Why Sell Awards with Crystal D
Selling awards is simple to learn, easy to do and gets fast results. Here are six reasons to sell awards!
Reason One: It's As Easy As 1-2-3!
Awards are easy to sell. In fact, they are much less complicated than selling a jacket! Since apparel is the largest product category in our industry, you most likely sell many different types of apparel to your clients. If you can sell a jacket with ease, selling awards will be a piece of cake!
Consider this: selling one jacket requires approximately six decision points. Selling an award only requires three! Apparel also has a higher minimum quantity. A jacket may have a minimum quantity of 144 pieces, but most of Crystal D's awards have a minimum quantity of ONE!
Reason Two: B2E Customers Need Help Branding
As an industry distributor, most of your energy goes to selling products to support external marketing endeavors on behalf of your clients. Product launches, company branding, product specials, and community events are all occasions that require your expert sourcing skills. However, these projects only represent 76% of the business opportunity within the promotional products industry.
The remaining 24% of sales in the promotional products industry is directed at internal branding! Internal events, commemorations, anniversaries, and company events all represent internal marketing endeavors. Organizations need you to provide recognition awards, certificates, signs, apparel, and gifts.
PPAI puts out an estimate of promotional products distributor sales, and in 2015, internal branding made up nearly 24% of sales.
- Employee relations and events: 11.95%
- Employee service awards: 6.08%
- Internal promotions: 5.63%
Your clients' internal marketing is a great way to drive new business. It is an easily accessible opportunity that you already have with each of your existing clients.
Reason Three: Awards Guarantee Revenue
Selling awards offers a lucrative book of business, primarily because the margin in crystal awards is substantially more than other promotional products. For example, the average margin for an order of pens or mugs is 32% while the average margin for an order of crystal awards is 40%.
Reasons Four, Five, and Six: Changing Buying Patterns, Margin Erosion, and Commoditization
It's very important that you understand how the market is changing and how to change with it. There are three market indicators that are directly affecting the promotional products industry: changing buying patterns, margin erosion, and commoditization.
It is important to note that customers are changing their buying habits. Buyers are young and use technology to source products. They are using the Internet to source products and get pricing. They hold very little loyalty to a vendor, and the lowest price wins instead. According to a State of the Industry report from ASI, 41% of distributors say that websites selling promotional products are their biggest competitors.
Because of these changing buying patterns, margins for promotional products is dropping. When margins drop, products become commodities, and the market transforms into a fiercely competitive landscape.
As these three factors take their place in a market, salespeople need to prove their value in ways that are new and engaging. The ultimate test of your endurance in this market is determined by the answer to the following questions:
- Why do customers buy from you?
- What value do you bring to your customers?
The reality of changing buying patterns, margin erosion, and commoditization are not ideas we created in order to convince you to sell more awards. This is the reality of the promotional products industry. In fact, Paul Bellatone believes that distributors need to adopt this posture when he states, "Distributors need to know their value. They need to justify their role in the marketplace." (February 20, 2013) It is time to stand up and face this reality with enthusiasm and determination and overcome these factors with your skills and professionalism.