u/silhouette_lights

My wife and I bought a small manufacturing business last year from my old boss. We both work in unrelated public service careers, and I’m now responsible for the marketing/sales side.

The business manufactures low-voltage landscape lighting in the Fraser Valley, BC. Our products are higher-end than what you find at home depot, walmart, etc. Most of our existing customers are landscapers or electricians who install and recommend the lights to their clients.

Customers we already have seem to really like the products. Many have been buying them for years. The person who started the business was a landscaper and had a retail store in a city near ours. The main selling points are quality, design, price point/margins for the contractor market, and the fact that they’re made in Canada.

My background is in marketing, not B2B sales. I’ve been improving the website, social media, and B2C side, which helps with the occasional online sale, but real growth is probably direct through landscape professionals and electricians, or distributors like landscape supply stores and maybe garden centres.

Where I’m struggling is outbound sales.

Cold calling has actually been met with some interest, but once I follow up by email the conversation usually dies. I’ve also contacted landscape supply stores, but they're too busy during the season to consider new products. Good for next year potentislly but we miss out on this years projects. Cold email feels like it either goes to spam or gets ignored. I’ve considered using one of those mass email outreach systems, but it feels like it could be a waste of time or damage the brand if done poorly.

For anyone here who has grown a small B2B business, especially selling to contractors, trades, retailers, wholesalers, or distributors:

What actually worked for you?

• Is cold calling still worth doing, or should I focus more on in-person visits? We're focusing on growing within BC and AB for this year.
• How would you approach landscapers or electricians without sounding like every other supplier?
• Should I focus on contractors first, or try to get into supply stores/garden centres?
• Are sample kits, demo displays, worth offering?
• How many follow-ups is reasonable before moving on?
• Would you avoid mass cold email entirely?
• What would you do in the first 90 days if you were trying to build a B2B dealer/installer network from scratch?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi veryone I'm looking for some advice from some owners/designers here. I bought into a small company in Canada that builds 12v landscape light fixtures and transformers. I'm trying to find a way to grow and have a few questions. We have a good mix of spot lights, pathway, deck, fence/wall mount, etc.

The business has been around for 20 years and has a lot of happy local customers that used to buy from a retail location that no longer exists. The original owner was a landscaper so knew a lot about the industry. Me, not so much. Our fixtures are metal (copper, brass, aluminum) with powdercoat so they're better quality and more expensive. I've mostly been cold calling/email and explaining our position and offering some demo lights. Mixed success here.

1. When your planning a build, is lighting typically something a homeowner requests or is it a add-on feature that you recommend?

2. When buying material, do you just recommend what the local supply store has or (lighting specifically) do you research/order and have it shipped to you?

3. Do you install lighting systems yourself or do you contract out to say an irrigation company or electeician?

4. Is there anything that the big lighting companies(wac, volt, kichler) do well that you really like?

5. Is there anything these companies do that are lacking we could pick up on?

Any help would be much appreciated.