The Age of Enlightenment? —DeWese
OK students. Settle down. This is an important and historic lecture, so I need to concentrate.
This column starts off the 26th year of authoring them. It’s also my first column written on a new desktop PC.
I forgot that last month was my 25th anniversary writing this column. My first column was published in November 1984. I wrote it on an Apple IIc personal computer. Back then, I faxed the manuscript to my editor and she had someone retype the copy. Shortly thereafter, the chief editor left for another job and was replaced by Mark Michelson. He has been my editor ever since.
Those were the digital Dark Ages. It’s no wonder we now have so much unemployment. We no longer need people to re-enter all those key strokes. We thought 1984 was the Age of Enlightenment.
I’m not enlightened. I wasn’t paying attention when I bought this new computer. I was excited by the promise of more memory and more speed.
When I unpacked the computer in my office, there was no CPU. The salesman must have forgotten to put it in my trunk. I rushed back to the store madder’n hell. I stormed into the store to complain that the salesman forgot the box containing the CPU.
About six people were within earshot when I was informed that all the stuff formerly in the CPU is now contained behind the touchscreen, and that the various ports and drives are on the side of the screen. The people at the store are still laughing at the old man who is touchscreen-illiterate.
Yesterday’s Message
I don’t think I was illiterate when I wrote about marketing and a salesperson’s responsibility. I wrote that print salespeople had to be their own marketing departments because their companies were not providing marketing services. My premise was that selling is a function of marketing. I also asserted that for selling to function effectively, it should work in harmony with a great marketing program.
Back then very few printing companies had a marketing program, so I was suggesting that the salesperson had to perform all of the other functions for marketing: planning, market research, public relations, sales promotion, publicity, advertising, pricing, etc.
When orchestrated correctly, all of these marketing activities make selling easy, or at least, easier. Not much has changed. Most printing companies still have no marketing programs. Many people in our industry still believe that selling and marketing are synonymous.
Some things have changed.
We used to teach that lying about our service or the competition was wrong. But I was the one who was wrong. I’ve had a brilliant flash of insight, a great moment of inspiration. It was a blast of wisdom, overwhelming enlightenment.
This new genius idea comes from our politicians. The inspiration came from politicians in both parties. I must have seen hundreds of political commercials in the months prior to the Nov. 2, 2010, elections. I watch television for the baseball and football games, the news, and various History and Discovery Channel offerings.
Prior to the elections, the deluge of political commercials, between touchdowns and innings, increased from three or four to seven and sometimes eight. The relentlessness of the ads became stronger and louder as we got closer to Election Day.
Eventually, I become nauseous and was suffering flu-like symptoms. My loving wife, Attila the Nun, observed my inert posture, the perspiration on my forehead and my pale green pallor. She forced me to get into the car and drove me to the emergency room.
The young doctor on duty checked all of my vital signs, asked a few questions and quickly diagnosed my malady. He described it as political “over-exposure.” “Even if you nap during the airing of these commercials,” he explained, “you are still exposed to all the lies and fallacious statements made about their political opponents. This constant harangue is a form of mental torture and, voila, the viewer becomes sick and surrenders to the candidates’ messages.”
When I began to feel well again, I analyzed all of those political messages and concluded that the incumbents and their opponents are using a marketing strategy we should try. It’s easy to just make up stuff. Say real bad things about your competing salespeople and their companies. They can be outright lies.
It’s a damnsight easier to lie than actually research any facts. There’s a good chance that if you waste a lot of time researching, you may not find any useful facts. So, make up stuff. It’s faster and more fun to just make up malicious stories about your competition.
You might ask, for example, “Who is your current supplier?” When your prospect responds, “We have been using DeWese Litho for several years,” you say, “I hear they are nearly bankrupt. The IRS is chasing them for unpaid payroll taxes and the management is under investigation for producing pornography.”
Thank you, thank you, politicians for this new strategy. You’ve given the struggling printing industry a new marketing approach for getting political campaign jobs. Now, we can point out that alternative media, specifically television, has been proven to be harmful to your health.
You need to spend all of your campaign funds on printed direct mail, coupled with extensive e-mail blasts. Spend more money on printed yard signs. Or, better yet, invest in printed wide-format billboards, bus wraps, truck wraps and even building wraps.
Or how about printing 16-page political platform brochures with lots of four-color photography? Voters love pictures. There is also the opportunity for voter database management services provided by your printing company. As a result, the candidates will only need to write one check, to one vendor, and they won’t be endangering the health of America’s voters.
If You Believe That...
Yep, we’ve got to fight fire with fire, and follow in the footsteps of governors, senators, representatives and all of the local candidates.
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that it’s okay to raise money anonymously from outside groups, some of the fund raisers have raised four times as much for the mid-term elections as four years ago. People who track the campaign funds estimate that nearly $1 billion was raised and spent on the Nov. 2 elections. We need to capture more of that money, and learn to lie with the best of them. It’s just great marketing.
Obviously, with respect to lying, cheating and lethargy, my tongue is deeply planted in my cheek. I hope this caused you to rethink your role, and embrace a comprehensive marketing plan to make your sales efforts easier and more effective. Learning about marketing and perfecting the functions is not easy, but it does represent a great payoff.
The printing industry’s greatest proponent and teacher of marketing just passed away. I’m referring to Dick Gorelick, and I’m not sure we have anyone waiting in the wings to replace him. Maybe someone will endeavor to publish his prolific writings, so his wisdom and challenging insights can live on.
I visited Dick in the hospice on the Sunday that he died, giving me the chance to honor his life one more time.
Now, work on your marketing plans and, while you’re driving to the next call, remember to get out there and sell something! Your company needs you, your industry needs you and your family needs you. 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 HDeWese@CompassCapLtd.com.
