Sell to the installer, not the end user.

Problem

Farmers would not buy a chiller from a company they had never heard of, and the sales cycle ran to eleven visits. The technicians who maintained their existing equipment were trusted and were visiting anyway.

Context

A 200-litre milk chiller for smallholder dairy. Direct sales for fourteen months before the channel changed.

What they did

1. 1.Mapped who already had a monthly relationship with the customer, which was the cooperative's service technicians.
2. 2.Rebuilt the commercial terms so the technician earned on installation and on the service contract, not on the unit margin.
3. 3.Simplified the install so one technician could do it alone in under two hours.
4. 4.Published the service manual publicly rather than gating it behind a dealer agreement.

What to avoid

• •The first commission structure paid on the sale and produced installs the technicians did not stand behind.
• •Two cooperatives read the direct sales history as competition with their own technicians and had to be walked back.

Sources

• Channel comparison, 22 monthsKumasi Cold Rooms sales record

Related lessons

• Ship to one city until the reorder rate holds.→