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Houghton Lake, MI 48269

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CASE STUDIES

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"Bringing  Sales Techniques, Products, Services and Opportunities Together"

 

Case Studies


Sales Training

  • Client: Local bicycle retailer and repair shop - The Bicycle Shop - Grayling, Michigan.
  • Situation: Owner, (Bob Smith), wants to attract additional new and repeat customers by positioning his shop's professionalism and expertise as a point of competitive advantage against other northern Michigan bicycle retailers.
  • Challenge: Training needs to be both inexpensive and quick.  Bob doesn't have enough staff to fill in for each other while sales floor personnel are attending training.  The shop is still operating in full swing for late summer and fall business when a (beta test), training class is offered to Bob's co-workers.
  • Solution: An 8-Step training program customized to focus on retail sales and formatted for a 3-hour small class featuring one-on-one sales training was conducted.  The class was also specifically targeted to focus on the bicycle industry.
  • Results: A training class at a local hotel suite during a weekday afternoon was held. All floor sales staff were able to train as a team.  All attendees reported being "highly satisfied" with the training on exit questionnaires.  The sales staff returned to the shop with new motivation and excited about trying out the new techniques they had just acquired on prospective customers.
     

Business-to-Business Sales & Consulting

  • Client: State wide commercial battery distributor - Complete Battery Source - opens a new store in Prudenville, Michigan capable of serving a large territory.  The company operates six Michigan locations primarily in the southeast portion of the state.
  • Situation:  The new store would like to pursue an outside sales professional at a low cost.  The Prudenville store has been been successful but does not have the recourses to employ direct outside sales persons at this time.  Their downstate Michigan stores do have some field representation but few northern Michigan businesses get called on, particularly on the west side of the state.  The store owner, (Chad Buzinski), finds himself working inside the business each and every day and has little time to pursue in field customers. The market is wide open and his competitors do have some route sales staff working in the field.
  • Challenge:  To expand the sales and reputation of the company and its full line of battery products throughout more of northern and western Michigan.  Also, grab a larger share of the commercial battery market specifically in territories west of highway US-127.
  • Solution:  The battery retailer enters into a non-binding commission sales agreement with Oak Forest Sales & Consulting, LLC.
  • Results:  The company has been able to pick up a good amount of new business and expand its customer base while being professionally represented at a low operational cost.  All parties involved have ended up benefiting on the mutual arrangement, including of course, the customers themselves!

Internet Sales

  • Client:: Statewide emergency equipment reseller - Time Emergency Equipment - has two locations.  One retail outlet is in Roscommon Michigan and the other is in the Detroit area.
  • Situation:  The owner wants to have an on-line presence and allow his clients to see products and prices, however he wishes not to take Internet orders and prefers to generate phone calls and all inquires to either one of his offices.
  • Challenge:  Set up an all new web site which eventually has an extensive on-line catalog with nearly 100 pages in depth.  The company would also like to eventually maintain the site on their own behalf as the owner, (Bob Edwards), happens to be very proficient with graphics and development of the raw page ideas and schemes for most new web pages.
  • Solution:  The web site is set up over a period of a couple years and is built category by category.   New pages, products and prices are updated periodically.  All pages are set up to look similar and the entire web site is entered into hundreds of search engines and search subscriptions.
  • Results:  The company experiences growth and is able to easily notify its broad client base of new products and prices while at the same time gaining a professional on-line presence in its industry.  The company takes over maintenance of its own site after about 3 years of development.

Computer/Software Training

  • Client:: Northern Michigan medical equipment provider Vital Care.
  • Situation: The company has just taken on one of Tom's products, the EMERGENTag™ but needs programming and product education regarding this computer compatible device.
  • Challenge:  Train all in store staffers at 3 different locations in a short time window and bring all employees up to speed on the product.
  • Solution:  Tom arranges to train the nursing and office store at the corporate office and then visits all three stores and trains their counter staff on each site while store managers take over the individuals stores front end.
  • Results:  All employees end up getting trained on the product in less than one weeks time.  At last report, each store is now successfully selling 2 to 3 of the units in their showrooms each week.
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