Penetrating a Profitable Niche
As we’ve mentioned, (article in EW) there are a number of niche applications that represent opportunity for distributors. With business slow, what better way to differentiate yourself than helping your contractors capture business (they need it) and to help end-users address challenges that they either can, or need to, allocate money to.
The keys to capturing this business is 1) understanding the issues (which involves training your people and possibly your customers) and 2) understanding how to sell these applications (it’s different than taking orders!)
To help you understand arc flash, Square D recently launched an online video entitled “Solving the Puzzle of Electrical Safety Compliance.” It’s available, free to all, here, but you need to register. (Yes, we received approval to post information about this.) They have another video at this site entitled “It’s a Matter of Your Safety” that you may be interested in. Both are good educational tools for distributors and their customers.
GE also recently highlighted the size of this opportunity.
With credit tight, and affecting the project market (some being delayed, others cancelled), identifying opportunities that could be internally funded can help grow your revenues.
Have you sold any arc flash projects? What were your keys to success?