Bill Farquharson, Print Tec president, has been in sales since 1982, when we went to work for UARCO Business Forms. Four years later, when it was widely agreed that Bill does not play well with others, he started his first company, Advanced Form Systems. From there, where he sold forms and printing, he stumbled upon digital printing right at the onset, thanks to an article in the Wall Street Journal. As an early adapter of the technology, Bill wrote training programs for Xerox, Indigo, Heidelberg Digital (back when there WAS a Heidelberg Digital) and many others in an effort to help printers make the jump to this new profit opportunity. Next up, Bill got into sales training and created a prospecting program (Get Sales NOW!) that has become a huge success. As a speaker, writer (Graphic Arts Monthly, WhatTheyThink.com), consultant, and sales coach, Bill stays busy. When he is not racking up the frequent flier miles, he returns home to Duxbury, Massachusetts where his wife and three young daughters await....along with a long list of things for him to do (take out the garbage, pick up the cleaning, mow the lawn....).
Woke up this morning to beautiful sunshine and a few thoughts about Variable Data Printing...
1. VDP is really, really, really hard to sell and is a bad, bad, bad purchase decision to make without proper preparation. The first thing to do is to focus on the customer and block out what you hear, see, and read. Know the questions to ask.
2. There is no untapped market for VDP as the vendors and consultants would like us to believe. Is it there? Yes. However you need to find it, educate it, and harvest it first.
3. The average printing sales rep has zero interest in selling VDP. It takes too long, pays too little, and requires a skill set that they simply don't have. Therefore, maybe you don't want to use sales people at all. Hmmmmm.
4. Client data is either non-existent or spectaculary insufficient. That is a huge, huge proble...Read More
I received a phone call from a client recently. He had just fired his new rep—the one that I’d been coaching—and he wanted to thank me for my role in the killing. Don’t get me wrong: he took no pleasure in the dismissal. Far from it. He really wanted the kid work out. It’s just that it wasn’t going in the right direction and he pulled the trigger early, saving him a lot of money and frustration. Calling me was a nice gesture on his part and I appreciated it. Sales trainers don’t usually get such positive feedback. In this case, it was particularly rewarding since I had strongly recommended the rep be canned after my second phone call with him. The manager, however, didn’t feel he’d given the kid enough time and wanted to be sure. Understandable. Thus, it wasn’t until his fourth month that he canned the guy. My client used some...Read More
Looking for a place to spend $117? Let me help you out: Get a subscription to the Kiplinger Letter (www.kiplingerbiz.com). My Dad, now 84, has gotten it for years. Like the good Jamaican Yankee that he is, he reads it and mails it to me. In fact, leaving my parents' apartment is like pulling away from a Yard Sale, but anywho....
The Kiplinger Letter. This "Forcast for Management Decisionmaking" provides a summary of a lot of good information on a wide variety of topics. Lately, the editors have been trying to cheer us up by listing signs of positive economic news. This week, the entire front page is dedicated to vertical markets that are thriving (and therefore have money and need a solutions-based printing sales rep to call on them!!!).
Word for word, the following was uttered by a printing customer. This is less of a sales tip and more of a two-by-four upside the head:
"Bill, I am waiting for the day that a print salesman will call me the day after a conference or meeting and ask how we did. They know when the event is; the date is on the piece of printing I bought from them. Imagine if a sales person made that call. It has never happened to me."
Interesting, huh? It seems so simple and yet when you read it you likely agree that this is not a call that YOU have made either. Why not make it a point to follow up with just such a client and see what happens as a result.
I met recently with Kevin Cushing, chief mucky-muck at AlphaGraphics out in beautiful Salt Lake City. During the course of our conversation, Kevin told me that the renewal rate within the system was 100%. I was absolutely floored! Having done work with franchise owners for years, I can tell you that they have the same attitude about their mother ship organizations as boat owners: The two happiest days in their boating lives are the day they buy and they day they sell (or in this case, complete their obligation). I know owners who paper chain the day they can defranchise as if Christmas were coming. Can you imagine ponying up a percentage of your sales (not profits, mind you, but sales) each month? You can't help but see that check as increased profits once the Big Day comes!
But not AlphaGraphics owners.
They see their relationship differently. They look to...Read More
