Print sales is about selling programs which are technology enabled. Let your customers have control, they want it. Saving time for your customers is how the “relationship” will be evaluated, install an ATM machine (online ordering system) before your competitors use that pitch to displace you!
Sales people are a unique breed, the talented ones warrant all the special treatment, because lets admit it, most people don’t want to have anything to do with the sales process.
With the advent of online commerce, the role of sales has changed. The sales resources need to change with it. If your sales team’s identity is rooted in the full service, only about the relationship, more activity is better, mentality – a new identity is needed to succeed in what is becoming a primarily ONLINE world for commerce.
Do you feel threatened by the change or thrilled with the opportunity? I’m here to convince you to be THRILLED because the opportunity is huge.
Think of full service sales as taking a trip to the bank every time you need $20 (or a print job from a customer). Takes up a lot of your time, which is your most precious resource and more importantly it takes up a lot of your customer’s time. Now think of “withdrawing” jobs from your customers by installing an ATM machine so they can deposit into your account in a self-service manner!
Online ordering isn’t replacing you, it’s scaling your ability to deliver results and receive incentives (e.g. commissions).
Your job is to sell programs, which are technology enabled, not simply facilitate one-time transactions with your customers. Your relationships are strategic, evaluated by efficiencies in the use of labor by your customer vs. tactical, evaluated by how much activity you are consuming to facilitate transactions.
A lot of printers complain about putting forth the effort on web to print sites that nobody uses. The most common reason for this is that print sales representatives were never “sold” on the idea and therefore they didn’t sell it, nor do they know how to sell the adoption of it moving forward.
Today’s print sales representatives need to sell technology-enabled programs (ATM machines), which continues to make each transaction easier on the customer. When sales are properly targeted they will sell the program and the adoption.
Join me for a free webinar on this subject: Tuesday, February 8, 2011 – 2pm Eastern
Hello Jennifer,
It was encouraging to read the post, however I have missed your webinar. Could you please share your presentation with me on amit.chavan@reproindialtd.com ?
Best
Amit
Amit,
The webinar was sponsored by Red-Tie, they will be posting the webinar. I suggest you contact them: http://red-tie.com/
Thanks,
Jen
Jennifer-
I suppose I agree with your article. I still see too many business owners unable to grasp the power of using web to print applications and modify their business models to make it worthwhile for their sales force to promote.
It seems to me the new ‘sales force” of the future has alot more to do with a properly
crafted marketing plan that incorporates web to print, social media and direct marketing techniques that attract and pre-sell the customer. The whole idea of print sales is so different than what it was before this. There are very few areas of the print industry left in which the “generalist” style print company and print sales force
will even be necessary and in fact usually just get in the way by trying to inject personal service. As a print buyer myself it’s all about ease of use and time management. Quality is a given.
Duncan,
I agree – new sales force is so much more about marketing now because the brute force sales approach has lost its effectiveness. Attract and pre-sell, the web marketing experts like “Seth Godin” call this permission or pull marketing. I present these ideas in the form of the sales cycle described as Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me, Pay Me – - think of the sales cycle in those terms and you can easily see how you could bring prospects up to the point of “Pay me” without ever interacting with them in person (all self service, all on line).
I love your last comment from a print buyers perspective: “its all about ease of use and time management” – right on. Our time is our most precious resource, I don’t see that changing EVER, if you can save your customer time, you can charge them money!
Thanks,
Jen
Jen,
Your comment about “Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me, Pay Me” is a very powerful concept. I have been using social media for this very reason.
I interact with people I will never meet in person on a daily basis. I use social media marketing to get people to “know me” and I use “knowledge” based give aways to build the “like me” factor. I use customer testimonials and comments to get them to the “trust me” phase where many of them end up “paying me.”
It was been working so well that I have already surpassed last years total # of individual orders and 100% have come from social media or referrals.
Michael – I can’t take credit for the Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me, Pay Me – I read about it in Joel Comm’s Twitter book but I don’t think it originated with him either. Nevertheless – its awesome isn’t it?
Jen