What will the printing industry look like in ten years’ time?
Here’s one prediction about the printing industry that I’m pretty sure about In ten years’ time the print industry will still be here. It will still be strong and vibrant. There will still be a need for print. I cannot see how it is possible for the majority of businesses to survive without print. Print is present in so many spaces: on all our packaging, in all the buildings we enter and even on the clothes we wear. I don’t see this changing. I’m sure some print sectors will grow and others will struggle. But I still see plenty of…
The printing industry wastes too much time on colour
There is too much obsession with colour in the printing industry I may be setting myself up for a lynching by printers here, but does colour matter as much as the printing industry says it does? Time and time again I have been approached by printing companies that make a big deal of their superb quality and excellent colour reproduction. There seems to be a belief in certain sectors of the industry that you can make a lot more profit from high quality colour print. There are a few areas where this is true: for instance, fine art businesses and…
New ways to sell print in a new environment
Are you fed up with the traditionalists? Personally, I have had enough of the sales messages that I keep seeing that pretend that nothing has happened. Every day I receive e-mails and social media messages that I see from companies that say they are open for business as normal. But these messages ignore the fact that normal has disappeared. If we want to sell print successfully in 2021, we need adopt a new set of values. However, we also need to accept that it is still OK to sell. Businesses need to survive during a pandemic. Our businesses have a…
How do you get hold of customers when they are working from home?
Homeworking is here to stay We have all been forced to embrace staff working from home by the spread of Coronavirus. Now many companies are now re-evaluating their working practices. A major company near me has five large office buildings. Three were closed at the outset of the virus. These three buildings will now stay closed permanently. Many of their staff are delighted to stop having to drive into work every day. Whilst it is certainly not for everyone, a large number of employees are delighted at being based at home. This creates a problem for sales people Trying to…
Three important print opportunities for 2021
2021 doesn’t have to be about doom and gloom I have read a lot about how print is being affected by so many markets being unable to function due to Coronavirus. Many traditional print markets have been hugely affected by the events of the past few months. However, there are also a host of new print opportunities. Some markets are expanding rapidly. Others are opening up to print in ways that they never have before. And some markets are not as dead as we might think. However, we do need to approach customers with a new creative mindset. Here are…
We have been selling print for too long
Think about selling print from your customer’s point of view They don’t know anything about print. They don’t care about what sort of press you use or understand your systems. They don’t want you to be selling print. Today’s customers want three things: They need to know how your product will help their business How will your signs increase footfall? Or your direct mail increase online sales? Can your loyalty vouchers increase repeat business? Will your packaging allow them to raise prices? Note, that we are not talking about print any more: we are talking about products and services. We are…
What are your January targets?
Welcome to 2021: it is time to set January targets It is not the start to the year that many of us would hope for. But I’m sure that, if we approach the coming months with positivity, we will find interesting opportunities. The best way to do this is to set January targets. What are you going to do in January? I always find it useful to write down targets and to share them. If I write them down, I commit to them more. And if I share them it starts to make me accountable. So here are my three…
Here’s the secret to successful print sales in 2021
If you want to achieve successful print sales next year you need to start planning now Here are all the questions for successful print sales you should be considering at the moment: What will my 2021 offering look like? What products and services are working with customers who are surviving the current pandemic and fallout? What does my financial target look like? How much business do I need next year that allows the company to survive and takes into account customers that I have lost but also any reduced business costs? What is the best way of communicating with my…
How to set up 4 LinkedIn meetings in less than 30 minutes
How do you get hold of people you have lost contact with? It is simpler than you think to set up LinkedIn meetings! One of my clients had moved jobs. They couldn’t take the contact details of their network with them. And there were a whole bunch of contacts that they had lost contact with and who had moved jobs. So how did they turn this situation around? Here’s a quick 30-minute exercise to set up LinkedIn meetings that anyone can do I got my client to reach out to twenty of their old contacts that they had lost touch…
LinkedIn prospects are better than other prospects: here’s the proof
I’d sooner have LinkedIn prospects than prospects I found elsewhere There’s a simple reason for this: on average, LinkedIn prospects are higher quality prospects than ones found through traditional means. Do I sound like someone who is either completely hoodwinked by LinkedIn or desperately trying to sell LinkedIn training? Well, I’m keen to train you in my LinkedIn systems, but let’s look at the proof behind what I say. Here’s why LinkedIn prospects are better I have been given access to findings from a large corporation. They asked me not to reveal their name, but they are in the printing…