It’s time to learn to say no
How often do you say no? Saying no is an important skill to master. There are many times when it comes in useful: When dealing with unreasonable colleagues When dealing with unreasonable clients When what you are asked is just not possible When you are too busy to help When your time is better spent doing something else The trouble is that often it is hard to say no. We feel bad for saying it. Or we feel that we ought accommodate someone’s wishes, no matter how unrealistic they are. And, sometimes, we are just not sure about how to…
Is it time to focus on profit not turnover?
Losing a major client could be the best thing that ever happens to you One of my mentoring clients lost a major client just before they started working with me. The los forced them to downsize the business. Turnover was severely reduced. However, when my client reviewed the business figures, it turned out that they were actually making more money than before. The focus on expansion and turnover had led him to concentrate on turnover. It turned out that might not have been the best strategy. Maybe it’s time to focus on profitable clients What would your business look like…
New research: buyers don’t choose on price
Buyers are beginning to change their habits These days, price is by no means the only thing that interests buyers. One trend that has been growing over the past few years is the importance of the customer experience when making a purchase. New research shows that 2022 is the year in which customer experience could outweigh price in purchasing decisions. This research is amongst consumers. You could be excused from thinking that this doesn’t apply to print sales. However, this is not the case. This new trend is just as applicable to print buyers I have been talking to a…
Paper shortages mean you have to review profit margins
How are you managing higher paper prices? Many people I talk to are trying to absorb some or all of the increases. They don’t want to raise prices for the customers. But we are all having to absorb rising energy costs, higher food prices and many other increased overheads. Why should your customers be different? The printing industry should be educating users about the paper situation and showing them why they should be accepting increases. What is the right price increase to apply to paper? Some printing companies are passing price rises on, but at cost. This affects the overall…
Why your new employee may be bad for your company
What’s your newest employee like? If you were responsible for hiring them, it’s fairly likely that they are fairly like you. Research shows that, typically, we hire people who are similar to us. Often, we look for people with whom we could be friends. Hiring people like you causes problems Firstly, everybody agrees with you. That may sound great, but everyone is capable of making a bad decision. It’s good to have people who don’t think the same way as you to challenge you if you’re making the wrong choice. Also, someone like you may not be the best fit for…
How to avoid the big mistake that many people make when they sell on pain
Pain is a very powerful sales tool Buyers typically don’t care about you and your company. They have no interest in your features and benefits. They are really only concerned about themselves and their company. If you can get a buyer to open up to you about their problems, and if you can solve them, then you are in a much better place to make a sale. This is where many sales people run into problems The traditional approach is that you contact a buyer, you ask them about their pain and then you are in a great place to…
Is your company headed in the right direction?
I see many printing companies all desperately headed in the same direction Trying to grow Assuming that growth comes from volume Cutting prices to build volume Getting into price wars with the competition Investing in more machinery to try and be more efficient to match the lower prices they are offering Some people do this very well. They get a kick out of beating their productivity figures again and again. They love improving their workflows. And they make good money out of it. But many of the people I talk don’t seem to be enjoying this constant battle to produce…
The five pillars of sales and marketing – do you use them all?
More than ever it is important to cover sales and marketing from a wide range of bases Focussing on one single strategy is not enough. To maintain and grow business requires work in a number of areas. I find it useful to break down my sales and marketing into five areas. Here are the five pillars of sales and marketing Regular sales activities It is vital to have a number of regular activities that you carry out to maintain your existing client base as well as win new clients. These can be simple tactics such as following up with lapsed…
What will you change in 2022? (Five ideas on how to do things differently this year)
It’s the start of a new year! That means it is time to review what you are doing. It is time to re-think how you are selling print. Why is it so important to change things? Firstly, what you were doing a couple of years ago often doesn’t work. Most importantly, if you keep on practising the same old strategies you will encounter the law of diminishing returns. No matter how good the strategies, they always become slightly less effective the longer you keep doing them. That’s why it is so important to bring new ideas into the mix. What…
Three changes you should make to your print sales right now
Most people could achieve more sales with some simple tweaks Oddly enough I don’t see many people carrying out what I’m about to share with you. (If you do carry out any of these activities, congratulations!) Yet, these are all simple things to do. And they are time efficient. Let’s go through them and you can see if you practise any of them already. Mindless Selling I hesitate to use this name, but I called it this for a reason. I believe that everyone should think and care about what they do. This name could imply the opposite. However, what…