Canvas Magazine | What it Takes by Conduit, Inc.

supporting the print sales & Marketing professional

November 2009

What it takes g n i e b o t s t g n n e i i t d e re mark g n i The ccessful ovider a su rvices pr se

Sponsored by

CANVAS November 2009

ha m y Gr a

Gar r i

son

yan Sauers took a long deep

handle the different facets of communications. However, Sauers

look at industry trends five

doesn’t adhere to the term “marketing services provider” as much

years ago, and knew that a

as the mentality of being the go-to resource for his clients.

change was in order. “We looked at the future

and asked ourselves, was print going to keep growing?” he says. “The answer we came to in 2004 was no.” Sauers, president of Sauers Communications, saw the “price piranhas” coming and

“A better way is to say it is, we’re in the business of solving our client’s problems and bringing value to their business needs,” he says. The tangibles are a given. If you want to introduce a PURL campaign, you either need the software or a partnership with a cross media company. If you want variable printing capabilities, you need the right press technology.

too many printing companies vying for the

But what about the intangibles? What mentality do print pro-

same business. So he and his father decided

viders need from their employees to become successful in what

to rebrand the company, creating subsets to

essentially is being labeled marketing services?

CANVAS

What it Takes

The right attitude

has to carry through in marketing as well as press operations. The

The first sale starts within the company,

mentality of being an MSP has to be universal, certainly global in

between the ears of the owners, man-

the company, and that’s a challenge we learn pretty quick.”

agers and salespeople. Peter Winters is president and CEO of The Winters Group

The right people

& Associates, LLC, a company focused on

While the entire company would do well to adopt the new mental-

marketing effectiveness and logistics. He

ity, it doesn’t mean everyone should focus on the new services. A

says that providers who have made the

successful MSP salesperson isn’t necessarily the top print sales-

successful transition from traditional print

person. Winters says providers should consider minimizing the

to MSP recognize that the print industry is

number of people working on the MSP side.

changing, for good. He compares it to the

“There really has to be some forethought into who would be

railroad industry in the late 1800s, on the

most comfortable, natural and successful standing toe to toe with

verge of shifting to the transportation in-

the senior marketing executive,” he says. “It’s almost a tip-of-the-

dustry. Print is becoming more like a com-

spear approach, instead of an all-out blitzkrieg. You will see many

munications logistics industry. And instead

of the business owners getting involved in this kind of selling cy-

of mourning that fact, providers should

cle. You will also see many business owners, who had for the most

embrace it.

part finished up the bulk of their selling careers, going back out in

“The mentality is not so much a defen-

the field as the chief rainmaker in the MSP discussion.

sive posture (‘we’ve got to do something’),

“He or she does not need to have had past print sales experi-

but an offensive posture,” Winters says.

ence,” Winters continues. “In fact, it would probably be beneficial

“‘Hey, this is a wide open opportunity, we

if they didn’t have past print sales experience and were more fa-

should pursue this because there’s going to

miliar with enterprise level sales; marketing and workflow cycles,

be good things that come from this, even if

systems sales as opposed to print sales. Inside the four walls of a

we don’t totally understand it.’ It’s more an

print company there’s more than enough intelligence on the print

offensive strategy rather than defensive.”

side of the business.”

Chris Petro, president and CEO of Global

Petro says his company looks for people who have a solutions-

Soft Digital Solutions, says providers must

based selling background, such as postal print, people from the

train their whole organization to have the

software industry and people from the service industry in general.

same mentality. “You can’t have some peo-

Preferably people who understand indirect cost savings and val-

ple not in the boat,” Petro says. “It starts at

ue. “You do have to go out and get new people,” Petro says. “You

the top and goes through sales, but it also

can convert some, but there’s a large chunk that you can’t.” Sauers says proactive thinkers and those that are fast on their feet will be the best in the new sales landscape. They need to be prepared to compete against ad agencies and marketing and PR firms for business. “The way things were done yesterday, last month, the last five years, they just don’t apply,” Sauers says. “You have to think more like an ad agency than a mechanical business.” Winters says that successful MSPs have understood that there are different processes in place and disciplines that need to be developed. It’s not just adding a new sales rep and selling something new, he says. “You’re talking about the development of a new business unit,” he says. “The kinds of things that are indicative of a business unit are: Does it have the right strategy in place? How does it act toward the current customer base? And think about that customer base from the senior marketing executive point of view and what the organization is trying to do. It is X and we have Y. It’s a different kind of selling process.”

The right approach When you become an MSP, the entire sales process, from pitch to production, changes. Providers entering the MSP realm should

CANVAS November 2009

rethink compensation packages, and the varying length of an MSP sales cycle. But first, they must rethink their sales pitch to their customers. “You have to be able to be more educated on how you present your solution to the client,” says Petro. “The proposal is typically not a quote sheet. When you’re in the MSP realm you have to give a proposal for something – a campaign, application, direct mail piece that maybe goes deeper, has maybe cross platform marketing. How you communicate to your customer also becomes different.” It’s much more big picture. Winters says that a marketing services call is essentially a de-commoditization of the print sale. “The reason for this is, you’re with the senior marketing executive, at the strategy table. You’re six months in front of the purchasing agent. When the correct sale is done, the deal is taken off the street, before it ever reaches the purchasing department.” Print plays a role. Sometimes the largest role. But the fundamental shift in a print provider converting to a MSP is that print is just one offering. “In the MSP world, the print is just a delivery vehicle, and it may not be the only one,” says Petro. “It may be the smallest one that you

“ The way things were done yesterday, last month, the last five years, they just don’t apply. You have to think more like an ad agency than a mechanical business.” – Ryan Sauers, president, Sauers Communications

give for the solution to the client. There might be a PURL campaign, e-mail follow ups, multiple stages and components. You really have to become more agnostic with the print side.” “You’re talking about a business transformation shift,” says Winters. “Organizations are going to keep a foot firmly planted in the ground in their print business, but also recognize that they have to borrow from the traditional business, while building this new business under the same roof. The MSP position is there to drive print. It’s a different way of focusing on how you will be getting your print in the future. It’s a bit of an innovative environment.” Sauers says in today’s market, you are essentially providing a variety of services that bring value to your client. Not just ink on paper. It’s whatever the customer wants and needs. “The people who are pros at this see their roles,” he says. “If we can make money helping our clients by making popsicle stick stands in a parking lot, then we might be in the popsicle stand business. Whatever it is that’s a viable entity to help our clients grow.”

HP is proud to sponsor CANVAS. We invite you to visit the HP Digital Printing Resource Center to download whitepapers, view on-demand press demos, webinars and more!

CANVAS

CANVAS November 2009

Master one of

N I

Why having all customer contact go through you is a bad thing By Dave Kahle

t’s a common mindset. The field salesperson wants every communication with the customer to go through him or her. In other words, instead of calling customer service with a problem, the customers are instructed to call the salesperson first. Instead of calling technical service for a repair issue, call the salesper-

son. Need a price? Don’t call inside sales, call the salesperson. It’s easy to see why so many salespeople adhere to this idea. It makes them feel important – look at all the phone calls they receive. It puts them into more regular contact with the customer, hopefully providing opportunity for enriching the relationship. And, since the salesperson is, in effect, providing some service to the customer, the salesperson believes that he is bringing value to the customer, and that the customer will come to rely on the salesperson. At one level, all of that sounds good. However, that idea costs both the company and the salesperson dearly, and frustrates the customers. It is an insidious hindrance to sales performance.

CANVAS

Master of None

Bogged down

The net impact is to increase the frustration on the part of the

Here’s why. First, it fills the salesperson’s

customer, to add costs to the selling company, and to weigh the

day with needless administrative tasks

salesperson down with needless tasks. This kind of thing happens

that can be done better and cheaper by

multiple times every day.

someone else inside the company. Here’s

Look how much time the salesperson wasted. He really didn’t

an example. The customer received 10

need to be a part of any of this. If the customer would have called

line items on the last shipment, and one of

customer service directly, the problem would have been handled

them is not the item they ordered. In the

immediately – saving the customer and the salesperson lots of

“everything most go through me” scenar-

time. The customer service rep is far better (and cheaper) at re-

io, the customer calls the salesperson, who

sponding to service issues than is the salesperson.

interrupts a visit with another customer to take the call. He tells the customer he’ll get

The big picture

back to him. Then he calls customer ser-

The culmination of hundreds of these kinds of scenarios, played

vice and makes arrangements to handle

over time, combine into a huge cost to the company. Not only is

the problem. Next, he calls the customer,

the selling company using an expensive asset (the salesperson’s

and gets his voice mail. The salesperson

time) to accomplish a task that is more efficiently done by a less

leaves a message for the customer to call

expensive asset (the customer service rep), but the opportunity

him. The customer does, but, alas, gets the

costs are even larger. While the salesperson was spending his

salesperson’s voice mail. The cycle repeats

time on the phone in this needless set of tasks, he wasn’t calling

until live contact is made, and the sales-

on another customer. In other words, the salesperson made the

person conveys the message.

choice to involve himself in this administrative clutter rather than

The world is full of salespeople who think the answer is to become a mobile customer service rep. use the time to sell something. Add those costs up, and the numbers will keep you awake at night. But an even more insidious effect has to do with the message you are sending to the customer. What is the implication of “call me for everything” on the customer? He perceives that there are no competent people working for your company other than the salesperson. Why else would you need to call him first? There must not be any infrastructure to take care of customers – no systems to handle these kinds of issues. If the only person you can talk to is the salesperson, then there must not be much of a company supporting him. Why would you want to do business with a company like that? The real culprit in this very common situation is the errant mindset of the salesperson relative to how he/she sees his job. It’s the fundamental answer to this question: “How does a salesperson do his job?” The world is full of salespeople who think the answer is to become a mobile customer service rep. Their job, so they believe, is to be a super-responsive “go-fer” for the customer – have every

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This “mobilecustomer-servicerep syndrome” lives at a deeper level in the salesperson psyche and in the culture of the company that employs him.

communication come through the salesperson, respond to every whim of the customer, solve every problem. This “mobile-customer-service-rep syndrome” lives at a deeper level in the salesperson psyche and in the culture of the company that employs him. In our seminars for salespeople, we identify it as the entry-level sales mindset, but one from which most salespeople never progress. This approach, of course, fills the salesperson’s day with “stuff”, and makes him feel busy and important. Unfortunately, it leaves little time for the nuts and bolts of selling – proactively uncovering the customer’s deeper needs, presenting products, services and programs that help him grow his business and do his job better. The symptoms of this syndrome pop up all over the place. Salespeople who make sales calls with nothing to sell. Salespeople who rarely make cold calls on prospects they don’t know. Salespeople who spend their days on the cell phone, making needless calls for things that rightly should be done by others. As long as the salesperson is burdened by the mobile customer service rep mentality, and as long as the company’s culture supports that mindset, the salespeople will never grow to reach their potential, and the company will be forever burdened by the costs of ineffective sales effort.

Dave Kahle has trained tens of thousands of distributor and B2B salespeople and sales managers to be more effective in the 21st Century economy. He’s authored seven books, and presented in 47 states and seven countries. Visit his blog, at www.davekahle.com.

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Sometimes success means being the first to bounce back from a mistake

onnie St. John lost a leg at the age of 5. Several years later, she would go on to become the first African-American to win an Olympic medal in skiing, as she was awarded a silver and two bronze medals in the 1984 Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria. Recently

on my radio program, I asked Bonnie to tell her story about how she won the silver. She said, “I was leading in the slalom after the first run. Then in the second run, I slipped on an ice patch and fell down the hill. I thought for sure this would cost me a medal, but I got up and continued racing. Several other competitors hit the same patch of ice and also fell … even the one who eventually won the gold. The only difference, however, between her and I, and the gold and the silver, was she got up faster … and that won

By Brian Sullivan

her the gold.”

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Quick Recovery

Recover What about your business? In this tough

Network and cold call more than the competition. If you are speak-

year, do you feel like you have slipped

ing to 10 accounts each day, increase to 15 accounts each day.

on a patch of ice? Well if so, now is the time to get up … and get up faster than

Expect speed. Make decisions more quickly and ask for decisions

your competition. Because there is only

to be made more quickly from customers and colleagues.

one gold, and it’s either going to be you or them.

Training I then asked Bonnie, “How did you train to become a champion?”

To make your business move faster:

She said, “I trained with Olympic athletes who didn’t have the

Get out of bed 30 minutes “faster” and ear-

physical limitations I had. Because my goal was to be the best

lier each morning. Then use that extra time

skier, not to be the best Paralympics skier. To be a champion, you

to learn something new about your Product,

need to surround yourself with the best.” To be a champion:

Industry or Competition (PIC Knowledge). Surround yourself with people who are what you are trying to Stop procrastinating! It’s time to quit

be. Seek out top performers in your company or industry and

talking and start doing. Write down a

schedule a breakfast, lunch or beer. Then ask who, what, when,

list of high value activities that might be

how did they get to the top.

painful but necessary to make you successful, then schedule time each day to

Pick valuable training partners. If you are a distribution sales

do those things.

rep, seek out your top 10 manufacturer partners. Be proactive

People fall down, winners get up, and gold medal winners just get up faster. — Bonnie St. John

in scheduling time with them. Manufacturer salespeople will do more for distribution salespeople who they are friends with. Which means more leads, more knowledge and more sales. The same goes for manufacturer reps. If you are the type who says, “I never get any leads from that rep,” you need to ask yourself if you are doing enough to earn those leads. This season, train to be faster! By this time next year, you will look back on the autumn of 2009 as the greatest fall of your career … the fall that couldn’t keep you down. Go to www.preciseselling.com/Radioaccess.htm to listen to Brian interview Bonnie St. John, author of the book Live Your Joy. To find out more about Brian’s sales and leadership programs, visit him at www.preciseselling.com or e-mail Brian at bsullivan@preciseselling.com.

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