First of three parts
All things considered, it’s relatively simple to get started selling gloves and pick up a few thousand bucks in the process. Get your reseller certificate, knock on some doors, lay out a good spiel, and you too can move some nitrile or latex or vinyl product.
But how do you grow those sales to $10,000, $100,000, or more? Where does the magic kick in and elevate the proceedings to a higher plane?
Start by taking a good, hard look at your distribution business. What products do you mostly sell? How much are you currently selling in terms of gloves? Do you think you could sell more?
How many overall customers do you have? How many of them buy gloves from you? In the industrial space, 70% to 80% of customers buy gloves. If you are selling gloves to 10 customers and work your way up to 40 who are buying them from you, that could give you four times the amount of income.
What’s the bottom line? If only a handful of customers are buying gloves from you, you’re missing a real opportunity.
Create the intent to boost the percentage
Most distributor partners of AMMEX count disposable gloves as only a small percentage of their overall business—depending, of course, on which industry they’re servicing.
For example, automotive distributors maybe sell grease and solvents and tools. Gloves are an afterthought—but they’re an important afterthought, because they expand the conversation and the revenue driving it. Jan/san distributors maybe sell cleaning products and bags and paper products and all the essentials of maintaining a healthy environment. Gloves may be a small part of the conversation, but they are just as essential as anything else.
How much emphasis should you put on gloves? Checking in with some of our partners reveals that they usually dedicate between 2% and 5% of their product offerings to disposable gloves. (One of them, bless him, said that figure is 90%. He’s a role model for us all.)
This is income that sticks around
Gloves are highly profitable and provide a resilient source of recurring revenue. As long as you can effectively service healthy relationships with your customers, you should have their business for years to come.
And you don’t have to neglect the rest of your products to emphasize gloves. Look for opportunities where you may not have looked before.
Does that automotive customer buy nitrile gloves from you? Inquire about whether their maintenance staff could use vinyl. Are you selling smallwares like glasses, plastic cups, utensils, and paper supplies? Have you, while servicing those accounts, walked into a customer’s place of business and noticed that they are using gloves—but not the gloves you get from AMMEX? Ask a simple question: Why aren’t they spending that money with you?
It’s the simplest solution to selling
Your salespeople are trained to offer your core products—as they should, because that’s what you are known for. But when do those sales reps let the customer know that they offer gloves? We help solve that with our Sales Acceleration Solution™. With SAS, your reps offer gloves in less than 60 seconds and overcome quality objections with product samples.
Even in a tight economy, disposable glove sales will continue to be strong. Gloves are not a luxury but a need-based product. Health, hygiene, and safety don’t take a back seat during an economic downturn.
Visit our Sales Support page today, or check in with your sales rep. Or log into your account at our Online Portal to learn more, check inventory, and place an order.
Next week: How to grow and improve the market share within your client base.