $30 kit, though, they were able to redesign a new sample case at $340 a piece: more than 10 times their initial budget. But that $340 was a much better deal for their company than the initial $30 would have been. Why? Because it gave them something that accurately displayed all they had to offer and ultimately helped improve their sales.
A batch of $30 cases would have been a waste of money, as they wouldn’t have helped sales. But in an industry where sales would be upwards of several hundred thousand dollars a piece, a few $340 sales kits paid for themselves many times over with the amount of revenue they brought in.
Budgeting for What You Need
The issue to examine when creating sales tools is not what your budget is, but what kind of tools you need to help illustrate your products effectively, set yourself apart to your customers, and ultimately drive sales. Because if your budget doesn’t cover tools that will do that, then you need to adjust your budget.
Ten times the cost can be the cheaper option, if that money is spent wisely and used to create something that will work better. As long as you have something that helps your company and increases your sales, you really can’t put a price on success. Are your sales kits an effective tool, or a waste of money?