Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Thank you for an excellent post, in which you actually explain what you`re selling. You wouldn`t believe the number of people who want everything top secret, and almost make no sense! :-D

Anyway, here`s my thinking. You`re selling to mechanics, but not having a lot of success. On the other hand, who really is the *decision-maker* when it comes to putting in new brakes? Is it the mechanic? Not usually, although a good mechanic certainly can make a strong recommendation.

So what I`m thinking is that you start marketing more toward the owners. In your above examples, that would be the budget departments of police, school, bus companies, and other fleet owners. Your pitch would be the amount of annual savings that might, perhaps, offset the increase in fuel prices? An idea, anyway.

The other area to market would be places that make the recommendations about brakes. I`m not sure how you could do this without the expense of TV ads and so forth. Are you even interested in selling direct to consumers?

Hi all,
Just my thoughts on the matter.  You are selling to people that may have pre-existing accounts with large companies that offer large discounts.  Or, they may have a bulk order contract.  In these type of accounts, the customer signs a year or two year contract with a parts provider.  The customer then can only buy parts through that provider for the length of the contract.  In exchange, the customer gets bulk rate pricing on all orders regardless of size of the order. 

Your competitor may also be offering your potential customer consignment parts inventories.  In this setup the provider puts parts inventory on site and bills only for what the customer uses. 

New products are also hard to sell to "older" shop people.  They pretty much stick to brands they`ve used in the past.

One suggestion is to make personal contact with some of these people your trying to sell to.  Don`t use the worn out "We`re the best product on the market" line.  It doesn`t sell anything.  Provide Potential new customers with testimonials from customers that have used your product.  You need to emphasize cost savings and time saved by not having to replace rotors as often.


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The older we get, the more excuses we make for not chasing after our dreams. But truth is, goals are attainable at any age.