‘Quality’ Sales Calls Pay Off —DeWese
Whew, whewee and wheweeee! I am just slap wore out.
This column-writing is real hard work. It's the end of 2010, this is my first column for the New Year, and I already feel like I've been rode hard and put up wet.
This is column number 291 for a total of 363,750 words. I think that's more words than is contained in James Joyce's "Ulysses." I was right. I went to Wikipedia and found that "Ulysses" contained "approximately" 265,000 words. My Printing Impressions columns have totaled about 100,000 more words than "Ulysses."
They didn't have Microsoft Word "word count" in February of 1922 when "Ulysses" was published in Paris by Sylvia Beach. Sylvia did not count the words, and she was smart enough to get a printing estimate based on the printer's estimate of word count. The printing company owner was smitten by Beach, and agreed to count the words rather than the pages.
Avoid Distractions
Sylvia leaned over his desk to reveal her ample cleavage. The printer, one J. Malcolm Hathaway, was unable to concentrate and lost count many times. He soon only pretended to count the words and decided to delegate the counting to his nephew, Reggie Mountbatten, the firm's typographer.
When Sylvia learned that the word count was delegated to Reggie, she found it necessary to visit him frequently, making sure to brandish her generous décolleté—ostensibly to inspect his work but, in fact, to curry his friendship.
Boy did she succeed. Reggie reported to bookkeeping a total word count of 125,000, which was less than half the actual number. The first print run was 1,000 copies. The company accountant calculated that the job lost £3,000.
This column is about sales lessons, so the first lesson is to avoid distractions when taking specs or when quoting a job.
The next lesson is the importance of quality and quantity. That breaks down to the need for quality sales calls, coupled with the need for a lot of sales calls. I'll define a "quality sales call." It's a face-to-face meeting with a qualified print buyer where a conversation occurs.
Actually, nowadays, the sales call could be by telephone or e-mail. Or, with the texting revolution that is occurring among 12- to 30-year-olds, the call could increasingly be exchanges of text messages. I actually shuddered when I wrote that texting will become a growing means of sales communication.
I'm an old coot who only learned to "text" at the insistence of my grandchildren. Now, they ridicule my texting practice of spelling words entirely and to use proper punctuation.
The topic of the conversation is eventually about the buyer's printing needs. Oh, you may wander around the buyer's mother-in-law, the Atlanta Falcons' chances of making the playoffs or great barbecue recipes, but eventually it must center on how you and your company can benefit the buyer's organization.
Many salespeople, when blessed with a sales opportunity, go unprepared and find themselves trapped into a sales presentation vs. the much preferred sales conversation. Training and preparation are required to conduct a conversation. A conversation is an exchange of ideas between individuals. Both participants alternatively speak and then listen.
The presentation, on the other hand, requires that one person—that's you—speak; it's highly likely that much of what you say won't be relevant to the print buyer. This seems obvious to me, but we are cursed today with people who speak over their conversation partners. We've learned this awful practice from television where hosts, like Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly, interrupt and talk over their guests. Consequently, no one hears or learns anything. That's the beauty of writing a column—no one interrupts me. I am also convinced that freedom from interruption is one of the motivations for the proliferation of blogs on the Internet.
As a matter of fact, Freedom from Interruption should become our 28th Amendment.
No matter what the form of communication, good salespeople visit with customers and prospects armed with indirect questions and the benefits of printing with her/his company AND with her/him.
Listen and Learn
I have written this many, many times: A successful sales conversation is one where the salesperson speaks about 20 percent to 30 percent of the time, and the customer talks the remainder. The salesperson's time should mostly be consumed with indirect questions that require more than a one-syllable answer. The remainder of the sales rep's talk time should be answers to the buyer's questions, or benefits statements, overcoming objections or closing questions.
The benefits statements are the conditions that will exist when clients avail themselves of one of your company's features. Get it? There are features like, "We have a company-wide quality assurance program." And benefits like, "And that means you will enjoy on-time deliveries that are error-free. So you'll avoid all the wasted time associated with tracking down late deliveries and dealing with bad folds."
The easy way to remember the difference between a feature and a benefit is to state the feature and then add, "and that means to you." For example, you say, "We have a highly skilled and long-tenured workforce, and that means to you that the people who produce your job care about it being error-free and on time, so you are not wasting time and energy worrying about your marketing material. Our customers tell us that they save money and time when they print with us."
Now, let's take a break and practice:
1. Write a list of 30 benefits associated with printing at your company. Take your time and prepare the list slowly. Think about the importance of each benefits statement from the perspective of a customer. In other words, put yourself in your client's shoes and list the benefits in his/her words, not yours.
2. Now, list 10 indirect questions that you might ask any client. Indirect questions result in answers that are information dumps. These are the opportunities for you to gain in-depth insight into the customer's buying behavior and print needs.
Writing the questions, as in the case of the benefits, will burn them in your brain. They will reside there for use over and over again.
Well, I've used up my space and don't have room for the other half of our lesson—the part about "quantity." Remember, you have to make a lot of sales calls (quantity), and when you make the calls, they have to be quality calls. They shouldn't be wasted with stammering, unprepared talk.
I'll cover the "quantity" part next time. But, I guarantee that if you make twice as many calls in 2011 as you made in 2010, you'll enjoy sales growth of at least 50 percent.
I need a nap, and you need to 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.
