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Institutional furnitureIndustrial marketing success storyKoch Group is a 40+ year old industrial marketing consulting firm providing a broad gamut of industrial marketing assistance activities to small and mid-sized manufacturers. Assistance activities include market research, strategic and tactical planning, plan implementation, target marketing, new market identification and qualification, existing market penetration, direct selling assistance, and trade show management. We also specialize in manufacturers' agent identification, screening and contracting. Koch Group consultants interviewed manufacturers' reps and increased client credibility with key partners, resulting in a sales increase of $1.5 to $2.0 million. SITUATIONLocation: Midwest Midwest family-owned institutional furniture manufacturer had not been able to successfully generate new business opportunities of any magnitude. The company was over 50 years old, had unique capabilities and offered some of the most innovative and unique features for their institutional furniture compared to their much larger competitors. They sold through manufacturers’ reps like many smaller manufacturers, but had not had great success.
ACTIONKoch Group consultants developed a list of open-ended questions and telephone interviewed each of the existing manufacturers’ reps. We provided the client with our evaluation of his reps which indicated that many were a bad fit and, therefore, poor performers, but also established our organization as very knowledgeable of reps and earned the respect of a number of the reps we had interviewed. One of the reps confided in us about the need another of his principals was working on a partnering evaluation of companies that was nearly closed, but might provide a marvelous opportunity for our client if he could present himself as a solid innovative “player” in the industry and do it in a major hurry. We contacted the other principal who was evaluating firms as a potential partner, established our credibility, established our client’s credibility, and then asked for the opportunity to meet with them to discuss a partnering arrangement to which we received a positive response. Koch Group consultants developed a PowerPoint presentation for our client emphasizing the end-users benefits of a partnership. We then arranged an appointment, developed detailed handouts for the potential partner to evaluate and accompanied our client to act as an intermediary during the first meeting.
RESULTSAfter the initial meeting, and subsequent written and verbal communications, our client was offered a contractual opportunity to supply needed institutional furniture valued at between $1.0 and $1.5 million per year, nearly doubling their annual sales and at a very good profit margin. Next:
Labels, Decals, and Identification Products >> If you would like more information about our industrial marketing services for manufacturers, please use our contact form or email us at info@kochgroup.com.
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