Client Challenge
Wood and composite moldings are often seen as a commodity. Margin conscious builders are looking for low prices as a way to keep their hard costs down. But if you look more deeply at how moldings are made and distributed, choosing the lowest cost option may not be the best strategy. For Metrie, every detail in their moldings —from sourcing raw materials, to owning their milling capability, to installing and enjoying the finished product —meets the highest standards of quality and is worth paying a premium price.
But the company recently felt twin pressures on its business. On the one hand, outside competitors with a similar product were getting aggressive on price. On the other hand, the Metrie sales force needed market relevant messaging and skills training to provide a more compelling sales experience and justify the value of their premium products. A short-term option for Metrie would be to match the price cuts, but this would benefit no one in the long-term. The better option was to tackle the messaging and skills issues together and use a better sales experience to change the nature of their customer's thinking and buying habits.
Solution
In partnership with Challenger, Metrie built a commercial insight engine that produced sales messaging aimed at teaching builders and distributors about the total value of certain types of molding and showed that purchase price was not always the best datapoint to rely on when deciding. They also trained the sales team in the delivery of this message, centering the conversation on how material price and quality factor into the ultimate cost of a project and how cheaper alternatives end up costing more in the long run. This message led to, not with, the benefits of Metrie's solution.After rolling out theinsight and training salespeople to deliver it, they also provided coaching, tools, and application support so that sellers could practice and truly embed these new behaviors in their workflow.
Results
Metrie has seen a measurable increase in value provided to customers when delivering this new sales experience. Although builders have agreed to a small increase in materials cost, this has translated into finely crafted, higher quality architectural elements and an improved aesthetic design, resulting in greater value and satisfaction to homeowners. This has in turn improved Metrie's success in important commercial metrics, prompting further investment in the program across the entire commercial organization year over year.
- Increased sales leading to a 28x return on 2021 Challenger investment
- 94% of sellers report they are provided the necessary support to embed Challenger into their day-to-day workflow
- 96% of sellers prepare more thoroughly for sales interactions and feel that Challenger
Activation is a worthwhile investment of their time - 71% of opportunities brought to the workshop have closed or progressed
- 94% of sellers would recommend Challenger Activation to their peers
Quotes
“I have worked in this industry for 20 years. As a salesman, meeting the customers needs has always been my focus. Challenger has taught me to look at business in new ways, to discover pain points that customers have, and most importantly to look for every opportunity to teach and tailor messages for the different stakeholders.“ – David Douglas, Territory Manager
“Better preparation coupled with curiosity about real customer needs has made my time with customers more beneficial for them and has strengthened our business relationships.” Sean Greenhill, Key Account Manager
“I believe many of our recently acquired Challenger skills have helped me achieve success. As I began to deepen the pain with the customer in regards to their current supplier and process, I really started to notice the light bulbs going off in the customer’s head.” Tim Fowler, Key Account manager
Quotes
“I have worked in this industry for 20 years. As a salesman, meeting the customers needs has always been my focus. Challenger has taught me to look at business in new ways, to discover pain points that customers have, and most importantly to look for every opportunity to teach and tailor messages for the different stakeholders.“ – David Douglas, Territory Manager
“Better preparation coupled with curiosity about real customer needs has made my time with customers more beneficial for them and has strengthened our business relationships.” Sean Greenhill, Key Account Manager
“I believe many of our recently acquired Challenger skills have helped me achieve success. As I began to deepen the pain with the customer in regards to their current supplier and process, I really started to notice the light bulbs going off in the customer’s head.” Tim Fowler, Key Account manager
Before Challenger
- Could be months or years to land a new supporting dealer or convert a builder to one of their product lines.
- No formal sales model or training in place
- Unstructured process for planning and executing sales calls
After Challenger
- A common approach to the sales experience centered on providing insight
- Greater engagement with builders and distributors
- Better preparation and execution of sales calls
- 87% of sellers prepare more thoroughly for sales interactions
- Stronger goal attainment across the team ($6.96 million of new closed opportunities)