How EBQ helped Indiana Fluid Power Set 36 Sales Appointments and Close a $500,000 Deal in Just Three Months
IFP (Indiana Fluid Power and IFP Automation) was expanding their territories and scope of services, so they knew they needed an expert appointment-setting partner. Within the first three months of their partnership, IFP set over 30 sales appointments across more than 150+ target accounts.
Worth of Deals Closed
Response Rate per Company
Touchpoints Made
The Challenge
With more than 40 years of experience, IFP has been designing and selling fluid power, motion control, and automation systems for the industrial and mobile OEM marketplace. As a family-owned and operated company, IFP is known for their knowledgeable sales engineers and focus on value-added solutions.
When IFP expanded both their territory and range of services offered, they started to evaluate their current market positioning. They noticed that while IFP is one of the four most dominant players in their industry, their sales engineers were not running into competitors during their discovery calls — leading them to wonder if there were markets they were missing out on.
IFP also offered sophisticated solutions, which resulted in longer sales cycles (6-18 months). Their sales engineers needed to dedicate time to working closely with current customers and designing systems that actually solved their problems — leaving little time for cold calling.
To meet IFP’s aggressive revenue goals, they knew they needed a sales funnel that had a constant flow of new leads. As a secondary objective, they sought to increase the number of large customers (those investing $100,000 or more) from IFP.
“We have a complex message, and I wasn’t convinced that someone outside our company would be able to learn it quickly and deliver the results we wanted. These are critical systems and components, so it’s not easy to convince a company to change providers,” said Bernie Clarke, President of IFP.
The Solution
IFP initially partnered with EBQ to run two separate campaigns targeting two different markets: mobile and industrial. They gave EBQ a list of accounts to start contacting as a starting point, so EBQ augmented the list with additional accounts to broaden their outreach program.
Since IFP had two distinct targets (purchasing agents and engineers), EBQ developed targeted messages for each of the title paths. They worked with IFP to prepare EBQ reps with several objection-handling scenarios.
“I really appreciate EBQ’s scientific approach to lead generation. The statistical analysis they did quickly showed what was working, so we could make changes to the campaigns that boosted results and made the program very efficient,” said Bernie.
The Results
Overall, IFP appreciated how EBQ was proactive in uncovering new sales opportunities — looking for trends in their call data that could strengthen their future efforts. Within the first three months of the outreach campaign, EBQ helped IFP:
- Close a deal worth more than $500,000
- Set 36 appointments
- Make 1000 touches to 150 accounts
- Achieve a 23% response rate per company
- Attain a 15% response rate per person targeted
“EBQ has done an outstanding job of cultivating our relationship with potential buyers. If I had left this campaign up to our internal staff, we may have set three to four appointments in this timeframe; they just don’t have the time to devote to cold calling,” said Bernie.
IFP was also impressed by EBQ’s sales staff and built-in management layer. Thanks to their due diligence and processes, most of the sales appointments were set after the initial phone call.
“I was surprised at how quickly EBQ’s rep understood our business and how responsive the sales reps were in bringing issues to my attention immediately. This helped us quickly confront objections and fast-tracked our success,” said Bernie
The success of EBQ’s initial outreach program has since led IFP to develop a second pilot program that targets a new market.
I was surprised at how quickly EBQ’s rep understood our business and how responsive the sales reps were in bringing issues to my attention immediately. This helped us quickly confront objections and fast-tracked our success,
Indiana Fluid Power x EBQ
Find out how Indiana Fluid Power set more appointments and closed more deals within their first 3 months of working with EBQ.