How to Make a Sale: A Print Buyer Weighs In

Before We Meet:

• This is where the research pays off. Make it very clear that you have done so in your second message. Make it individualized, not a hodgepodge of written or verbal copy-and-paste.
• Tell me what services you provide. Ask me what kind of jobs I generally buy and what kind I have done in the past six months. Keep in mind I may have jobs on the horizon that I'm not at liberty to discuss at the time, even if I think you'd be a great fit.
• Tell me your optimal job types and their quantities.
• If I exclusively buy one-color print for garage door opener manuals, why would I want to hear about your 12-pt. C2S iron-cross folded 5/5 aqueous coated celebrity golf tournament mailings or supermarket all-weather recycled cut plastic signage? Get a sense of my needs before telling me about niche market products, regardless of how nicely done they are.
• Consider my delivery point. If you're hundreds of miles away from my warehouse, I will need some serious enticement to consider the expense, practicality and desirability of that kind of shipping. (To this day, not a single printer I have ever spoken to has considered this. Warehousing is a very important part of my job and of our order fulfillment system.)

Once these preliminary discussions are made, and we agree to meet, be flexible in the timing of the meeting.