Western Sales Company
Sales Los Gatos, CA
Sales Los Gatos, CA
Western Sales in Los Gatos, California is a family owned premium plumbing manufacturer representative agency that has been around for over 30 years. Tom Slankard is the managing partner at Western Sales and has been a Daylite user since 2005. Daylite allows Tom to get things done faster so he can spend more time building relationships with his clients.
Our business is different than many as we don’t look for more customers. We’re in the wholesale side and looking to expand business with each of our current customers. We deal with plumber distributers that we have a financial relationship with and want to make sure people select our product so we have to keep them up to date with what our manufacturers are doing. This is where we have a database with 200 kitchen and bath showrooms, about 1200 architects and designers, and about 1200 plumbing and building contractors. We don’t sell directly to these people, but we want them to go to our customer and order the material so we use Daylite daily. We use Daylite for “projects” to build campaigns that have a multi-step pipeline to make sure the customers are up to date on the products that we sell.
Step one of the pipelines is to identify the names, addresses and who the decision makers are in the hotel. Then we use Daylite to print focussed brochures combined with a cover letter and mailed to the two or three decision makers in the property. Three weeks later we print and send a follow up brochure and another three weeks later, print and mail a third brochure. Two weeks following that our hospitality sales person will make a follow up phone call and make an appointment to drop off a sample. We use Daylite to build brand and product awareness without having to send in a sales person. The concept is that the first brochure is thrown away, the second sits on someone’s desk and then is also thrown away. The third sits on someone’s desk and then gets filed. Finally, there is the call to introduce the product and brand recognition. Once the remodelling has happened, they stay in the pipeline and we keep in touch yearly by mail. Five years later when it is time for them to plan for the next remodel we will step up the campaign and make it more active again.
The smart lists based on keywords. People move around in the industry a lot and it’s the responsibility of the sales representative to keep Daylite up to date for each contact with the correct keyword. Our marketing department sends out emails to these keyword groups that are focused and they track click through and readership so we know that we have good open and read rate on our e-mails. The calendar and shared contacts also save a lot of time. I can quickly see where anyone is if they’re out at an appointment, or if someone calls and leaves a message I can easily find their information to call them back and even see any linked e-mailed between them and our team.
We use Daylite for a lot of large commercial projects. We keep track of who is involved (architects, engineers, designers, builders, plumbing contractors) and we use Daylight Mail Assistant (which was a seamless transition from Daylight 3 to 4). It’s marvellous! I can see an e-mail and scan through info and scan through lists of everyone participating, each contact of each organization and see all sales people’s e-mails about whats going on. We even attach documents such as project quotes to e-mails with DMA.
There are fifteen of us using Daylite. We do a lot of tasking and delegation within the program. We have someone who will do the research and then forward tasks. The concept on any opportunity is that as long as it’s shown as open, there will be a task assigned and it will have three elements: who is responsible? when are they responsible for this? and what is the date that it’s for?
It’s very seamless. I have to go this afternoon and take the train to San Jose and I’m taking my iPad with me so I can send e-mails, make phone calls and complete tasks with Daylite on my iPad. I can spend an hour driving and not doing these things or spend time on the train doing work.
It was much faster with us than Daylite 3 workflow wise. We have many fewer syncing issues and technical issues than we did with 3 and the workflow is much better for us. The general user interface is much more user friendly. I love the overlay window. I can be in an opportunity and be in a detail that will overlay the opportunity and still can read specific notes and info. I spend less time manipulating the program and more time getting work done. The video training and webinars are terrific. If you could send me another hour in the day so I can go through those I’d appreciate it! I’ve talked to others in the industry and I’ve told them that Daylite is worth two sales people to us (a group of 15) because it helps to get things done faster without spending extra money. I’m continually impressed and feel that Marketcircle has built Daylite for my industry. Daylite works so well for our business that it almost looks like it is custom built for us!
