Many salespeople and managers say there's no substitute for face-to-face communication with customers. According to distributor salespeople and their suppliers, the personal sales call continues to be the single most important facet of industrial supply, despite the plethora of high-tech communications capabilities available.

Sales calls are made for all sorts of reasons, from the most mundane like checking stock or leaving literature, to more complex calls made to solve problems or test new products. Distributors and suppliers must be prepared with information not only about products and services, but also about profitability and customer cost savings, say experienced outside sales reps. They must approach sales calls from the customer's point of view.

According to the experts, each salesperson must answer this question: What is the customer hoping to accomplish by giving his time to this call?

A Reed Business Information survey done this year found the average cost of a single industrial sales call by one sales representative is $329. It's up 10 percent since 1993 and keeps going up. It's also one reason why preparation is the key to joint sales calls.

When distributor and supplier salespeople meet to go to a client, they must be informed and allied in their focus, says Peter Baker, vice president of New England sales for Atlanta-based Industrial Distribution Group. And nothing has the impact of a face-to-face encounter with the customer because it is based on trust and expertise, says Sean Leary, a Northeast territory manager for Norton Co. of Worcester, Mass., a division of Compagnie de Saint-Gobain. Baker and Leary make many sales calls together.

"[Sales calls with distributors] are vital in all phases of selling: going into new accounts, introducing new products at established accounts, or problem solving," Leary says. "Trust is built not just on the results of your product tests and delivery commitments. It's built on the relationship you have with the individual: the foreman, machine operator or buyer in the customer's plant."

Every salesperson has a different set of skills, and every customer has a comfort level with that salesperson, Baker says. In most cases, getting and keeping business depends on the combination of professionalism, personality and products presented to the customer on an ongoing basis.

When a supplier salesperson joins his distributor counterpart to go into an account, there's a higher level of customer confidence in the pair if they work well together and are as prepared as possible, he says.

Leary agrees.

"Norton Co. is continually coming out with new products. Obviously, we want to get those advanced products into customers' hands as soon as possible. Joint sales calls are one of the most dynamic activities because they create confidence in the customer and teamwork with the supplier," he says.

What about sales calls that are more technical and involve problem-solving and engineering challenges? Without discounting the value of the electronic tools available to organize and exchange sales information, only the details gathered in a joint call can fully reveal the situation the customer faces at the time, Leary says.

"When we go in, I'm hardly ever looking to give an answer on the spot," he says. "Calls that require both myself and Peter to go are generally more complex, involving more engineered solutions. They generally require thorough product testing before the sale is finalized."

If the application is something he hasn't seen before, Leary calls in a product field engineer to help. That adds another layer of credibility and comfort for the customer.

Baker's main responsibilities include recommending products and engineering solutions that save customers money. An increasing number of sales calls involve a customer's search for a longer-lasting product or one that improves productivity. In the case of abrasives, they want one that provides better surface finish on more parts in less grinding time.

They frequently visit customers like Simonds Industries, a saw maker in Fitchburg, Mass.

"Things come up where they're looking for help grinding a new tool steel, for instance. We need to look beyond a product recommendation to the long-term savings we can provide," Leary says.

The best grinding wheels for the job may be made from more expensive abrasive but save money over time because they will outlast less expensive wheels by a wide margin.

"Those are all factors to consider when recommending and testing wheels," Baker says.

One of the sales areas in which the duo has become proficient is recommending product-for-product, in which they take baseline data from an operation — pieces per hour, pieces per grinding wheel, quality of finish — and find improved products and processes that save customers time and money.

"We spend all the time we can learning about new products, their uses and how to sell them, says Leary. "Distributors come and get formal training on them, or we go to the distributor. We discuss customers and products, and troubleshoot about improvements."

Baker tries to get to the person responsible for using the product first, to prove its merits and find the purchasing agent later.

"Another distributor may try to get involved in just price, but we look at the technical part of joint selling as our best way to gain long-term advantages, from the start. Then, you have to stay in contact," Baker says.

Follow-up is nearly as important as completing a successful sales call. Losing touch with the customer means losing the order, he adds.

"It's not the sticker price but the value after the sale. Is there service? Is there stock? Do you call back often enough? Those are all priorities in the end," he says.

It's the distributor's role to document contacts, what happened and what was said, in the same way they must document savings, he adds.

Recently, surveys by the Industrial Performance Group of Northfield, Ill., found that a majority of distributors and manufacturers believe poor working relationships and poor communication threaten profitability and performance. One of the findings was that distributors clearly want representatives to spend more time in their regions calling on accounts together, according to IPG.

That was one of many reasons that Stanley-PROTO div. of The Stanley Works, a manufacturer of hand tools sold only through distributors, created the Stanley-PROTO Alliance. The alliance offers support to distributors through several incentives, one of which is an increased presence in the territory. The company sends out Strategic Selling Vehicles, trucks staffed by experts for joint sales calls, shows and safety seminars.

The program is a selective distribution strategy designed to strengthen long-term distributor/manufacturer relationships. One of the key points about the alliance is that distributors designed it, says Tom Hudak, vice president of industrial sales. A 12-member distributor panel helped formulate the alliance program.

"The number one problem for distributors is the inconsistent and ineffective management of territories by manufacturers," Hudak said.

Tom Fimmen, territory manager for the company in the Virginia/North Carolina region, drove a vehicle for the company for about a year before becoming an outside rep. He lists three priorities that distributors expect of him before making a call.

"First, of course, know your products, inside and out. Second, they want to get in to see the decision makers," says Fimmen. "Usually, a joint call is made because some groundwork has been laid. We try to see purchasing managers. Third, we have to go in with a game plan. That means a lot of preparation."

Being prepared helped land a large contract recently at a customer he called on with representatives of Noland Co., an eastern regional distributor based in Newport News, Va. Gary Combs, director of industrial sales for Noland Co., says the personal sales call remains one of the highest priority duties in sales today.

"It's most important in terms of building relationships," Combs says. "Of course, we expect suppliers to have the highest degree of product knowledge; that's why we go into specific accounts together. We each bring our expertise."

Combs and Fimmen agree that salespeople must have personal relationships with decision-makers that are built on trust — and trust is built through performance.

In his year driving the SSV, Fimmen met many distributor salespeople, and their relationship with the customer was all-important. Although there are sales calls that end in success because of luck and serendipitous timing, that is rare, he says.

"Many times we have had great calls and gotten business only because the distributor had the connections first, which is the best place to start. I can cold call and waste a lot of time, but that's not the best way to do it," he says.