Customers today place a greater emphasis on expertise. It’s all part of their shift in expectations: from seeking the best available products to talking (and buying) a wider, more comprehensive solution. As a result, they’re looking to work with parties that can offer them advice as well as services. Such a situation presents you with an opportunity: to show off your hard-earned knowledge, and to get yourself to the front of the queue for future contracts.
To be successful is to get noticed as a subject matter expert, and below we offer some easy tips for building on your ‘value of expertise’.
Tip #1: talk up the bigger story
It’s always worth keeping in mind that a customer buys reassurance as much as they buy products. So be confident in the encouragement your story brings, and the facts you can use to demonstrate a breadth and scale of solution that include:
- Being part of the Thermo King dealer network, which offers customers over 500 points of service in 75 countries
- How this non-stop availability is complemented by our close collaboration with the best body-builders in the industry
- And the service plans and flexible financing solutions available from dealers – from leasing to buying – that are tailored to the needs of each individual customer
Tip #2: talking the talk
Once you have your story confirmed, the next step is to tell it. Whenever and wherever you can. A good place to start is with relevant industry events and seminars. While it may sound an obvious suggestion, getting yourself on the presenter list can be an excellent way to showcase:
- Your experience by talking through customer stories (and invite your customers along to help with the telling)
- Areas of best practice, and the dealer network’s ability to offer the best technicians, and over 1400 fully trained and certified CERI-TECH experts (gold, silver, and bronze)
As to finding out where such events are being held, trade bodies, industry publications, and the websites of relevant government agencies are great places to start looking.
Tip #3: publish your know-how
Building on the topic of subject matter expertise, our next suggestion is to get busy thinking – and writing! Contributing articles and case studies to relevant industry-specific publications is a proven way to raise your company’s profile.
This is a great way to demonstrate to potential clients how your salespeople are educated on the latest market rules and requirements. It’s also a chance to talk through emerging stories on new restrictions, low emission zones, and refrigeration – and to show how such know-how leads to each customer getting the ideal solution for their business.
They enable your business to convey an opinion, a point of view, and from there to be considered ‘thought leaders’ (and if that sounds too much like marketing speak, just think of it as reinforcing your reputation as THE authority on all things refrigeration).
Tip #4: strengthen your online presence
A potential new client is going to visit your website at some stage to get a feel for your business, and what’s on offer. That’s why the information presented there should be more than just a list of products and services.
It should serve as a shop window that again showcases your expertise, and highlights what this means to past and present customers across a range of real-world scenarios.
For example, you should highlight the Thermo King Assistance call center, and how this offers a 24-hour multilingual, telephone service – and therefore European-wide breakdown assistance for all your clients.
To help you make the most of the online opportunity, Thermo King has created a range of templates for use in creating dealer website. These are available in either CSS or html, and can be found on the Thermo King Brand Center (via infoCentral)
Tip #5: think, speak, and act expert
The final tip is as simple as it is short: act and sound like experts in every sales conversation you have. Act on the fact that a client is looking for expertise, because for them expertise means excellence. It can be the difference between a yes and a no, as well as the difference between a one-off transaction and a long-term business relationship.
