5 Tips for Successful Sales –DeWese
This is Printing Impressions' GRAPH EXPO 2011 edition. Thousands of owners and miscellaneous employees, and perhaps a few unemployed, will be wandering around the 2.6 million square feet of McCormick Place in Chicago.
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Most of those McCormick Place wanderers are looking for something. Many are actually looking at the equipment on display. Others are studying the digital solutions that are being demonstrated.
There are many consultants and associations that are looking for troubled owners. These are owners who seek answers to competitive, operational, financial and environmental problems that are so pervasive and that plague their businesses.
Some owners are looking for another company as a merger partner. It's almost like a mating ritual to tuck in or be tucked in. Some employees, at printing companies and at industry suppliers alike, are looking for a better job. Others are just looking for a job—any job. It's tough because there are fewer jobs available in a shrinking industry. If you are looking for a merger partner or just a job, you have to be covert. Overt is no good. Your targets will think that you are desperate.
Confined to the South Hall, GRAPH EXPO isn't consuming all 2.6 million square feet, so make sure you stay within our boundaries. If you find yourself looking at embalming equipment, you are in the wrong place.
Our industry is changing so much that I don't know what to call it anymore. I don't even know what to call the "miscellaneous employees." Owners nowadays are embarrassed to be called "printers." Now, it's fashionable to call yourselves solutions providers or marketing services companies.
Nobody wants to just be called "printer." And yet, when I'm engaged to sell a company and given the financial statements, 95 percent of the revenue is derived from output from printing presses. I don't see any revenue in a column headed "marketing services." Solutions and marketing services just aren't happening. Owners may want it to happen, but it's just not happening to any significant extent.
It's not happening because this industry has never learned how to first find, and then how to treat, a customer.
It's easy to buy equipment. It's easy to purchase the newest software solution. But it's hard to find a client. It's easy to identify potential customers, but hard to obtain one. Customers are your friends.
As you walk the halls of McCormick Place South, you won't find a single booth where, for a few bucks, you can get a customer. How could there be such a booth? Our industry, with a few exceptions, has just never learned the secrets of finding and then earning a customer. It hasn't happened because it's hard work.
Here are some secrets:
Spare no time, thought or expense in recruiting the most talented salespeople. Don't worry about their graphic arts experience. Look for great salespeople first. They will be smart enough to learn your products and services.
Once you hire these great sales reps, train, train, train. Schedule and conduct weekly sales meetings. Make them understand that they're needed, honored and respected.
Make team sales calls with your salespeople. Critique their selling skills in a positive way. If you are not good at making critiques, then keep your mouth shut. By the way, your existing customers and prospects will be honored and impressed that an owner came along.
Make these following five "Rules to Sell By" your guiding principles.
1) Never give up. Someone wrote that it takes at least five sales calls to get the first order. That someone was a cockeyed optimist. It takes at least 12 calls to get the first order.
2) Be nice to one another. Selling deals with the human psyche. Co-workers are human. Prospects are human. Customers are human. Be nice to other humans if you expect to sell them anything.
3) Think good thoughts. You are not thinking good thoughts when trying to seduce a co-worker or a customer. Good thoughts rarely occur sitting at a bar or playing blackjack. Well, you get my drift.
4) Try to do better. Never be satisfied with yesterday, or last week, or last month.
5) Say please and thank you. Nothing impresses customers more than gracious salespeople.
You can walk the halls of McCormick Place until blisters form on both feet without finding any customers. But, just as soon as you get back to the plant, get out there and sell something! PI
—Harris DeWese
About the Author
Harris DeWese is the author of "Now Get Out There and Sell Something" and "The Mañana Man, Books II and III," available at www.piworld.com/bookstore. He is chairman of Compass Capital Partners and also authors the annual "Compass Report."
DeWese has completed more than 150 printing company transactions and is viewed as the industry's preeminent deal maker.
He can be reached via e-mail at hmdewese@aol.com.
