In our blog, we have been talking a lot about the importance of choosing right products, the importance of delivering the right information to your producer, the challenges that we face when producing log cabins and other timber structures. What we haven’t covered before are the log cabin sales business, i.e. our partners. It’s not easy to get any business going and certain industry segments are more challenging than others. At Eurodita, we take the customer-first approach, which leads us to fully service and provide for our partners before anything else.
In this blog post, we would like to share, from a log home supplier perspective, what it takes to start and become a successful log cabin sales and maintenance company. This will also include the things we are looking for in partners and what we can offer for such a starting business.
Smart investment when starting sales
As a starting business, not many are blessed with large investment capabilities. What we always recommend is then invest in things that you can control. More often than not, that is marketing efforts, sales personnel and branding. We admire people that are capable salespersons, who can makes their client feel like their order is special and nothing else in the world matters, other than the delivery of that order. This is the customer-first approach we adopted, but sales companies can take it further by being in touch with the final customer. Invest in people that have this approach to sales. Invest in people that care about the customer and take interest to find out more about the log cabin market and your products.
Then, invest in marketing. Help your good salespeople receive more leads to work with. Target correct customers through social media and ads networks, even local, printed material might be good investment. Invest in these tools and pick out who your ideal customer should be. This becomes increasingly easy with the help of advertising agencies or online learning sites.
Choose your products
Notice that so far we haven’t mentioned investing in your production line at all. That is because, for starting sales companies, we always recommend getting a reliable log cabins supplier. That will allow you to direct your funds to business efforts that you can directly control – i.e. sales and marketing – instead of learning about how to produce log cabins yourself, buying expensive equipment and getting reliable raw material sources. Private label homes are your best bet here.
With good production partners chosen, you can then select your products. Our catalogue is brimming with options, as well as opportunities to produce bespoke timber houses. Match products with clients that would be interested in them. If you are also willing to take bespoke homes orders, make sure your partner is versatile enough and capable of producing new designs. As an example, we at Eurodita take in ALL designs and our partners are never left without a product.
Adding maintenance
With successful sales often comes the post-sale maintenance. In the log cabin business, this often includes putting the delivered log cabin together on site. Another worthwhile investment direction here is your maintenance crew. People that know about building log cabins and working with them. Depending on your products, these can be people that also work with insulation, electric wiring, painting and roofing.
Decide the extent to which you will deliver the log cabin. Invest in reliable maintenance crew for extended projects with full build. Outsource a reputable crew in cases where you simply put together log cabins or log homes that come in parts, usually flat packed. Also consider if you will be handling the delivery on your own, or you will leave that to your production partner as well. In that case, make sure your partner has positive experience in this field as well.
Final thoughts
There are many things to consider when starting your own business. We know this, as anyone else, because we have started very small 27 years ago as well and haven’t forgotten about it. We support our partners through our partner program and we invite every company to trust us for their production, for we are customer-first company and aim to make a 100% of our partners happy with our services.