Mark Vruno

Any advice on selling fulfillment services?
July 10, 2007

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Question: I’m thinking about offering print fulfillment services but am not sure of the best way to organize my sales force to ensure success. Any advice?

Answer: First, a little background: NAPL reports that nearly nine of 10 printers that expand into the fulfillment business do so at the request of customers. And company owners find very few barriers to entry—the equipment investment is modest when compared to expansion in the print industry. After choosing an operating system and understanding how to price fulfillment, most printers proceed rapidly to install the business.

Fast Start Can Stall Out
Yet the progress of adding new fulfillment clients often stalls out after the first few requesters are set up and operational. The result is that many printers find themselves losing money on fulfillment operations after several years. This is disappointing because industry experts preach double-digit, bottom-line contributions from fulfillment.

Fear of Selling
One primary reason for this business stagnation is that print sales personnel do not embrace the new service and often resist bringing their clients to the fulfillment center. They fear that “messing up the fulfillment” could cost them the print business. So, the question is: How do I organize and motivate the print sales force to grow the fulfillment business?

Training the ‘Old Dogs’ Probably Won’t Work
There are three common sales models. One is to train all sales personnel to sell the complete service offering, including fulfillment. This option has met with little success. The mechanism to pay print sales personnel to work for as long as two years on a fulfillment sale simply does not fit into current compensation models. Frankly, the print sales person doesn’t need to learn this new business to be successful.

Old Dogs Can Be VERY Territorial
The second option is to hire a fulfillment specialist to sell the services to existing and new clients. This approach has not been successful, either, primarily because territorial print sales personnel don’t want to share accounts with a dedicated fulfillment specialist. Consequently, the fulfillment specialist tries to net new business, and the best prospects—existing clients—are never developed.

Get the Assist
The third choice: Hire a fulfillment specialist or manager, and let him or her assist in the fulfillment sales cycle. This third option has been the most successful. The print salesperson’s understanding of the account and the specialist’s technical knowledge of the fulfillment process seems to be the correct combination. The specialist need not be a sales person, but can be the manager of the fulfillment operation. In fact, one of the more successful printing companies in fulfillment now requires that all new managerial hires be able to assist the print salespeople in developing accounts.

Have a Fulfillment-related Question?
The Mailing & Fulfillment Service Assn. can help: 800.333.6272

Posted by Mark Vruno on July 10, 2007 | Comments (0)