Why pubs and printing companies have more in common than we might think
Who would have thought it would be possible to learn so much about the printing industry from a visit to the pub?! What I thought would be a simple night out for a beer or two and good conversation with a friend turned out to be highly educational. Looking round this one establishment gave me a lot of food for thought about how we sell print. To be honest, drawing the parallels started of as a bit of a joke between my friend and I. But I quickly realised that actually there was a lot of value in finding parallels…
How to use WIIFM to stop being beaten down on price
Buyers are always pushing sales people on price You can’t blame them. After all, that is their job as a buyer. They are tasked with getting the best possible results for their companies. That includes making sure their suppliers give them a good price. As a buyer, I always noticed two types of print sales people when I pushed on price. Many sales people simply lowered their price. They were worried they would lose the business to the competition. So they reduced their quotes as soon as I asked. They made my life very easy. If I kept asking for…
One of the biggest threats to the printing industry is straight-line negotiation – here’s what to do about it
Ever feel you’ve been on the end of a bad deal? It’s happened to us all. We’ve negotiated hard but we haven’t got what we’ve wanted. We’ve coming away feeling that we’re worse off than the buyer. We feel that they’ve screwed every last penny out of us. It’s not a good feeling. You are often left wondering if you could have done something to even things up a little. However, you were probably in a straight-line negotiation. If that was the case then there’s probably not a lot you could have done.
Here’s a 10-minute sales challenge that gets results
How many sales channels did you use last week? Most people will come up with three as their answer. They will have used: Phone E-mail Face-to-face meetings Unfortunately, answering three (or less) is a fail! That’s simply not enough variety to engage with today’s buyers. It’s time to mix up your communication!
Are you conditioning your customers to buy on price?
The best way to get people to buy is to offer them a discount Retail stores do it all the time. Black Friday, New Year Sales, Summer Sales: we all know that these are a series of events designed to drive customers to their stores. They boost sales. The print industry is no different. Many companies offer regular discount offers. They will e-mail these out, share them on social media and even send out direct mail about them. Sometimes it seems that it is hard to buy something at full price. On the high street one sale seems to merge…
Here’s a novel idea: sell printing by using print!
The average printing company doesn’t use print Their factories may be filled with ink on paper, but none of it relates to them. When it comes to selling their products and services they rely on everything apart from print. They use e-mail, social media and cold calling. So why is there such a dislike of using print? Why are we abandoning the communication channel which we champion to other people? What makes this decision even stranger is the fact that print is one of the best performing channels. STATS Here’s why print works
LinkedIn has changed again – does this mean you need a new social media strategy?
Once again, LinkedIn looks totally different The platform has been updated. Even those of us who use LinkedIn on a regular basis are wondering where to find essential features. LinkedIn has made a whole range of changes, some for the better and some for the worse. Some features have been removed and some changed. Some paying LinkedIn users are going to be very disappointed. Naturally, many people are questioning how LinkedIn now fits into their social media strategy. However, it is important to remember that LinkedIn is certainly still an important part of any social media strategy. Here’s why LinkedIn…
Phone and e-mail don’t work any more: here’s a sales channel that does
Phone and e-mail don’t work any more If you want to get hold of new prospects by cold calling, you have a hard task on your hands. It takes an average of 8.4 calls to actually get hold of a prospect (source: IKO). Then you have 20 seconds to raise the prospect’s interest or all your effort has been wasted. It’s the same with e-mail. The average businessperson receives over 120 e-mails a day (source: Radicati). How do you stand out against all the competition? In many cases your e-mail will never even be opened.
What do you do if a prospect answers the phone?!
What’s a typical morning’s cold calling like for you? If you are like many other sales people, you need to prepare yourself for the endless phone pickups that you are going to have to make. Firstly, that means lots of strong coffee. Then means surfing the Internet pretending that this is prospect research. You are putting off the moment when you have to pick up the phone for as long as possible.
Why saying no improves sales results
We live in a “yes” culture In today’s world, everyone is encouraged to say yes as often as possible. In the world of selling we are conditioned that the customer is always right. We are told that we must do everything that they want. Otherwise they will go elsewhere and we will lose valuable business. This article will challenge the assumption that yes is always right response. Saying no can bring valuable business benefits. It can even increase your profits dramatically. Saying no can be a powerful strategy for sales people
