The Gold Is in the Customers We Already Have

Chasing new business will always feel like the exciting part of the job. But we are often sitting on our single biggest growth opportunity and driving right past it every week.

“The gold is in the existing customers that we service,” says Mark Ballo, Director of Service at CITY Laundering Co. “Every one of our customers today is buying some product or service that we currently provide, and they may be buying it from someone else. It’s up to us to make folks aware that we carry those products and services, and that we would be a much better fit. A lot of times we can save them money, we can save them time, and we can make it more convenient.”

That is the whole case for growing what we already have. Here is how any route at CITY Industrial can act on it.

Every Customer Is Already Buying

Growth is not always about finding a brand new need. It is about being engaged enough to notice what a customer already spends money on, and letting them know they could spend it with us instead. Mark believes that starts with paying attention. When a route person understands that a customer is buying a product or service somewhere else, the opportunity is right there. Our job is to communicate it, and the best place to do that is at the route check-in.

Service Is a Sales Function

“Sales and service are both the same thing,” Mark says. “Service is a sales function whether you all know it or not. If you’re in the service game, you’re a salesperson to a certain level.”

He is quick to say this is not about becoming a pushy salesperson. Just the opposite. “I don’t know that I’ve ever sold anything,” he says. “I’ve been accused a lot of being what I would refer to as a trusted advisor.” His math is simple and hard to argue with. If we are going to stop the truck for $100 a week, why not stop the truck for $140 a week, make the customer’s life easier, and grow the route at the same time? Mark believes most routes can grow 10% a year on add-on products alone, but only for the people who care enough to try. It will not be handed to us.

Don’t Sell. Ask Them to Evaluate.

So how does a route rep start that conversation with a customer who seems perfectly happy? Not with a pitch. “We don’t want to sell our customers anything,” Mark says. “We want to make them aware that we provide a product or a service, because if they know we have it, they might just want to buy it from us. I ask our customers to evaluate a product or service, because their input is extremely important to me.”

It is a small shift with a big difference. Provide the product, let the customer try it for a couple of weeks, check back, and talk about what going forward looks like once you have their honest read. That is not selling. That is caring, with a plan.

Watch for the Signs

Growing a customer and keeping a customer are the same muscle, so we also have to catch an account that might be drifting before it ever leaves. The clearest early sign is a simple one. “They stop paying their bill,” Mark says. “When a customer starts getting into AR trouble, usually that’s a sure sign that there’s something going on with the partnership.”

It could be a new face at the customer, a different experience with a different provider, or a shift in their own business. The tell often shows up in accounts receivable first. The fix is not complicated. Be engaged enough to notice the change, report it at the route check-in, and have a supervisor make a goodwill call to find out what is going on. We should care enough to ask.

Match the Effort to the Opportunity

Not every opportunity needs a specialist. The smaller, simpler products a route person can install and ask a customer to evaluate belong right on the route. Longer sales like paper are more involved and may bring in a business development rep to understand usage, count dispensers, and gauge how satisfied the customer really is with their current provider. Keep the simple things on the truck, and pull in help when the opportunity earns it.

The Grind Worth Doing

Winning new business is fun. Keeping what we have can be a grind. But there is a real financial reason our long-standing customers are our most profitable ones. “The best and most profitable customers are the ones that we’ve had for 40 years, 30 years, 20 years, 10 years,” Mark says. We already bought the merchandise and already paid for it, so an account we have serviced for years is us collecting on that investment. A big new account, by contrast, can cost tens of thousands of dollars just to install.

A customer’s needs will change, their people will change, and their business will change as they go. That can be exciting and even fun if we treat it as a chance to partner and help them. So do not take the relationship for granted. As Mark puts it, partner and be a trusted advisor. There is no losing in that deal. That is just the CITY way.