Who is our client?
GM Automation is a company that provides solutions in the field of industrial automation, specializing in assembly and parts feeding systems. It designs and builds workstations as well as equipment and entire production lines. It has three own brands and has completed more than 300 projects, having already implemented 80 robots.
Professional knowledge of processes in various industries.
Verify product deployment capabilities with potential customers.
Long-term customer relationships.
Work closely with the marketing and design departments.
GM Automation's problem: scaling the business
GM Automation experts have built a universal base for a robotic station that can be implemented for many processes. This is much faster than designing and building an entire machine from scratch. Besides, GM Automatics’ workstation can be rearmed and modified many times as needed, so the customer can use it for other projects.
GM Automation's problem, however, turned out to be scaling the business, specifically selling the solution.
Its versatility provided big savings for end customers, but industrial companies’ purchasing plans are created based on return on investment per project. Companies treated the ability to changeover a job as an added value, and this was generally not taken into account when calculating ROI.
This is how we helped GM Automation
We started solving our client’s problem by visiting his company’s headquarters to learn about his product. We talked to the designers and saw its advantages. We also met the engineer who had been in charge of selling the device up to that point. The technical knowledge and substantive support of this specialist were soon to prove invaluable during our sales talks with potential GM Automatics customers. We also gained marketing support in the form of ready-made materials and the possibility of making more tools with our guidelines as well.
We began the work by refreshing the business cards and contacts of customers with whom GM Automation had already worked in the past. We carried out this kind of lead recycling using cold calling and cold mailing.
At the beginning of our cooperation, we met online three times a week, and eventually there were two meetings with the GM Automation team. In turn, we were in constant contact with their engineer, exchanging daily information about the product, its capabilities, customer expectations, etc.
Activities for GM Automatics were led by our sales manager and sales specialist, who were assisted by the support department. This department was responsible for finding potential customers, creating mailing lists and pre-selecting leads. The Sales Agency team made about 1,600 phone calls to customers in six months.
This allowed the sales manager and sales specialist to work with leads whose interest in the product had been pre-verified. This avoided wasting time on business meetings that were not productive.
In the next stage, we met online with customers. With those who showed the greatest purchasing potential, we met in person, accompanied by an engineer from GM Automation. Together, we held discussions at subsequent meetings and verified the presented offer based on customer feedback.
What did our client gain?
Sale of two robotic workstations
A client in whom we saw buying potential at the very beginning of our cooperation.
Opening 50 sales opportunities
We are available to customers after the initial verification and the first sales meeting.
Negotiations in line with guidelines
With the help of negotiations with customers, we met GM Automation’s goals.
In the negotiations, we focused on the priorities imposed by GM Automation, and as a result, we achieved results above our expectations. We ensured good relations in the negotiation process conducted in a win-win spirit. We moved quickly and efficiently throughout the process to close the topic to conclusion as quickly as possible.
During the course of our collaboration, we quickly opened up so many potential sales opportunities that it became necessary to implement even more stringent criteria for the initial verification of leads.
We also provided feedback from the market, which allowed our client to refine its product and its sales offering to make them even more attractive.
We tried to have an engineer from GM Automatics present at customer meetings, as he was an important resource for us. However, if for independent reasons this person was not available to us, the specialists working all the time with GM Automatics conducted a conversation with the potential customer in such a way as to gather as much information as possible about his needs. We then passed them on to the experts from GM Automatics for verification. Thanks to this approach, we were able to flexibly carry out our sales activities without the risk of being paralyzed by temporary problems with the availability of a GM Automatics engineer.
Summary
Our cooperation continues and involves continuing to work with the sales opportunities we have opened. We will continue to do so in the coming year as well.
Despite the difficult situation in the industry, GM Automation does not intend to abandon our sales support, which has had such a great impact not only on their marketing and financial results, but also provided valuable feedback to the product and offerings.
