ROI Is The Key To VDP/EP Personalization adds cost to a direct mail program, and extreme personalization—my preferred term for what many call VDP (Variable Data Printing)-can add extreme cost. The common justification for that cost is in better response rates, but printers’ customers don’t seem to be responding to that intellectual argument very well so far. Focusing on ROI (Return On Investment) is a much better selling strategy!

Don’t Tell Your Whole Story! It’s been my experience that most quick/digital/small commercial printing salespeople are very presentation-oriented. In other words, they can’t wait to shoot off all of their big sales and marketing guns. The unfortunate result is that the buyer usually doesn’t hear most of what the seller is saying. A lot of it simply gets lost in the volume of words. (Another way to say this, of course, is that most salespeople talk way too much!) This article suggests a “smaller slice” approach.

Tipping Points In an earlier column, I used the term “tipping points” to describe a pain point or hot button that might help you to wrestle a suspect or prospect away from their current supplier. The basic idea behind all consultive or “solutions-based” selling is to find something they’re less than 100% satisfied with, or something they would value but are not getting from the printer-in-place. The ability to relieve pain or solve a problem—or to simply offer a better way of doing things—provides you with a competitive advantage. This column suggests several approaches to finding that “tipping point.”

Cold Isn't Bold, It's Old! This article starts out with a joke (all the more reason to read it!) but it deals with a serious topic. The first segment stresses that walking cold into a building and expecting to meet with a decision-maker is a losing proposition. The second segment, though, suggest a strategy for telephone cold calls that can be very effective. As always, I point out, it's about good strategy and reasonable expectations.

It's The Little Things. I've been privileged to observe quite a few great salespeople over the years. In fact, it's been my practice to pay attention whenever anyone's trying to sell me something. I watch and listen to what they do and what they say, and here, I think, is my most compelling observation about these great salespeople. What sets them apart is not some big thing. It's really more that they master the little things that can make a big difference. This article introduces a few of those "little things."

The "C" Myth Michael Gerber wrote "The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It." This article is about The "C" Myth. That's the idea that all selling should be targeted at the C Level (CEO, COO, CFO etc.). In theory, it certainly makes sense to be talking to the top dog. In practice, though, most quick/digital/small commercial salespeople can't get anywhere near the C Level in big companies, and beyond that, very few quick/digital/small commercial printing salespeople are really equipped to sell at that level. That's OK, though, because plenty of printing is being purchased at the "D" Level and the "M" Level, and that's where I think most of your initial sales efforts should be focused.

Set Your Goals And Make Your Plans It's been said that failing to plan is the same as planning to fail. That's very true for salespeople-and especially true for "reluctant" or inexperienced printing salespeople. One of the keys to success in selling is to set reasonable and measurable goals, and then to make a plan to attain those goals, and that's what this article is about!

More Business From Your Current Customers: Product Opportunities and People Opportunities There are really only two ways to grow a printing business. One is to gain new customers. The other is to increase the volume of business you do with the customers you’ve already got. What’s sad, though, is that few printers really work at growing their current customers. Oh sure, you work hard at providing a level of quality and service that will keep them coming back, but is that the same as really working at developing your customers? This article suggests that you should recognize that you have two main avenues for growth with your current customers. I call them product opportunities and people opportunities.

Be Specific This is a continuation of GPMP, SPMP & SCMP, and it describes both the Specific Prospect Marketing Plan and Specific Customer Marketing Plan. As noted in the description of my earlier column, the basic idea is that building and executing a plan will get you better results than "wishing and hoping" for success.

Your Product Line, Your Strike Zone, and Your Selling Proposition The main point of this article is that product line is all about capability, strike zone is all about competitive, and selling proposition is all about why you think they should buy from you, or perhaps in the early stages, why you think they should meet with you and talk with you and take you seriously. The other main point is that the closer you stick to your strike zone, the higher your batting average is likely to be.

GPMP, SPMP & SCMP These acronyms stand for General Prospecting Marketing Plan, Specific Prospect Marketing Plan and Specific Customer Marketing Plan, and the basic idea is that building and executing a plan will get you better results than “wishing and hoping.” This column describes my GPMP strategy and sets the stage for Be Specific, which deals with SPMP and SCMP.

I Can Take No For An Answer The starting point for this article is that you can’t sell to everyone. I wish you could. I wish I could. The truth of the matter, though, is that no printing salesperson will ever succeed at “closing” every sale or turning every prospect into a customer. That’s OK, though, because there’s another “ground truth” to the printing sales situation, and that’s that no hard-working quick/digital/small commercial printing salesperson is ever likely to run out of people to sell to. As long as both statements are true—you can’t sell to everyone, but you won’t run out of people to sell to—the only real negative to hearing “no” from a prospect is the time it took to get there.

I Can Still Take No For An Answer I wrote earlier that most printing salespeople should probably be saying “no” far more often in the early qualifying stages of the selling process. A lot of sales time gets wasted chasing after suspects who are not really prospects and who will probably never be good customers. As I wrote then, qualifying decisions should be made on the basis of probability rather than just possibility. I make an exception to that rule, though, as long as we’re talking about companies that buy a lot of printing. In a situation like this, I would expect to run into a series of “no’s” before I got anywhere near any orders. But with patience and a plan, I’d be willing to hang in there with a few whale-sized suspects in the hope of generating enough real interest to consider them fully qualified prospects at some point in the future.

Is Your Jargon Getting In The Way? (Or Are You Just Not Talking To The Right Person?) I went out on a day of sales calls with a fairly experienced quick/digital printing salesperson a few weeks ago, and his emphasis on most of those sales calls was Variable Data Printing. His company recently installed a new state-of-the-art digital printer, and his boss has made it very clear that she wants to get that machine up an running at its full capacity in a very short time. So with me tagging along, he went out and told four of his customers and two of his prospects about the wonders of Variable Data and Variable Imaging and One-to-One Marketing, and I’m pretty sure that none of the people we talked to could care any less. Here are some thought on selling advanced capabilities more effectively.

Make The Time To Make More Money I’ve had more than a few clients complain over they years about having trouble finding the time to do things they know they need to do. This article expands on my normal response to that complaint. “You need to take that word ‘find’ and kick it out of your vocabulary,” I say, “and replace it with the word ‘make.’ If you really want—or need!—to make more money, you simply have to make the time to make it happen.”

Buying Signals A lot has been written about selling strategy and technique over the years, much of it contradictory and some of it downright confusing. One of the things that has always confused me is an emphasis on the body language of the prospect. I don’t reject the idea that there are buying signals, it’s just that I’ve found them to be more audible and behavioral than visual in the printing sales arena. The bottom line in this article is that I think we should all be concerned less with interpreting buying signals and more with making the sale!

Fundamentals Beat Flash The bottom line to this discussion is that fundamentals beat flash in selling far more often than the other way around. The salesperson who asks the best questions is most likely to find real opportunity, and in turn most likely to present the best solutions to whatever problems his/her prospect may be having. The printing industry has changed dramatically over the last 5, 10, 20 or even 50 years, but the fundamentals of selling have not changed a bit. This column reflects my vote for more “old school” and less jargon and more prospecting and better questions and more professionalism and less emphasis on finding new sales paradigms and other non-existent shortcuts.

Shut Up And Sell! Most salespeople talk too much, and that seems to be especially true of quick/digital/small commercial printing salespeople. In all fairness, that may be mostly a reflection of the relative youth of our industry’s salesforce, and the fact that most young and/or inexperienced salespeople don’t really know any better. Even if it’s explainable, though, too much talking is still a major obstacle to sales success. This article presents “guide and listen” as a much better selling strategy.

The 7-Hour Selling Plan It’s admittedly hard for many quick/small commercial printers to make time for their selling efforts. I’ve had a lot of success with some of my Sales Coaching clients, though, with a program that requires only seven hours each week. The basics of that program are described in this article.

FABEA Takes FAB To Another Level Everyone in sales should be familiar with the FAB formula. The basic idea is that every product has features, which in turn create advantages, which ultimately provide benefits. It's been my experience, though, that most salespeople don't use the FAB formula very effectively in their selling, and many don't really understand the way it works in the first place. This article explains FAB and FABEA, and how to put both strategies to work for you.

Have Courage! In an earlier article (Have You Ever Seen A Purple Cow?), I noted that I don't see a lot of guts and daring in printing sales, and I promised to write more about sales courage. In this article, I explain that it takes three kinds of courage to be successful as a printing salesperson: Courage of Knowledge, Courage for Contact, and Courage to Question. I'm pretty sure you'll find that courage alone will make you a better salesperson!

“We’re Happy With Our Current Printer” From what I hear, “We’re happy with our current printer” is about the most common initial objection being faced by printing salespeople today. So what should you do when you hear it? It seems to me that most salespeople try some variation on the theme of “Please consider me as a backup, if there’s ever anything they can’t do for you, or if they ever let you down.” In this article, I explain what’s wrong with that strategy and suggest a better one.

The Difference Between Good And Great One of my sales coaching clients told me about a sales call he'd recently been on. "It wasn't just a good sales call," he said, "it was a great sales call!" The reason, he said, was that he'd picked up a large order. That got me thinking about when the real selling gets done…not on the day you pick up the order, but on the day(s) when you identify a suspect or prospect's problems, present solutions, and build relationships.

Value vs. Pain I've written about a selling strategy that emphasizes making proposals to your prospects and customers as opposed to simply quoting on their projects. I've also stressed the point that you win at the printing sales game by identifying pain-either actual pain and aggravation prospects have had with printers in the past, or potential pain if a "worst case scenario" should occur on the current project-and positioning yourself as the solution to either the past or potential problem.

Preparing For Your Proposal This is the follow up article to "A Proposal Regarding Your Quoting Strategy" (in the General Management section of the article archives) in which I noted how important it is to prepare for your proposal by asking the right questions at the point where you're taking the specifications on a project. The whole idea, as I explain, is to give yourself something to work with if your customer or prospect comes back at you with a price objection.

Think Like A Winner I’ve come to realize over the years that one of the keys to success in printing sales is simply to think like a winner. Most printing salespeople don’t, they think of themselves as “second class citizens” who have to take a subservient role to their customers and prospects. This is an article about thinking more like a winner—the first step to getting there!

Accountability Increases Sales Productivity I get a lot of phone calls and e-mails from quick/digital/small commercial printshop owners who complain that their salespeople spend too much time in the shop. This article explains how setting "action standards" and holding salespeople accountable for achieving them can solve this problem.

You Have To PUSH For Increased Sales Most quick/digital/small commercial printing salespeople don't push hard enough for business. Their relationships with prospects and customers are driven almost exclusively by those prospects or customers. In other words, the salespeople wait for the decision-makers to make their decisions. This is a column about teaching salespeople how to push harder and how to identify and deal with problems and objections. Because, as I tell my sales coaching clients, the decision about whether to buy from you is far too important to just leave it up to them!

Inquiries, Tips, And Finds A description of each of the three different types of sales leads, and how to follow up appropriately.

The Essence Of Good Selling A look at the "Four C's" of selling, leading to the knowledge that a consultive, counseling approach is the best way to go.

No Soliciting A presentation of cold call strategy, including advice on what to do when you come up against the dreaded "No Soliciting" sign.

The Rhythm Method You can't rush the development of a customer. It takes a certain amount of contact, and a certain rhythm to that contact-especially early on-in order to keep from being too pushy.

Easy As 1-2-3 The next step in rhythm...how to put together three separate sales conversations to help you "get to six."

15 Pretty Good Questions The purpose of any first conversation with a prospective customer should be to gather information. Here are 15 questions to form the core of an introductory sales call.

Turning Shoppers Into Buyers A presentation of techniques to get from quote to order and turn printing shoppers into buyers.

Telephone Selling The telephone is an incredible business tool, but it has limitations as a selling tool. This article tells how to work around those limitations and use the phone effectively.

TLC In TCM A continuation on telephone selling strategy, including discussion of telephone technique and timing, and description of PIM and CM software.

Got The Voice Mail Blues? Most printing salespeople say that they hate voice mail, but that's only because they're using it all wrong. Here's how to use voice mail to your advantage.

Craftsmanship Or Salesmanship Is printing a craft or a product. The answer dictates what will be effective in terms of selling strategy.

The Printers Product Product knowledge has always been an important factor in selling success. This article points out that there are two kinds of product knowledge in the quick printing industry, and one is even more important than the other!

Your Price Is Too High! Do you know what to do when a customer or prospect tells you your price is too high? Here's some real-world strategy for handling price objections!

If You Could Read Their Minds Selling would be really easy if you could read each customer's mind. That may not be possible, but this article will tell you what many of them are thinking.

Stop Selling Quality...Start Selling Quality Control! It's hard to imagine a printing company that doesn't use samples in its marketing efforts, but most printers use them all wrong...expecting them to be viewed as evidence of quality. The real key to marketing quality is through quality control.

The Marketing Marketplace The purpose of the printing is the most important consideration for may print buyers, especially those who work in marketing themselves, and are using the printing as part of their own marketing efforts.

Building A Buying Habit It's important to know who your customers are-not just the names of the companies, but the people themselves. It's also important not to be satisfied just because you get orders every once in a while. The real opportunity with any customer is to build a buying habit!

Business Building Questions Part of the secret to selling is to ask the right questions, and that's especially true when you're trying to gain more business from current customers. This article features specific "business building questions" for specific product categories.

Can You Prove It? My strategy when faced with a price objection is to tell the buyer why he/she should buy from me anyway.why I'm worth a higher price. Experience has shown that you can't just say those words and expect everyone to believe them, though. You have to offer some evidence too!

Head Start Selling Referrals give a salesperson a significant head start in building the trust and confidence that has to be at the foundation of a successful selling relationship. This article explains how to get them, and how to use them.

Hero Opportunities There's a great deal of long-term benefit to be found in taking advantage of the "hero opportunities" that occur regularly in the dealings between a quick printer and his or her customers.

Selling Situations: How Do I Handle... This article provides insight into a number of all-too-common selling situations, like following up on "occasional" prospects and dealing with bid situations-especially the bid situation where you're competing with an "impossible" price.

If You Cant Beat Your Customers Laser Printers...Join Them! The trend toward customers doing much of their own printing on their own laser printers is a disturbing one, but there are positive opportunities here too. This article describes strategies for selling printed products which can be used along with the laser printer, enhancing its value to your customer.

IQDD An Acronymic Approach To Successful Selling This article descries an acronymic approach to prospecting, the first stage of the selling process. The acronym is IQDD-pronounced IQ Double D-and it stands for Identification, Qualification, Discussion & Decision. These are the steps a printing salesperson should follow in determining who is worthy of a concerted selling effort.

It Sells Itself!! I often hear salespeople and marketing people talking about products that sell themselves, but I'd rather deal in products that require at least a little bit of selling, because in that selling process, you have the opportunity to show people why they should buy from you.either one individual product, or all of the products and services you sell.

Knowledge Is Power There's a tremendous amount of power available to any printing salesperson-and any printing company-in knowing all there is to know about the customer, and that includes knowing the customer as an individual, as a friend, as an organization, as an indicator, and as a critical business asset.

Little Victories Add Up To Big Wins I've observed that most of the salespeople I work with want everything to happen NOW, and so do most of the printshop/copyshop owners who employ them. Relationships take time to build, though, and the best way to make-and measure-progress is by working toward and counting up the "little victories."

Magic Words It's been my experience that the common objections fall into four basic categories. There's the "price is to high" objection; the "I don't do the kind of printing that you specialize in" objection; the "I've already got a printer that I'm happy with" objection; and the one where the prospect doesn't understand what you're trying to say. This article suggests a set of "magic words" that can help you to address most of these objections.

The Selling Game: Playing To Win! Selling is a game. It's a game with rules and a game which requires certain skills. And while there are new wrinkles being added all the time to the way the selling game is played-especially as technology has changed the way people who sell things and people who buy things communicate with each other-the essential skills required haven't changed much, and there are also tried-and-true strategies and techniques that work just as well today as they did in the "old days."

Stages Of The Game Continuing on the theme that selling is a game, this article likens selling to bicycle racing-a game measured in stages-and explains where you are and what you need to accomplish at each stage of the selling game.

Take A Longer View Of Selling If I walked into your printshop and tried to sell you something tomorrow, would you buy from me? The answer is that you probably would not. No matter what you're selling-and no matter how good a deal you're offering-most people will be wary of buying from any salesperson the very first time he or she calls on them. That's why you have to take a longer view of selling.and have a multiple-contact plan!

Targeting The Very Best Prospects How do you wade through all of the myriad possibilities and decide who your best prospects for new business really are? To do this right, you have to consider two things: first, who's likely to buy a worthwhile amount of your kind of printing; and second, who's likely to be interested in buying it from you.

The Selling Factor This article was written specifically for selling owners, and it explains the importance of looking good, sounding good, and acting right when you have that selling hat on.

The Winds Of Change One of the most common-and problematical-situations printing salespeople face is when change occurs at the customer's workplace; specifically where things change or people change in the customer's organization. Here's how you defend yourself against the winds of change.

Winning The Quote & Order Game Quoting is part of the reality of selling, and there are times when gaining the chance to quote really does represent what I call a "little victory" in the selling process. There are other times, though, when a quote opportunity is really only a ploy to make you go away. Here's how to tell the difference, and how to win more often at this part of the selling game.

Turning In Your Homework One of the techniques I teach in my PRINTSELLING seminar is called turning in your homework. It's used as part of the opening phase of a sales call, and its purpose is to show a prospect that you care...that you care enough about your own business to be alert to your marketplace, and even more importantly that you care enough about getting his/her business to have invested some effort in learning something about it.

Samples That Sell! I think it's a fair statement that just about every printing salesperson on this planet uses samples as part of his or her selling efforts, but samples of your work can't demonstrate quality all by themselves. They can do a couple of other important things, though. As a start, they can demonstrate your capabilities-all of the various printed products you're capable of providing to each of your customers.

Effective Sales Letters Help You Stand Out In The Crowd In my experience, sales letters are an under-utilized tool in most quick printing companies' marketing strategy. When used properly, sales letters fall into the category of direct marketing. In fact, it's hard to imagine anything more direct than a letter written to a busy decisionmaker, telling him-or her-why it's worthwhile to take the next step in the buying/selling process with you and your company.

You Cant Sell To Everyone You can't sell to everyone. Not every prospect will eventually become a customer. But that's OK, because you have no shortage of prospects! One of the great things about this industry is that literally every business, educational, or social organization has at least some level of printing need.

A Never-Ending Opportunity You can't sell to everyone, but you're unlikely to run out of people to sell to. You might run out of selling time, though, if you spend too much of it barking up the wrong trees. This article explains how to take full advantage of your never-ending opportunity with a highly objective prospect rating system.

Taking It One Challenge At A Time There are very few shortcuts in selling, and there's a name for the type of salesperson who is always looking for shortcuts. We call them underachievers! Selling successfully is not a single challenge. It's a series of challenges, and the best way to approach these challenges is to take them one at a time.

Negotiations And Love Songs You don't get what you deserve in business, according to Chester L. Karras, you get what you negotiate. Karras is the author of several books on negotiation strategy and technique, and according to his promotional materials, his organization presents more than 1000 seminars each year. This article represents some of my thoughts on the "art" of negotiation.

Scattered (Sales & Marketing) Thoughts (2002) This is an article that touched on a number of sales/marketing issues, including the "we're under contract" objection, the idea of establishing a "unique selling proposition," and a couple of common buzzwords that are either bring over-used in printing sales or not used enough.

How Do I Choose The Best Prospects For My Selling Efforts? One of the main points of this article is that you don't "choose" prospects-the process has to start with identifying suspects! Then you qualify those suspects and continue to work the ones who are really prospects. The other main point was some suggestions on what sort of companies to target at suspects.

Catching The Big Fish   There's some truth to the idea that it's just as easy to gain a large new customer as it is to gain a small new customer. But "just as easy" doesn't mean that you can approach the challenges in the same way. This article (which was originally published in Quick Printing in two parts) explains some of the strategy for pursuing "big fish" prospects.

Meeting The Voice Mail Challenge  This column was originally published in three parts. As the title suggests, it's all about dealing with voice mail, which most printing salespeople seem to hate, but I absolutely love. In seminars, I often tell a story about how voice mail was invented by a printing salesperson-in fact, by a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin! That's not true of course, but I tell the story to reinforce the idea that voice mail can be a powerful tool for a printing salesperson. You just have to use it effectively, and I think the "problem" with voice mail is that most salespeople don't.

Balancing Act: Customer Care vs. Customer Development  In my seminars, I often ask salespeople how they view their priorities. "Of all the things you'll do on any given day," I ask, "which category of activities represents your highest priority?" The typical answer I get is: "Taking care of my customers" with "Prospecting for new business" a distant second. I'd like to see prospecting as a close rather than distant second, but I do agree that taking good care of current important customers should be a printing salesperson's top priority. As I note in the seminars, though, there are two tricky words in that last statement: good care and current important customers. The sad fact of the matter is that a lot of sales time gets spent on not-really-very-important customers, and on a level of care that represents what I call "customer care overkill."

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If you have questions, comments-or a need for my products or services!-please don't hesitate to contact me. You can reach me by phone at 800-325-9634; by fax at 919-363-4069; or by e-mail at dmf@davefellman.com