#UKvUSA: Is triple bidding a waste of time?
Two continents: US and UK. Two different buying backgrounds: procurement and agency. Two alternative ways of looking at things. I’m delighted to have teamed up with Deborah Corn from PrintMediaCentr to bring two extremely different views to some important print questions. So welcom e to Print Buying: #UKvUSA where Deborah and I share information about our experiences from both sides of the pond. At the end of this post I have linked to Deborah’s answer to the same question. We wrote our answers (each limited to 500 words) without any idea of what the other was writing. As Deborah says:…
3 unusual sales targets that bring in more print business
It’s all about the journey, not the destination We were lucky enough to spend Christmas in Lapland (and we got to see the Northern Lights!). But just saying we were going to go would not have resulted in us actually having our holiday there. We had to book accommodation and flights. Organising the journey was a crucial part of getting the right result. It’s vital to plan the sales journey as well All too often I see sales people that have targets. But they don’t have a plan for achieving them. They rely on the fact that things went well…
The importance of being the first to offer when resolving disputes
Do you get disappointed when you’re trying to resolve a dispute? So many people hope that the other side will make a suggestion. And they hope that this suggestion will cost them far less than if they had made an offer in the first place. The trouble is that this strategy never works. The offer that the other side makes is always far more than you would have ever suggested. You are left wondering how to respond to their approach. Here’s an alternative strategy.
Why NICE negotiation skills can double your print profits
Here’s a simple way to double your profits There’s no magic trickery involved. There’s no need to invest in dubious get quick rich schemes. It’s just a basic sales strategy. The solution is to add 5% to your selling price. Let’s look at the maths involved
#UKvUSA: Does your teamwork work?
Two continents: US and UK. Two different buying backgrounds: procurement and agency. Two alternative ways of looking at things. I’m delighted to have teamed up with Deborah Corn from PrintMediaCentr to bring two extremely different views to some important print questions. So welcom e to Print Buying: #UKvUSA where Deborah and I share information about our experiences from both sides of the pond. At the end of this post I have linked to Deborah’s answer to the same question. We wrote our answers (each limited to 500 words) without any idea of what the other was writing. As Deborah says:…
Is it time to throw offset “under the bus”?
Should you sell digital printing differently to “traditional” print? This is a question I asked recently on the LinkedIn Digital Printing Group. Here was the first answer from Paul Gardner, ‘The 2nd Most Disruptive Person in Print”. His take was: “Oh, Yeah! One of our digital sales guys – who also sells a bunch of offset – describes his approach as, “To really sell Digital, you’ve got to be willing to throw Offset under the bus!” His answer certainly provoked some thought from me. Is this too extreme?
11 ways to sell more products to your customers
“If only I’d known you provided that” This is a sentence that many customers have probably uttered over the years. No matter how hard we try, most of our customers don’t know anything about at least some of the many products and services that we offer. I’ve certainly come up against this issue myself. How many opportunities are we losing as a result of this? How much money is this costing us?
Why the CAR Process is essential when quoting a prospect
“Here’s my biggest frustration” “Being told we’ve been beaten on price, then receiving vague feedback. Yes, that old chestnut. I’ll ask if we were close, far away, how did we rank against other quotes, and usually the response is vague ‘you were competitive but not the cheapest’ or ‘you were close on some prices but far away on others’.“ This is what one of the readers of my “views from the buyer” newsletter told me recently. She was wondering what how to approach this problem. It’s time to be tough with clients
How to engage your prospects so they want to buy from you
Today’s buyers work in new ways Many of today’s buyers are making most of their purchasing decisions on the internet. They will approach the supplier, not the other way round. In fact, people have often found their preferred supplier long in advance of needing to use them. Many companies have not yet caught up with this change in buying behavior, especially if they are involved in business sales. Today’s sales activity often does not take the modern buyer into account
Do you practice accountability?
How do you achieve what you are being asked to? These days I see many people being given total freedom in what they do. This applies especially in sales. In one way this is great. No one is telling you what to do. As long as you achieve the right results, you choose how you get there. But sometimes, being left on your own is hard. Freedom isn’t always as great as it’s made out to be
