I have heard many sales managers tell their sales team to "focus on the larger design firms". But as I see it, pursuing the big firms can be a big mistake.
It is easy for a sales manager to assume that a sales call on a 100 person architectural firm should generate ten times the sales revenue than can be made from by calling on a design firm with just ten people on the staff. If each sales call takes the same amount of time to make, a salesperson would be foolish to waste time on the smaller firm.
But assumptions like these are based on averaged results, and they work only if a rep sells "average" products to an average architect. Yet there is little incentive for a building product manufacturer with average products to bother selling to design professionals; they should be focusing on the end user (contractor) and their distribution channel. Typically, it only makes sense to market to design professionals if you can offer a unique sales proposition. And if you have a unique sales proposition, you are no longer looking for averaged design firms, but for design firms with specific needs that your specific product can satisfy.
Here is the math that makes more sense to me. The 100 person firm has 100 people who can stand in the way of you making your sale. A ten person firm has only 10 people you have to deal with. Or, to state it another way, you may have to deal with a lot of people in the big firm before you find the decision makers. In the small firm, you have a better chance of finding the right people more efficiently.
I don't have the data to prove this, but I suspect the value of construction put in place per employee is about the same regardless of the size of the design firm. If ten people turn out ten projects a year that cost $10 million each, that is the same construction value as the large firm where 100 employees turn out $100 million of construction.
I know we can all think of cases where these ratios don't apply, but on the average, they make a lot of sense, especially when we understand that the larger projects done by the big firm often take longer to move through design, permitting, and construction. More, the sales rep might find more competitors knocking on the door of the big firm, diminishing the rep's odds of success.
So what should the wise building product sales rep do?
Get strategic.
Find the firms that need your products, and focus on them regardless of the size of the firm.
Realize that you are not selling to design firms so much as you are to individuals who can champion your product within their firms. Then find the right individuals and build relationships with them.
However, some building product manufacturers have an economy of scale that makes the big jobs that only big firms can do the logical choice. If your firm can sell rail cars full of materials but your competitors can’t, then going big is the right strategy.
Happy hunting!