Background
Corry, Pennsylvania-based Corry Rubber Corporation (“CRC”), had achieved steady, consistent growth across multiple decades of the company’s history since its 1961 founding. However, in recent years organic growth began to taper off, with sales plateauing as a result.
The company believed its inability to generate additional growth was the result of a few key factors, including:
- existing sources of revenue were too often project-based and non-recurring, and thus, frequently turning over and in need of being replaced;
- a historical over-reliance on unproductive sales representatives whose focus, commitment, and motivation were either non-existent or spread thinly among many additional accounts;
- lack of a focused internal sales program to generate leads with potential new customers.
The latter issues are unlikely to be a revelation to most small and medium-sized manufacturers, especially multi-generational family owned ones like CRC. Frequently—and CRC is no exception—businesses such as these are founded and run by individuals with strong technical backgrounds, whereby decades of the company’s focus is centered upon producing and delivering outstanding quality products, though not necessarily the sales and marketing of those products.
Solution
Lead Generation
To overcome recent growth challenges, CRC’s senior leadership decided to invest in and enhance their sales and marketing capabilities by turning to DVIRC and its Lead Generation service.
“We needed somebody who could generate additional at-bats for us. We simply weren’t getting enough opportunities to communicate our capabilities to potential customers who had problems and were in need of our chemistry, engineering, and manufacturing expertise,” says CRC’s President, Ernie Ferro. “We’ve always been confident we can beat our competition on almost any customer-provided benchmark, be it problem-solving, technical specs, cost, quality, support, or on-time delivery, but these capabilities mean nothing if nobody knows about them. In DVIRC we found a partner who not only began to communicate them, but began by taking the time to truly understand our business and goals so that they could do so in the most effective fashion.”
Immediately following engagement, DVIRC began an in-depth assessment of CRC’s competitors, current and prospective end-use industries, and conducted market research to stratify the most promising targets. With that information in hand, CRC could then make informed decisions about the location, size, and activity conducted during the Lead Generation effort.
Next, DVIRC aided in the creation of outreach materials, scripts, and lists of potential prospects that matched those criteria. The “raw list” was evaluated each month to build a pool of 60 prospects to receive the introductory letters, followed by phone calls to targeted decision makers.
We’ve always been confident we can beat our competition on almost any customer-provided benchmark…but these capabilities mean nothing if nobody knows about them. In DVIRC we found a partner who not only began to communicate them, but began by taking the time to truly understand our business and goals so that they could do so in the most effective fashion.
Ernie Ferro, Corry Rubber Corporation
Results
- To date, DVIRC’s efforts have resulted in four new customers for CRC, with one new client alone contributing $400,000 in new sales
- CRC’s first major success was a purchase order that will deliver nearly $400,000 in additional annual revenue that it believes will be sustainable and recurring well into the future
- The company is also quoting another prospect that could generate $2.5-$5.0 million in additional annual sales, similarly sustainable and recurring