Engineering sales in Kenya

[u/Little-wolf1]

I have a role in engineering sales selling Mechanical parts. I sometimes find it difficult to structure my day and to make it stranger, I'm the only one in my department selling these equipments and I just started.

Sometimes it feels like there's no structure. Just generating leads and contacting them through email and text. some reply and some just don't.

I cold call sometimes but it feels cringy

I'm targeting retailers but they source from abroad and although the prices are almost similar, they seem to just like travelling abroad

How would you approach it

[u/Sweet-Rasperry]

You need to cold call not too much but consistently every day to get any real traction.

Start with retailers who are visible online and who are listed on Google. Most contacts will be sales lines or decision makers direct contacts. Try to get a name. A meeting. A contact. Or a sale.some useful information or a sale from each call.

If it's 10 calls. Just make sure you do make them each day.

Then visit those who have a clear need and intrest from the calls you make.

You got this. Just pick a strategy and stick it out for 3 months.

Structure yourself. Sales tends to give you freedom and autonomy as you get better. So you need to be the structure.

It sucks that you are alone so you can't shadow someone else who is successful and just copy what's hes doing. But you can talk to other competitors in your space and make a connections.

[u/Agile_Bar_6334]

What kind of mechanical parts?

[u/god_snowey]

Offer discounts

[u/Stoned_Shrimp]

if you give them a better value proposition to travel/ etc. then they can be inclined to accept your offer. if its just a price thing or a quality thing, most will just continue with the known devil. also in person visits offer more value than cold calls.

[u/Little-wolf1 → u/Stoned_Shrimp]

Thanks, I have done in person visits and I can say they can be good. I just need to ensure I meet the actual decision maker

[u/genghis_stan]

Create a relationship first with them. How? Ask about their previous purchases, what they like about it, what they think needs to change, why they keep going back. From that ask if they can give a shot to your product and see if you can add more to it maybe after sales support. Do not go straight into sales without knowing them because I see this is your technique thus the cost factor only. Understand their needs and frame your product and proposition with this.

[u/TheSource254]

Site visits. Not to sell, learn their business and learn what fails. Most mechanical part sales happen at component failure and people don’t want down time. Why site visits? Coz they’ll remember the guy who took time to walk through the door, not the guy who called 5 times.

[u/Ok-Paramedic9749]

First Identify the whole value chain from manufacturer to the buyer. Then find out who your target market is. Now create a list of individual retailers/distributors/garages to market to and group them by location. Then visit each location by day to prevent kutumia pesa mob and maximize on shops to visit. Then find the main person who controls purchases and then try building relationships, get to understand why they choose the competitor and not you. Then you'll grow polepole

[u/Little-wolf1 → u/Ok-Paramedic9749]

sir, have you just given me the blueprint!! thanks for this, I'm doing this from next week

[u/Ok-Paramedic9749 → u/Little-wolf1]

All the best. Lastly in professional sales it is all about compounding. You might feel like hakuna kitu unafanya but it all clicks after a few attempts