P4 Getting Personal P5 NAPL Q&A with Mike Philie P6 Don’t Do It!
CANVAS
P12 Holding Tight
supporting the print sales & Marketing professional
P24 People News P25 Product Spotlight P29 Print in the Mix P30 Ad Execs Want YOU P36 Go to the Head of the Class P40 Book Recommendation: Mavericks at Work
February 2009
Being a CMO
Feel their pain. Anticipate the opportunities.
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February 2009
Publisher’s Thoughts Being Flexible
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Getting Personal Making the most of product upgrade notices
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The NAPL’s Mike Philie answers your print sales questions P6
Don’t Do It! The worst mistakes salespeople make
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Holding Tight Preventing the price objection
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Being a CMO Feel their pain. Anticipate the opportunities.
P24
People News PrintingForLess.com founder’s stimulus plan gets noticed by Senate Finance Chair, Forbes
P25
Product Spotlight NAPL Xeikon Unisource
P29
Print in the Mix Reaching Multicultural Audiences P30
Ad Execs Want YOU… … to make their jobs easier. Be the best print partner you can be with these tips from top agencies.
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Go to the Head of the Class
Publisher
Editorial board
mark potter
lisa arsenault
MANAGING EDITOR
aaron grohs
McArdle Printing Co.
Consolidated Graphics, Inc.
ART DIRECTOR
gary cone
ron lanio
brent cashman
Litho Craft, Inc.
Geographics, Inc.
peter douglas
randy parkes
Lake County Press
Lithographix, Inc.
graham garrison
CONTRIBUTORS Linda Bishop, Dave Kahle, Colleen Oakley and Brian Sullivan
How to be a sales valedictorian
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Mavericks at Work CANVAS magazine FOR MORE INFORMATION: 678.473.6131 6555 Sugarloaf Parkway Duluth, GA 30097
CANVAS, Volume 3, Issue 1. Published bi-monthly, copyright 2009 CANVAS, All rights reserved. Subscriptions: $29.00 per year for individuals. If you would like to subscribe or notify us of address changes, please contact us at 6555 Sugarloaf Parkway, Suite 307, Duluth, Georgia 30097. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to CANVAS, 6555 Sugarloaf Parkway, Suite 307, Duluth, Georgia 30097. Please note: The acceptance of advertising or products mentioned by contributing authors does not constitute endorsement by the publisher. Publisher cannot accept responsibility for the correctness of an opinion expressed by contributing authors. CANVAS magazine is dedicated to environmentally and socially responsible operations. We are proud to print this magazine on Sappi Opus® Dull Cover 80lb/216gsm and Opus Dull Text 80lb/118gsm, an industry leading environmentally responsible paper. Opus contains 10% post consumer waste and FSC chain of custody certification.
CANVAS
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Being Flexible
O
Our economic crisis has forced us all to take stock of what is important and how we can provide value to those that are important to us. Our values, in general, have quickly changed. Our needs now overshadow
CANVAS
our wants. The question, however, is not whether we should change. The question is how do we change? Too often I hear people talk about merely surviving these times. “Let’s just get through this and
we’ll be fine” is the mantra. We need to go deeper than that. Survival is one thing, but adaptability is another. You should want to develop new skills, learn new things, and champion new causes. In other
Publisher’s thoughts
words, this is the time to build a thriving future rather than a surviving present. In my opinion, too many companies focus solely on the short term. The short term and long term
are delicately connected. Too much concentration on the short term sacrifices the long term, while too much attention to the long term hurts us today. In turn, you have probably heard countless people talk about change and selling new services. Unfortunately, we have not talked enough about what to do.
The time has come, like it or not, to define yourself by the customers you serve rather than the products you sell. Each company has its own unique culture and ways of operating. However, if you allow me to wax on a bit, I’ll give you one perspective. The amount of people being laid off today is staggering. Companies are slashing marketing budgets and corresponding marketing departments. Consequently, there will be thousands of advertising and marketing personalities in the job market. Meanwhile, companies are going to be relentless in controlling costs – and that’s where you come in. With more printing companies being run by these marketing and advertising personalities and the pressures on cutting costs, a merging of advertising, PR, design, and printing providers is bound to occur. The challenge will be who will win the race. Will printers hire some of the ex designer and advertising personnel in an effort to offer new solutions? I hope so, because with the increasing financial pressure, we have the opportunity to aggregate services, offer an overall campaign solution, and save customers some cash. The time has come, like it or not, to define yourself by the customers you serve rather than the products you sell. This will open you and your company up to new ideas and new products. Segmenting the market and building a brand that resonates with a group of specific customers is critical. Then you can script your offering to include all kinds of marketing services, while simultaneously improving your customers’ financial position. This is an obvious change in business. Print salespeople have a wonderful opportunity. It is time to be flexible and make it happen!
Mark Potter Publisher
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CANVAS February 2009
X-Ray Vision
Getting Personal Making the most of product upgrade notices by Cyndie Shaffstall
I
I started ThePowerXChange in 1995, but it was not my first foray into entrepreneurial enterprises. In 1996, a year after I started ThePowerXChange, I launched a marketing campaign that lives on today. We call it product upgrade notices (PUNs for short). The idea originated from a project I helped my mother with, who had been a postmaster
in a small town on the Arizona-California border. This town swelled from a regular population of 2,000 to an event-specific population of almost 1 million. These visitors showed up for a six-week period in February, and in addition to trading rocks (of all things), they also wanted their mail forwarded. My mother and her staff spent months before and after those six weeks manually processing all that mail for this RV-driving invasion. A quick programming session later and we had the U.S. postal staff set up with an automated system for forwarding the mail for the vacating and vacated rock hounds. What I learned from
Cyndie Shaffstall is editor and publisher of X-Ray Magazine.
that experience has been invaluable – including lessons on postal regulations, addressing automation, NCOA (national change of address), and the benefit of customized marketing.
She has authored or co-authored
Several InfoTrends/CAP Ventures studies asked users of variable-data print (VDP) solu-
nearly a dozen books on
tions the question: “By what percentage have you improved these metrics through the use
computer software, and self-
of personalized mailings?” The findings: response rate, up 36 percent; average order size/
published her first, QuarkXPress:
value of order, up 24.5 percent; repeat orders/retention, up 47.6 percent; overall revenue
Making the Most of Your Negative Experiences.
profit, up 31.6 percent; and response time, up 33.9 percent. In the previous issue of Canvas Magazine, I attempted to convince you that a three-pronged approach to any campaign would increase your customer’s success rates. By adding the recipi-
About ThePowerXChange
ent’s name and information to the e-mail campaign, creating a customer-specific landing page
and X-Ray Magazine
(called a PURL, personalized URL), and printing variable-data components, you will increase the
X-Ray Magazine
potential for success of the combined campaigns by double-digit percentage points.
(www.xraymag.com) touches
Our PUNs are our most successful campaigns, and to be honest, when I first got start-
on a wide variety of topics that
ed I didn’t realize I had as much information on customers as I had. We have an invoicing
are of interest to the designer,
system, of course, but how does that translate into VDP? As it turns out, it was really quite
press, prepress, publishing,
easy. There were then, and still are, a number of QuarkXPress® XTensions®, InDesign®
and Web-content creator
Plug-ins, and Acrobat® Plug-ins that auto-generate fully customized messaging.
professional. It is a publication
To create a PUN, I exported the customer name and address, along with the product
of ThePowerXChange, LLC
that they bought, the date of purchase, and a bit of other information that was captured
(www.thepowerxchange.com),
by our invoicing system. Most companies have no idea that they already have a custom-
which distributes thousands
er database. They look to database brokers, and other services to find new customers.
of extensions-based products
However, it costs far more to find a new customer than to maintain a customer.
used with applications such
Since 1996, I’ve been using QuarkXPress and Xdata to create four-up postcard re-
as QuarkXPress, Photoshop,
minders to end-users when the product that they bought has been upgraded to a
Illustrator, and Acrobat, as well
new version. We also include a special offer on the upgrade and for adding additional
as many stand-alone applications
seats. Our customers appreciated the personal message of the postcard along with full
for the designer, publisher,
information about their purchase history. It made them feel as though we knew their
printer, and Web-content creator.
workflow and understood how valuable the product was to them – and, in fact, we did. Personalization just made it easy to convey this to the customer. With PUNs, depending upon the product announced, we have seen response rates in the 60 to 75 percent range. PUNs are still our most successful, and now longest-running, campaigns. With what I learned from my mother, the postmaster, about the value of good clean data, our delivery rates remain high for both the electronic and printed versions. It’s time for you to get personal. For more on PURLs, read http://blog.oneims.com/2008/11/17/purl-personalized-url-increases-revenue/
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CANVAS February 2009
Q&A
NAPL
The NAPL’s Mike Philie answers your print sales questions Getting to the next level Dear Mike, I’m one of eight sales reps for a 40-inch sheet fed printer in the Chicago area. I’ve been selling print for three years now, but can’t seem to get my annual sales past the $450,000 level. Any ideas? Clutched in Chicago Mike: Dear Clutched, This printing sales stuff is hard work, isn’t it? I would focus on three things that could help you grow your business: 1. Do your current accounts have opportunity for growth? Sit down with your company’s owner or sales manager and go through your accounts one by one. Expanding business with people
Mike Philie
that you already have a relationship with is often easier than finding new ones. 2. What does your new business development process look like? You should be allocating time every week to research, prospect and network your way to new opportunities. Many people struggle with this because they don’t have a good process and don’t spend the necessary time that it takes. 3. Make sure that you’re targeting the right type of accounts. Prospecting is hard, but it’s even harder if you’re not clear on what you are looking for. Sure, many companies buy print, but your shop may have expertise in certain industry segments that you can capitalize on in your
Have a Question? Send it to DearMike@napl.org
search for new business.
Bottom dwellers Dear Mike,
About the Author
I’m the president of my family’s commercial printing business. My parents started the business in the
Mike Philie is a vice
late ’70s, and we are now at $7.5 million in sales. I need some help with a couple of my sales reps. My
president and consultant
top two people are doing great and seem to increase their business almost every year. But, my bottom
with NAPL (www.napl.
two are driving me nuts! As much as I encourage them to grow their business, they seem content with
org). With 28 years of
their current sales. How can I motivate them to do more? We could really use the additional business.
sales, management and executive leadership in
Underwhelmed in Utah
the printing industry, he helps companies
Mike: Dear Underwhelmed,
optimize their business
This certainly is an ongoing issue within our industry. I used to think that every sales rep wanted
and increase shareholder
to earn as much as he or she could, and then some, every year. As I learned more about people,
value. He advises clients
though, I found this wasn’t true. Many seem to reach a comfort zone in regards to their earn-
on market and business
ings, their feeling of security and overall lifestyle. Most of them would love to earn more, but
strategy, sales and
they aren’t willing to do more in order to achieve it.
business development,
I recommend that you keep running interference for your top reps so that they can achieve all
sales and executive
they can. Dealing with underperformers has been very difficult in our industry. We often sit back
coaching, leading
and hope that they’ll turn around and find their way. It usually doesn’t work though. That said, I
organizational change,
would look at a couple of things for the lower performers. The first is their level of compensation.
business turnarounds, and
Are they being paid commensurate with their sales? If not, you need to make some changes to
providing interim C-level
bring that into alignment. Second, as you review their accounts, is there untapped business poten-
management services.
tial for your company that they are overlooking or just won’t go after? If there is, that’s lost revenue
He can be reached at
for your business. Once identified, if they won’t go after it, I would either reassign the account or
mphilie@napl.org or at
split the account with another rep who will turn those opportunities to profits for you.
(410) 489-7188.
CANVAS
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CANVAS February 2009
Don’t Do It! The worst mistakes salespeople make By Linda Bishop
G
ary and Jennifer walked into Daisy’s Café to grab a quick bite of lunch. It had been a busy morning for both of them at the printing plant where they were salespeople. Gary had been selling for more than a decade and was one
of the top performers at the company. Jennifer had been selling for less than a year, but she was smart and dedicated. From the beginning, she impressed Gary as someone who would succeed. Gary scanned the busy restaurant. The tables were filled. He spotted a dark-haired man sitting alone. “That’s Rick Masters,” Gary said. “Do you know him? He’s one of the heavy hitters at Print Pros.”
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Don’t Do It!
Jennifer shook her head. “You can learn a lot from Rick. Let’s see if he’ll let us join him.” Gary led the way. Rick looked up as they approached. He greeted them. Gary introduced Jennifer and asked if they could share the table. “Sure, but I can’t promise I’ll be good company today,” Rick said. After they were seated, Gary said, “Having a rough day?” Rick sighed. “Just this morning I learned I lost a big account because they signed a year-long contract with another printer.”
No one likes to deliver bad news, but if you delay, it often makes the situation worse. It’s important to deliver bad news the right way. If you screwed up, admit it and apologize. Gary winced in sympathy and said, “Ouch.” “Do you mind if I ask what happened?” Jennifer said. “I haven’t been in sales long, but I know how hard you have to work to get a customer, so it must really hurt if they decide to leave.” “I wish I could blame the plant or pricing, but this loss is my fault. Worse than that, it was a significant chunk of business, and I don’t have anything in the pipeline to replace it.” Rick looked at Jennifer. “Over the past year, I made some big mistakes. You’re just starting out, so maybe you’ll be able to avoid them if I share them with you.”
Mistake No. 1: You assume long-time customers are loyal Evidence in this area confirms the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of all customers are satisfied and only 20 percent are loyal. Satisfied customers like you, but they don’t love you, and they will shop. Loyal customers may love you, but they don’t always remain loyal forever. Ask yourself three questions. 1. Who is loyal and who is satisfied? 2. What can I do to convert satisfied customers into loyal ones? 3. How can I reward loyalty so customers stay loyal?
Mistake No. 2: You overestimate the value of the service you provide All humans have the same bias. We think we’re better than we really are, and that leads us to overestimate the value of the service we provide. Sure, you turned a complicated estimate around
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CANVAS February 2009
in a day, made the job look great on press and got the hot job out on time. Be honest. Would your competitors have done any less? Sometimes the answer is “yes,” but often enough what you regard as a brilliant performance simply met the customer’s expectations. The bar for “Wow!” constantly gets raised. Don’t underestimate the competition. There’s a good chance they work just as hard as you do.
Mistake No. 3: You’re too darn difficult to deal with A friend who spends about $3 million on print annually told me, “I fired a printer this week because they were too hard to deal with.” What about you? Are you easy to work with? Do customers laud you for your quick response to phone calls and emails? Do you anticipate needs and fulfill them before you’re asked? Print buyers are busy people. They don’t have time to chase down answers or check to make sure you do your job. If you’re hard to deal with and use up too much valuable time, they’ll fire you and find another salesperson like my friend did.
Mistake No. 4: You fail to communicate bad news at the right time in the right way No one likes to deliver bad news, but if you delay, it often makes the situation worse. It’s important to deliver bad news the right way. If you screwed up, admit it and apologize. If there is a legitimate reason for the problem, explain but remember the line separating reasons from excuses is thinner than a sheet
Ask more questions. Ensure buyers fully understand processes and delivery schedules. Point out potential problems and discuss them.
Don’t Do It!
of 20-pound bond. When you call to talk about problems, be prepared to talk about solutions. Customers forgive mistakes. What they won’t forgive is dishonesty, deception and delay.
Servicing and selling are two different tasks. Servicing focuses on current projects, while selling looks for future business.
Mistake No. 5: You allow customers to make dumb mistakes “I buy from printers who watch my back,” a buyer once told me. No one wants to make mistakes or look stupid. Making big expensive mistakes can get a print buyer fired, so it’s your job to prevent customers from making them. Ask more questions. Ensure buyers fully understand processes and delivery schedules. Point out potential problems and discuss them. If you catch a typo late in the game, speak up. Let the buyer make the call on fixing it. If you’re asked to produce a job in a costly and inefficient way, discuss it. Stopping customers from screwing up is a big value-add, so be sure you include it with every order.
Mistake No. 6: You’re overly dependent on one relationship inside an account The buyer loves you. Does their boss have a clue you exist? All too often, the answer is no. Companies get reorganized, departments get downsized, and people get reassigned. Find ways to connect with more people within the organization. Get to know the buyer’s boss. Someone takes over when the buyer goes on vacation. Be a friendly face and get to know them, too. Don’t make the mistake of depending on the strength of a single connection. Build a network and sleep better at night.
Mistake No. 7: You assume the customer thinks they’re getting a great price Why do customers buy from you? Value or habit? If it’s habit, be warned. Just because price isn’t questioned doesn’t mean the customer sees your value. What if one day your customer walks into his office, looks at your quote with fresh eyes and says, “Holy $&@%! This is way too expensive!” Somewhere right now, a buyer is thinking that exact thought, which is why smart salespeople have closing conversations. It’s a perfect opportunity to reinforce value and convince buyers your price is worth every penny.
Mistake No. 8: You spend every moment servicing customers when you should be selling them Servicing and selling are two different tasks. Servicing focuses on current projects, while selling looks for future business. What questions do you ask when you’re servicing an account? What questions do you ask prospects to get new business? They’re different, right? At least once a month, plan a sales call and talk to current customers. Learn about new sources of pain. Discuss goals. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that servicing and selling are synonyms, because they’re not.
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Mistake No. 9: You wait until you lose one account to start looking for another Over the years, I won accounts and lost them. Early in my career, one big loss blind-sided me and taught me this painful lesson. If a client is worth $10,000 in yearly billings, you may be able to replace them quickly. If they’re worth $100,000 or more, it takes longer. The “I’m too busy to sell” mentality permeates the printing industry. Allowing that thought pattern to take root in your mind is a mistake to fix today.
To be good at prospecting, to cold call and get people to talk to you on the phone, you must practice. Otherwise, when the bottom falls out and you’re scrambling for new work, your skills are rusty and it’s tougher to convince prospects to buy. Mistake No. 10: You engage in too little new business activity How many prospects do you talk to every week? For all too many salespeople in all too many weeks, the answer is a big fat zero. Are they really that busy? Or because they’re successful, have they allowed selling – the job they were hired to do – to take a back seat to servicing? To be good at prospecting, to cold call and get people to talk to you on the phone, you must practice. Otherwise, when the bottom falls out and you’re scrambling for new work, your skills are rusty and it’s tougher to convince prospects to buy. Be proactive about seeking new business and succeed no matter what fate throws your way. As Rick talked, Gary nodded in agreement. Jennifer forgot about her lunch and scribbled Rick’s words in a notebook. Rick finished speaking. She looked up and said, “I can’t thank you enough for sharing this, but why did you tell me? I’m your competition. Armed with this information, I might be as good as you someday.” Rick folded his napkin, set it on the table and grinned. “Good competitors make winning more fun.” He stood. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find some new customers.” He hadn’t gone more than a few steps when he turned and said, “Here’s one more piece of advice, Jennifer. Every salesperson makes mistakes. The smart ones learn not to repeat them.” Linda Bishop has spent over 20 years in sales and marketing. She was previously vice president of marketing for IPD printing, presently owned by RR Donnelly. In 2005, she started Thought Transformation, a national firm dedicated to helping clients add sales dollars by developing an educated and professional sales force.
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Holding
Tight
Preventing the price objection By Dave Kahle
“Y
our price is too high!” The infamous price objection. Wouldn’t sales be a great profession if you could somehow wipe that objection out? Unfortunately, that will never happen.
Too many people are paid to get the best deal they can. That means asking for a better price, even when they know they are getting a great deal. Human nature being what it is, it’s only natural for many people to try to get the best price that they can.
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CANVAS P13
Holding Tight
That being said, it is still possible to reduce the number of times you hear it, and, perhaps more importantly, it is possible to reduce the intensity of the comment. In other words, you may still hear it, but your customers won’t mean it as intensely as they once did. While you can’t control your customers, you can control your behavior. And many times it’s your behavior that prompts the customer to ask for a discount. By changing your behavior, you can impact the customer. Here are five specific strategies to help you prevent the price objection, by focusing on your behavior.
If you discount your prices in response to a customer’s request, on even one occasion, you have conveyed to the customer the idea that your quoted price is not your final price.
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No. 1: Look like you are worth more
This can be difficult if you, in your personal
Your appearance impacts the customer’s subconscious view of
life, are a bargain shopper. If you refuse to pay
your value. If you look like you don’t value yourself, it’s natural for
the asking price for anything and won’t buy it if
the customer to assume the same about your product.
it’s not on sale, then you‘ll have a difficult time
I will never forget a salesperson for one of my clients who came to see me, concerned about the pressure his company was putting
convincing your customer to pay the full price for what you are selling.
on him to get results. He chewed tobacco and had the yellow teeth
Your core beliefs will influence your behavior, and
to prove it. A wrinkled pair of blue jeans topped a pair of dusty
be communicated to the customer in a number of
cowboy boots. He looked like a reject from a consignment shop.
subtle ways. To counteract that tendency, carefully
His appearance screamed “cheap.”
examine the offer you are making from the custom-
If you look confident, competent and successful, you send the
er’s point of view. Do whatever it takes to convince
subtle message to your customer that you, and your offering, is
yourself that it is a good value to the customer,
worth a little more. You just look like you’re less likely to discount
worth every penny the customer will pay.
the price in order to get an order. Practically speaking, that means to dress like your customer, only a little better. Project a demeanor of a successful, confident salesperson.
No. 3: Don’t inadvertently sow the seeds Sometimes you can blindly sow the seeds of dis-
No. 2: Believe in your price/value relationship
content with your stated price by your poor choice
Do you believe that your offer represents a good value to the cus-
of language. For example, when you say things like,
tomer? If you don’t, it will be difficult for you to convince the cus-
“This is our retail price,” “This is our rack rate,” “This
tomer of it. You don’t have to believe that your product is the best
is list price,” or other such terms, you immediately
or that your company is the best. You just have to believe that it is
convey to the customer that there are other, lower
a good value, giving the customer his or her money’s worth. More
prices, available. You have inadvertently encour-
people buy Fords than BMWs. It’s not about being the best; it’s
aged the customer to ask for a discount. The word
about a good value.
“price” doesn’t need an adjective to describe it.
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Holding Tight
No. 4: Don’t advertise your willingness to discount Sometimes, in your eagerness to make the sale, you advertise your willingness to make price concessions in order to secure the business. You say things like, “We’d be happy to discuss pricing with you,” “We may be able to do better,” or, “If you give me the last look, I may be able to sharpen the pencil.” I was shopping for office space. As I looked through one location with my realtor, I asked the listing realtor what was the lease rate. He told me, and in the same breath said, “But we’re willing to work with you on that.” After hearing that, why in the world would I accept his original terms? He broadcasted his willingness to discount, and I’d be foolish not to take him up on it. By broadcasting your willingness to get the deal, you encourage the customer to ask for price deviations.
If you get almost every deal, your prices aren’t sufficiently high. You need to lose some in order to gain the customer’s respect as well as a sense of where the market price is. No. 5: Be careful about ever discounting If you discount your prices in response to a customer’s request, on even one occasion, you have conveyed to the customer the idea that your quoted price is not your final price. Now, forever in the future, the customer will remember that you can discount when pressed. He will, therefore, press for discounts. If, however, you never discount from your quoted price, you convey that there is some integrity in your pricing, and that you are quoting him your best price from the beginning. It’s OK, on some occasions, to walk away from business rather than to discount in order to get it. The net impact is that the customer respects your pricing, and is less likely in the future to ask for a discount. If you get almost every deal, your prices aren’t sufficiently high. You need to lose some in order to gain the customer’s respect as well as a sense of where the market price is. I’ve often thought that the idea of asking for the opportunity for a “last look” – which most salespeople strive for and proudly proclaim as proof of a good business relationship – is merely another way of saying that you’ll discount the most. Why would the customer give you a “last look” if he wasn’t expecting you to discount some more? It’s so easy to complain about the customer and the constant pressure to reduce prices. It’s the thoughtful salesperson who understands that behavior can often be the cause of the price objection. Change your behavior, and you’ll improve your results.
Dave Kahle is a consultant and trainer who helps his clients increase their sales and improve their sales productivity. Dave has trained thousands of salespeople to be more successful in the Information Age economy. He is the author of over 500 articles, a monthly e-zine, and six books. You can join Dave’s “Thinking About Sales Ezine” online at http://www.davekahle. com/mailinglist.html.
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Being a CMO Feel their pain. Anticipate the opportunities. By Graham Garrison
D
on’t be too hard on yourself. You never had a chance. The CMO who heard your new services sales pitch? He
may well have liked what you had to offer, but his mind was made up – for him – and it was made up a few weeks ago. In
a board room. By a jury of his peers and superiors. It’s important to know the plight of today’s CMO for two reasons – one, so you’re
not left scratching your head at where your nifty PowerPoint presentation or highpowered sales pitch went wrong. It wasn’t necessarily in the delivery.
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Being a CMO
The second reason is this – the sooner you’re
You can’t fault companies for being sales oriented, of course.
able to get into the mind of CMOs, to anticipate
Graham understands that their measure of success is “what hap-
their needs, to understand their dilemmas – the
pens at the end of the week, the month, the quarter.”
better rep you’ll be for them. And the easier it will be to spot successful prospects down the line.
Those numbers are tangible, finite things to measure success. And in a lot of cases with today’s turbulent economy, the numbers are shrinking. Marketing is a bit more complicated to gauge success, and often gets a bum rap. Slogans,
Where marketing ranks
advertising, intangible aspects are often associated with mar-
The biggest obstacle facing CMOs is getting their
keting. Graham says you can spot a company that doesn’t
companies to buy into marketing as a vital part of
value marketing by having its department work merely as a
the business plan, and not just an afterthought. Not
“functional activity.”
an easy task, and there are no shortages of market-
“It’s the people who take care of the ad agency if there is one,
ing misconceptions to overcome. Want to know
or gets the freelancers in and talks to vendors, and does a host of
where most companies place marketing? “Look at
other things that are really just functional,” he says. “They’re not
any business card or look at any sign in the com-
viewed as contributing to the bottom line.”
pany, and it’ll say ‘Sales and Marketing,’” says John
“There are folks who probably still believe that marketing is this
Graham, president of Graham Communications, a
kind of window dressing of ‘We’ll take whatever our reality is and
marketing services and sales consulting firm. “It’s
slap a pretty picture around it,’” says Liz Miller, VP of Programs and
rare indeed when it is the other way around.”
Operations for the CMO Council, a think tank for senior marketing
“ The experts agree that to maintain their spot at the table, CMOs have to get smart about tracking their progress. Marketing campaigns in the future will need to be targeted to specific vertical groups and not just some kind of mass messaging, timely and ultimately deepen customer engagement.” – Liz Miller, VP of Programs and Operations for the CMO Council
executives. “It’s the kind of artistic and fuzzy view of what things are going to look and feel like.” And if that’s the kind of approach a CMO is taking – look out. “That’s not what marketing is meant to be,” says Miller.
Meeting of the minds There is a certain amount of long-term, creative thinking that’s necessary to create a large marketing idea or campaign. However, when budgets are tight, artistic and fuzzy will not survive the cutting room floor. Tim Bates has been in plenty of these types of meetings – as a former director of marketing and communications, as a former director of product management and business development, and as a former president/CEO of a company. Now a principal for the Bates Strategy Group, Bates works with companies to create market-driven and business integration initiatives with strategic/tactical planning and implementation. “You’re in a meeting,” he says, describing the scene. “Your CEO, COO, CMO and CTO are in there. Everybody is asked where they can cut back. Everybody has to put something on the plate. The COO is going to say ‘Well, I processed this many units. I can maybe increase my productivity by 2 percent, which means I can only afford one head count. I’ll throw in an FTE and a half.’ The
P20 CANVAS February 2009
engineering guy looks up and says ‘My maintenance work is this much, those guys are already tapped. Do we want new products in the next cycle, or do we want to totally abort those? After you answer those questions I put so many FTEs on the shelf.’ Then it goes to the marketing guy.” And this is where it gets dicey. When the CMO is asked what it would cost the company in terms of productivity, does he have a clearcut answer ready?
Tracking
“If the marketing guy can answer that from a hard productivity standpoint, and prove his answer, he is sitting in the same place as his peers,” says Bates. Miller says that companies that bring in new CMOs are looking for those hard numbers and tangible initiatives. In a CMO Council study, more than 50 percent of CEOs and board executives interviewed said they bring in new CMOs to fix a broken marketing organization. Yet, instead of searching for data, analytics and programs that could drive success and drive customer centricity, too many marketers were turning back to traditional, tactical ideas like refreshing the Web site or redoing the company logo.
The numbers game The experts agree that to maintain their spot at the table, CMOs have to get smart about tracking their progress. Marketing campaigns in
There are plenty of tools that CMOs can use to track their programs. See any that relate to print sales reps?
• Direct Mail • Transpromo • Smart Electronic Internet Advertising
the future will need to be targeted to specific vertical groups and not just some kind of mass messaging, timely and ultimately deepen customer engagement, Miller says. Part of the process involves getting the entire organization to buy into these measurable campaigns. “When marketers go into these meetings, there needs to be a level of numeric scoring and return that can then be tracked,
CANVAS P21
Being a CMO
“ I think there are still companies that understand that there are opportunities to rise above the fray, there are opportunities to win customers in any kind of economy.” – John Graham, president of Graham Communications
and programs can be implemented that work to improve that score so that the company organizationally-wide will embrace that metric,” says Miller. “And everyone from customer service to sales to marketing to the highest points of the executive board will embrace the need to make customer experience an actual measurable metric and will work to improve that experience.” Bates is big on Return on Investment (ROI), whether it comes through a direct mail campaign, Internet advertising – anything that’s tracking customer marketing levels. Those kinds of systems are on par with tracking methods of departments such engineering and product development and sales. “If you’ve been doing those things, you’re showing ROI, you’re showing sell-through, you’re tracking your leads to prospects and to customers,” he says. Miller says she expects to see more and more marketers buy into these programs. “As we start to highlight these programs and solutions that can really help deepen customer engagement, marketers will start to demand that real-time analytics, demand measurable campaigns that aren’t just this kind of mass marketing to the overall populous,” she says. “They’re going to start targeting and be very specific with their promotions to customer segments.”
P22 CANVAS February 2009
Why marketing matters The numbers may not fully tell the importance of marketing, but it’s a start. CMOs today must track their short-term progress in order to develop their long-term objectives. “I think there are still companies that understand that there are opportunities to rise above the fray, there are opportunities to win customers in any kind of economy,” says Graham. History is on the side of a marketing-centric organization. Graham says that companies that embrace the marketing concept end up being the ones that make it out of recessions quicker. He uses Wal-Mart as an example, which he says is doing quite well, versus its competitors like Kmart and Target. He says studies have shown that prices on goods from each of the retail chains are about the same, so that isn’t the business driver. Try marketing, he says.
The final say on budgeting may not be in a CMO’s hands, but how he runs the department will go a long way toward whether or not he’s able to do more business with your printer in the coming year. “If you’ve noticed Wal-Mart has changed its marketing message – Save money, live better. Now, what does the customer want? Yes, the customer expects to save money, but what does the customer really want? Wal-Mart’s got it right. The customer wants something that’s intangible. I think that was a stroke of genius. That’s an example of what marketing can do to lead to success.” If perception is reality, then a large part of a CMO’s job is keeping the marketing top of mind for each department, department head and overall leadership. Tracking numbers, involving additional departments such as sales and customer service – the ways to weave marketing campaigns throughout a company are plenty. The final say on budgeting may not be in a CMO’s hands, but how he runs the department will go a long way toward whether or not he’s able to do more business with your printer in the coming year. “If your company thinks that marketing is fluff and it can just be gutted, then you’re not doing your job to begin with,” Bates says of CMOs. “If you’ve sold end value, to your executives and the board, then you’re not the first to go.”
CANVAS P23
People News PrintingForLess.com founder’s stimulus plan gets noticed by Senate Finance Chair, Forbes
A
Andrew Field, founder and president of Livingston, Mont.-based PrintingForLess.com (PFL), www.printingforless.com, developed a small business stimulus proposal that’s gotten noticed on a national stage. He sent it to U.S. Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Baucus was impressed. Field then shared the letter with several small business people around the country, most of whom also reacted favorably to it. Forbes.com featured the plan (www.forbes.com/home/ 2009/01/16/small-business-loans-oped-cx_af_0116field.html.) “I wrote the proposal because many of America’s 20 million small and medium
businesses (SMBs) might not make it another 90 days, and something needs to be done fast,” says Field. “Many of our SMB customers face a convergence of factors
“Small businesses don’t want a handout, we just want reasonable access to credit so that we can innovate, employ, and grow.” — Andrew Field, founder and president, PrintingForLess.com
that most of us have never seen before, and it may drive many of them out of business, resulting in millions more job losses. SMBs don’t have powerful lobbies, and their dire plight has not garnered any media or political attention. The current outline of the stimulus plan provides no meaningful help for America’s SMB’s, putting half of the nation’s jobs at a severe risk.” Field’s small business stimulus plan includes the following: • The plan treats jobs provided by a business as assets against which the employer can borrow. Presently, if credit is available at all, it is only when it is collateralized by hard assets: plant, equipment, inventory or receivables. • Makes available to small businesses $20,000 in unsecured loans for each fulltime employee. The logic is simple. The government is borrowing 10-year money at about 2.5 percent, so this plan makes it available to SMBs at 5 percent, with interest-only payments for the first five years and an expectation of complete repayment over the next five years. • The loans would be administered through the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) direct lending capability with a one-page application form and a sameday closing. These are capabilities that the SBA already has. Employers would document their fulltime employee count by providing the most recent federal withholding tax remittance form. Under the plan, if a small business reduces their headcount, a pro-rata portion of their loan must be repaid immediately. If they expand headcount, they gain access to another $20,000 of credit for each net new employee. “This would provide a powerful incentive to small businesses to maintain and increase their employment levels” says Field. “Small businesses don’t want a handout, we just want reasonable access to credit so that we can innovate, employ, and grow,” says Field. “If something isn’t done quickly, millions of people will be thrown out of work due to the failure of small businesses caught in the fallout from mismanagement on Wall Street and regulatory failure.” There has been widespread support for the plan from people all across the political spectrum, the printer says. “Tinkering with tired solutions like loan guarantee programs won’t get the job done. The aid for Detroit was based upon job preservation. This plan would preserve more jobs, at little or no long-term cost to the government,” says Field. “If you support this concept, let your voice be heard in Washington.”
P24 CANVAS February 2009
Product Spotlight »» Calendar Event
NAPL Top Management Conference to be held March 15-18 NAPL’s Top Management Conference (TMC) will bring together CEOs, company owners and executives in a powerful three-day annual event, held this year at J.W. Marriott’s Starr Pass Resort in Tucson, Ariz., March 15-18, 2009. The conference, widely regarded as the industry forum for strategic leadership and management, will feature University of Michigan business professor David Ulrich, back by popular demand, in a keynote presentation on gaining a competitive edge through “branded” leadership. The event provides insight-
“At TMC, we get information, networking, confirmation for things we are doing right in our businesses.”
ful leadership strategies and industry-specific best practices for the highest level of management. Whether it’s navigating the changing economic climate, or facing the strategic, marketing, leadership, technology and people challenges; the conference will provide learning, networking, real-life case studies, and solu-
— Dean Hanisko, Great Lakes Integrated, Cleveland, Ohio
tions from award-winning practitioners, leaders and consultants.
“At TMC, we get information, networking, confirmation for things David Ulrich, University of Michigan business professor
we are doing right in our businesses, and new ideas for things we could be doing better in our businesses,” says long-time attendee Dean Hanisko, Great Lakes Integrated, Cleveland, Ohio.
For conference details, registration information, to see and hear past attendee testimonials, or to hear a personal invite from NAPL President Joe Truncale, visit www.napl.org/TMC09, or call (201) 523-6343 for more information.
Now Offering Marketing/ Consultation Services •
Analysis of current situation
•
Positioning expertise
•
CANVAS offers its insight for creative solutions to your marketing needs
For more information on how CANVAS can work for you
email: marketing@thecanvasmag.com CANVAS P25
Product Spotlight »» Product Spotlight
Customer Focus Odyssey Digital acquires Xeikon 3300 From its modest beginnings in 1996, Odyssey Digital Printing of Tulsa, Okla., has become a leader in digital printing through its strong applications focus. John Roberds, president and co-founder of the company, admits that his business did not always have the application focus that it has today. However, within a few years of its inception, the company started producing short-run flexible packaging and point-of purchase applications, such as displays,
Advanced imaging quality is one of the reasons that Roberds says he is so excited about the new Xeikon 3300.
backlit signs and shelf signage. The company has developed these applications around its Xeikon equipment and recently acquired the Xeikon 3300 digital color press for its shortrun packaging applications. Advanced imaging quality is one of the reasons that Roberds says he is so excited about the new Xeikon 3300. He believes that the product will be market-changing. Roberds states that its 1,200 dpi print head provides better halftones, a sharper, crisper image and will allow Odyssey to achieve previously unreached levels of quality. Early testing with the 3300 has impressed some of Odyssey’s most demanding customers. Roberds views the product as “a real step forward that we felt was necessary for the packaging market.” The company is also excited about the fifth color station of the Xeikon 3300 that will allow them to print solid spot colors while also expanding the
color gamut for certain applications. At its simplest, the fifth station can also be used to print opaque white on a clear substrate (sometimes on the back) so that the label can be easily read over any background. The Xeikon products have been central to Odyssey’s past success, and the future looks bright as the nextgeneration Xeikon 3300 joins the mix and builds a foundation for new opportunities for the company.
Unisource’s respect™ Printers’ Program Unisource has created a new Web-based service that printers can utilize to drive more sales into the burgeoning “Green” market and promote their company as a Chain-of-Custody (CoC) certified printer. To become a member of the Unisource respect™ family of printers, certified printers are required to fill out a simple application available at www.unisourcegreen.com. Once the application is received, Unisource verifies the information provided with each of the certifying agencies listed on the application to ensure the printer has at least one of the appropriate CoC certifications. Upon approval, the printer becomes a member of the Unisource respect™ family of printers and the company’s information then appears on the Unisource greenfinder™ paper sourcing tool, providing printers the opportunity to increase their visibility to customers seeking Green products. The Unisource greenfinder™ tool is used by corporate specifiers, designers and end-users to search for papers with Green attributes and locate a CoC certified printer in their local markets. Unisource’s respect™ Printers’ Program is defined by three “Eco-Pillars” that allow customers to purchase and use environmentally-friendly products, which include: 1. Reforestation attributes, qualifying for a forest sustainability certification 2. Renewable energy and utilization of manufacturing programs to safeguard resources, with certification of Green-e and/or Green Seal 3. Recycled content, containing a minimum of 30 percent post-consumer fiber, certified by the manufacturing mill and meeting the EPA-recommended guidelines. Whenever you see the respect™ symbol, you can be sure you are choosing a product that is a better choice for the environment.
P26 CANVAS February 2009
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An industry-specific publication supporting print sales & marketing professional. An exciting new foray into the realities of today’s printing industry, CANVAS is the first publication that focuses on what is truly relevant to the world of the graphic arts sales professional. It investigates the challenges of an industry that is decidedly global, while at the same time, intimate and local. This new, sophisticated endeavor explores intelligent sales techniques, marketing models and best practices. By delivering the insights of industry leaders and innovators, CANVAS supports the printing and graphic arts industry and the sales professional’s role within it.
Now Offering Marketing/Consultation Services •
Analysis of current situation
•
Positioning expertise
•
CANVAS offers its insight for creative solutions to your marketing needs
For more information on how CANVAS can work for you email: marketing@thecanvasmag.com
Fast Facts Reaching Multicultural Audiences A new survey of members of the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) indicates that multicultural marketing continues to grow as a strategic platform for driving brand and business performance. As in the 2003 survey, print continues to be the most favored media vehicle for reaching multicultural audiences, followed closely by TV. Online advertising placed lowest.
Media Used by Marketers to Reach Multicultural Audiences Print
65%
TV
61%
Sponsorships
54%
Public Relations
54%
Targeted Radio
53%
In-Store Marketing
51%
Events
51%
Online Advertising
49%
continues to be the most favored media vehicle for reaching multicultural audiences.
To read Print in the Mix print market research studies, go to www.printinthemix.rit. edu. Print in the Mix is a free and easily accessible clearinghouse of research on print media effectiveness, published by the Printing Industry Center at RIT and made possible by a grant from The Print Council (www.theprintcouncil.org).
CANVAS P29
Ad Execs Want YOU… P30 CANVAS February 2009
… to make their jobs easier. Be the best print partner you can be with these tips from top agencies. By Colleen Oakley
R
emember 10 years ago, when to record your favorite television program you had to put a tape in your VCR, schedule the time to record by pressing 57 buttons on your remote, and then warn everyone in the house not to touch anything so it wouldn’t get interrupted? Then TiVo came along and – presto! – TV-watching became effortless. Well, Ad execs want you to be like TiVo. “At the end of the day,” says Dave Ritter, Creative Director of VSA Partners, “I want to work with printers that make my day a whole lot easier.”
CANVAS P31
Ad Execs Want YOU...
That’s no surprise – who wants to work with someone that makes their life more difficult? But in this economy, it’s more important than ever to give your clients what they want. “Agency worries are no different than worries of any other company during this time,” says Elisabeth Keller, Vice President of Production for Brierley+Partners. “We are all so interrelated with each other. We lose sleep over the same things everybody else does.” The good news is the media mix for agencies isn’t changing in this tight economical climate. “Print, Web and email are all different tools and they all speak to people in different ways,” says Keller. “As we design programs and campaigns for our clients we use the tool that gets maximum effectiveness. You wouldn’t use a saw to hammer a nail.” In other words, print is still a valuable tool for ad agencies. CANVAS dug deep into the minds of three ad execs and found these seven ways you can be even more valuable in the current marketplace.
“ I need printers that I can trust are going to do what they say they’re going to do,” she says. “And they have to keep us involved through the process.” — Elisabeth Keller, VP of Production for Brierley+Partners
Be ahead of the game Have a new ink? Coating? Technology? Let your clients know, stat. “One of the things I’ve seen recently is that more printers now are coming to me saying, ‘Hey look at this new mechanical or technological capability we have,” says Keller. “It’s great, because the more knowledge we have about new formats, processes, coatings and approaches, the more we can use that information in designing effective communications and strategies for our clients.” Deanna Reis, production manager of O’Brien et al Advertising, agrees. “Staying up-to-date on new techniques and sharing their knowledge so that if applicable, we can offer it to our clients [is important],” she says. “For instance, PURL and variable data are becoming two very useful recent marketing ideas for some of our clients.” Keller says she’s been getting a lot of mailings recently promoting the new capabilities of printers and she wants it to keep coming. “I’ve seen some really neat things come out lately,” she says. “I keep those examples in the storehouse so that when we’re brainstorming for clients we come up with new, better ideas that can be executed based on what printers are now capable of.”
P32 CANVAS February 2009
Find cost-effective solutions Cost has never been more important, but the catch? Ad execs need to cut cost without sacrificing quality. “Recently we did a marketing piece that needed to have a certain look and feel – very high end. The initial approach from our creative group was to use a stock that had a very particular finish. The stock was crazy expensive,” says Keller. “So we went to work with our printers to determine another approach to get the same result in a more cost-effective way for our client. The printer had perfected the use of a coating that approximates the same look and feel of the paper originally specified. We were able to do the project for a fraction of the original cost, with the same look and feel of the expensive stock. That’s the kind of partnership that’s really beneficial.”
Communicate Like most good relationships, ad execs want printers they can trust, and a big part of that trust comes from keeping them up-to-date on the progress of the project – particularly when things go wrong. “I don’t want to be surprised when I get the bill,” says Ritter. “A good printer is going to warn me where we’re going over budget and why.” Keller agrees, “I need printers that I can trust are going to do what they say they’re going to do,” she says. “And they have to keep us involved through the process.”
Know your strengths All printers can’t be everything to everybody. Hone in on your strengths, and go after clients that need those strengths. “So
CANVAS P33
Ad Execs Want YOU...
many our clients are focused on green initiatives. It’s such a big thing in the marketplace right now,” says Keller. “We work with one printer who’s completely wind-powered. When we have clients come to us asking how we can help them support their green initiatives, we can talk to them about the things printers are doing. We’re using printers that are only FSC certified for some clients; we’re using more recycled paper. All of those things are things can help us help our clients.” Ritter’s company, VSA Partners, does more strategic
communications
than
advertising,
so he says they look for printers that produce high quality work. “Our company primarily did annual reports, which can be beautiful documents,” he says. “So, after designing and writing for months, we want the final piece to reflect
“ I want to be inspired by someone’s work, not settle for it,” says Ritter. “Sure, they have to have the right technology, salesmanship, and know their craft, but ultimately I better love the pieces they’re producing.” — Dave Ritter, Creative Director of VSA Partners
our creative intentions and reflect well on our clients. We look for printers that have pre-press and pressmen who know how to make the most out of their tools and technology.” How does he know when he’s found the right printer? “I always ask to see things they’ve produced that are of quality or substance,” he says. “If the majority of their samples are direct-mail fliers or brochures, it doesn’t mean they are a poor printer, it just means our interests and expertise are not aligned.”
Be consistent Like the saying “one rotten apple can spoil the bunch,” one bad print job can ruin your relationship. “Consistency is key,” says Keller. “We want printers who support our quality and delivery standards and do it on a consistent level. We don’t want one job that’s great and the next job is not so great. We work with people who provide high quality on a regular basis.”
P34 CANVAS February 2009
Ritter shares this example: “We work with a printer who is great, but 10 years ago we couldn’t get their pre-press department to match what we wanted,” he says. “If you go back and forth on a color proof 10 times when you only have it in the budget for two times, you can turn a $20,000 pre-press into a $60,000 budget very quickly. It’s all subjective. It’s an interpretation of our guidance by the color analyst, but now they’ve gotten better at it. We use them today quite a bit because their pre-press department has gotten so much better and we can count on them to get it right.”
Get creative
“ Our printers aren’t just vendors, they’re partners,” says Reis. “We rely on them to complete whatever project they may be producing for us on time, on budget and to the highest quality.” — Deanna Reis, O’Brien et al Advertising
Ad agencies are an imaginative bunch and they want their printers to be as well. “I want to be inspired by someone’s work, not settle for it,” says Ritter. “Sure, they have to have the right technology, salesmanship, and know their craft, but ultimately I better love the pieces they’re producing. I want to be surprised by the quality of work and know that they share the same vision that we have. I want to work with printers who are just as creative and experimental as we are.” Particularly in this economy, adds Reis. “One of the biggest concerns for ad agencies during the current economic situation is finding innovative ways to meet our clients’ needs,” she says. “In some cases, the same techniques aren’t going to work with the current climate, so it’s necessary to find different ways to reach the target audience and drive business to the client or to meet whatever need that they have.”
Be a true partner The execs agree on one thing: they couldn’t do their jobs without printers. “Our printers aren’t just vendors, they’re partners,” says Reis. “We rely on them to complete whatever project they may be producing for us on time, on budget and to the highest quality.” Keller agrees. “Printers are the execution arm,” she says. “We don’t have printing presses in-house, so we’re really relying on them for the final execution of what we’ve designed. Over the years, we’ve developed relationships with a strong network of printers with a broad range of capabilities and strengths, and we know that we can rely on them. I’m really grateful for that. And as they’ve changed and the business has changed, we continue to work together to support and meet the needs of our clients.”
CANVAS P35
Go
to the
Head
P36 CANVAS February 2009
of
the
How to be a sales valedictorian
Class A
dmit it. The teachers back in high school and college didn’t look at the nerdy, hit the books, not go out on Friday night, A-plus student and say, “I just KNOW you are going to grow up to be a top performing salesperson someday! You are way too good for medical or law school!” Nope. The perception was and may still be that the sales career path was reserved not for the smartest in the class, but more for the cool, extroverted, high-energy, talkative, popular Joe or Jane whose GPA typically hovered somewhere between C minus and missing class. Between all the parties and laughs, these students/socialites still managed to squeeze four years of college into five or six. Nice work!
CANVAS P37
Go to the Head of the Class
There’s not any scientific proof that “smart”
Performers. PIC knowledge is talking about PIC-ing apart your
people are attracted to traditionally “respected”
competition. It is one area that sales reps have complete con-
positions more than sales. There is no way to tell
trol over, and yet average salespeople too often use excuses
if more overachieving C-minus students than
to justify why it is impossible to know everything. Many believe
bookworms end up in this noble profession. It
that they can get by with just enough information, but that is
doesn’t matter. Now that the As and Cs are all
all they will do unless their knowledge is high-level. PRECISE
in the career world together, you can draw one
Sales Reps don’t just get by … they blow by the competition.
conclusion. The Bookworms were onto something
Knowing more than the next rep allows this to happen.
with this whole “learning/get as smart as possible” thing. Maybe there is something positive
Learn … on purpose
that comes from doing homework, scheduling
The smartest people in any business do not learn by accident.
time to learn, and combing the Internet for new
They make time in their schedule to get smart. Which means if you
knowledge and skill. Who would have thought
want to be smarter than your competition, grab your day planner,
that asking questions of others with the intention
Outlook, or PDA and make a 30- to 60-minute appointment with
of learning could be even more fun than telling
brilliance each week. In other words, get up 30 minutes earlier on
people all about you and your product? As cocky
Monday and Tuesday, get into the office, and start studying. By this
as salespeople were before, can you imagine
time next year, your newfound knowledge will make you a more
With a few clicks of the keyboard, you will be on your way to the head of the class. Just go to your competitor’s Web site and snoop around a bit. how much more confident salespeople can be
valuable resource to your customers. While your competition has
once a bunch of that “learning” stuff gets into
to go searching for answers, you will be able to easily access them
their heads?
on that hard drive called your brain.
So today, shake your career weakening attitudes and become a student once again. Only
Wait … and learn
this time, you are not going to learn just enough
You should be almost as good at waiting to see customers as you
to “get by.” Heck no! Class is in session, and 2009
are at selling to customers. Unless you believe you know everything
will be the year you head to the top of the class.
you need to about your product or service, you should rarely find
The question is, are you ready to become your
yourself just sitting and sighing. Being parked in the lobby or
sales class valedictorian? If so, here are some tips
lounge waiting for your prospect doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
to doing it.
Waiting time is learning time, and it should be valued as much as selling time. It will be the waiting and learning moments that will
Know more than the competition
separate you from your competitor when your customer is ask-
The first product your customer must buy is
ing the tough question. While your competitor is saying, “I will
your knowledge of that product. You can have
follow up with that information.” You will be saying, “I will follow up
the greatest product or service in the world,
on that order.”
but your product or service is only as good as the knowledge you have and the way you use
Google it
it during a sales call. Besides Product Knowl-
So you have an appointment set up at the ad firm, huh? And they
edge, top salespeople also need a healthy
have five clients that print tons of stuff, you say? It’s time to get on
dose of Industry, and Competition Knowledge
that computer and go to www.google.com and type in the names of
to be successful. This PIC knowledge is one of
the clients. And don’t be surprised if you learn the names of every
the 3 Ps in the PRECISE Selling Formula of Top
key decision-maker and exactly what they do. This information will
P38 CANVAS February 2009
prevent you from pulling out one of history’s lamest open-ended sales questions, “So tell me a bit about your business.” Because the sales valedictorian doesn’t ask questions that tell the customer that he didn’t do his homework.
Snoop around online Want to know the latest promotions your competition is running? How about the key features and benefits of their focus products? Simple! With a few clicks of the keyboard, you will be on your way to the head of the class. Just go to your competitor’s Web site and snoop around a bit. After taking a few minutes to discover the key benefits they are pushing in the field, you will be able to craft a presentation that highlights your key differences. While the valedictorian doesn’t like cheating, he understands that to keep his grade point average higher than the salutatorian, he needs every edge. So are you ready, Smarty? Good, because class is back in session. And like Harry Truman said:“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” This year, make learning a habit. When you do, don’t be surprised if you are counting fatter commission checks at the end of the school year!
President of Kansas City-based PRECISE Selling, Brian delivers seminars and Internet training programs on sales, customer service, leadership and presentation skills to companies of all sizes. He also hosts the radio talk show Entrepreneurial Moments, a show dedicated to personal and business development. To find out more, visit him at www.preciseselling.com or email Brian at bsullivan@preciseselling.com.
Book Recommendation
Mavericks at Work By William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre
I
f you want to prepare yourself for the changing economic climate, then you simply need to think differently. “Mavericks at Work,” written by William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre, gives us dozens of case studies of leaders who eschew tradition and adopt creative tactics. These stories, from both well-known
leaders and others, will simply spark inspiration. Mavericks covers a lot of ground: Taylor and LaBarre discuss
everything from open-source innovation to the value of openbook management. “There’s nothing quite so exhilarating as
In the introduction, Taylor and LaBarre say they will consider the book a success if it “opens your eyes, engages your imagination, and encourages you to think bigger and aim higher.” being an eyewitness to the future,” the authors gush. “We immersed ourselves in organizations that have shaped the course of their industries by reshaping the sense of what’s possible.” You may find yourself inspired, or at least pluck an idea or two as you embrace change. In the introduction, Taylor and LaBarre say they will consider the book a success if it “opens your eyes, engages your imagination, and encourages you to think bigger and aim higher.” On that level, with many of our readers managing in a business world plagued by risk-aversion, conformity, and copycat benchmarking, Mavericks is likely to succeed, and CANVAS highly recommends it.
P40 CANVAS February 2009
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