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…
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…
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…
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…
How interactive print helped one printing company increase a client’s revenues by 22%
Digital clutter prevents business growth According to Hubspot, 35% of marketers now send their customers 3-5 emails per week. For many people this is just too much. Some marketers are of the opinion that the more e-mail you send out, the better your chances of your message being seen at some point by the recipient. However, the rise of e-mail frequency means that it can be increasingly difficult for your message to get seen. Compared to this, direct mail still stands out to the recipient. Recent research by JicMail, shows that direct mail stays in a household for an average of 7.4…
Print industry predictions part: Did I get it all wrong?
I have made my predictions: I could be wrong E-mail could still be a thriving communication channel. Litho may thrive. Printing companies may be desperate for more press operators. None of us know exactly what will happen one decade from now. The purpose of these predictions is not to show that I have some sort of unique view into the future. It is to encourage everyone to think further ahead and to prepare for what may be coming. We can’t foresee it all. Who could have predicted Covid? But there’s a lot going on in the background that we should…
Print industry predictions part 7: selling print remains depressingly similar
The printing industry is often not good at selling Many printing companies seem to offer nothing more exciting than good service, good quality and cheap prices. There is a relentless focus on machines and processes that buyers just don’t care about. The average website is uninspiring with pictures of printing presses and nothing to interest a prospect. The average conversation or sales letter or e-mail is generally just a request for a quote. The printing industry has often relied on one sales strategy. Let’s deal with the myth of the book of business Sales people often recruited because everyone hopes…
Print industry predictions part 6: the need for online trust
How do you trust someone if you only meet them online? This has been a struggle for big brands for a long, long time. Some have created a huge tribe of raving fans. Others have been rather less successful. However, it has never really been an issue for printing companies. They have always had a friendly sales person or customer services member who should be able to build a trusting relationship with a customer. But, with the rise of online business, things are changing Building online trust will be essential for printing companies Online will have to be the primary…
