Waiting on 383 Sales Tips --DeWese

Boy am I worried. The editor-in-chief of this magazine and the publisher are taking me to dinner next week. We are going to a very private, out-of-the-way, quiet and exclusive restaurant. I'm scared that it's going to be one of those mob hit dinners where I take a Louisville Slugger to the back of my head just as I'm slurping my first spoonful of hemlock soup. After all, this is Philadelphia, the home of creative mob rubouts.

Or, maybe they're gonna strip all the buttons off my jacket and drum me out of their writers' corp. I can see myself limping out of the restaurant with the patrons jeering a broken and forlorn old column writer.

You'd think they would be grateful for my 20 years of faithful service writing these columns. Typing these things while wearing these silly mittens isn't easy, you know. Sometimes it takes me two, three hours to make up this stuff.

I got it. They're gonna can me because I'm too short. I just read a study put out by the University of Florida that reports tall people are better than short people and make $789 more per inch annually than their shorter co-workers. The Florida study made no mention of the pay difference between fat and slim workers. I'll bet there's some compensation bias based on body mass index (BMI). Attila the Editor is about 6'5˝ and very slim, and now he's going to toss me on the scrap heap of short, fat writers.

The irony of this potential tragedy is that they haven't even read this column and it's going to be my absolute best ever.

This issue of Printing Impressions contains a list of the Top 400 printing companies in North America. I figured I would write a column containing my Top 400 Sales Tips for print salespeople. That way there would be one compendium of everything that is known about selling printing.

Okay, here goes. Take notes. And, Marvelle Stump, if you are reading this, try not to move your lips. These tips are in no special order, but they are all important.

1) The perfect salesperson has the characteristic of engaging sincerity. They can make anyone feel that they are the most important person they have ever met. These salespeople have a compelling interest in mankind. They mean it and people feel it. This characteristic is associated with people who are confident about themselves. This kind of confidence enables a salesperson to relate to those who occupy the highest and lowest rungs on the socio-economic ladder.

2) The perfect salesperson has a plan, every day, to see a lot of people who buy printing. They are masters of daily preparedness. They start every day early with a plan that's focused on not just a few, but many, personal face-to-face contacts.

3) The perfect salesperson knows his plant, its equipment, its schedule, its capacity and its foibles.

4) The perfect salesperson possesses extensive and highly detailed knowledge of his customers and prospects.

5) The perfect salesperson flat "knows" his customers. This knowledge enables them to take "care" of their customers. Taking "care" of your customers, incidentally, doesn't mean paying them off. "Care" means learning a buyer so well that you are able to anticipate and, thus, guide his work at a level that meets the most complex expectations.

6) The perfect salesperson "sells" his company. They sell their companies with understated elegance. They use modesty to build credibility with customers. Clients just know that the salesperson is telling the truth.

7) The perfect salesperson "hustles." These "hustlers" are always on the move, but they are also somehow instantly accessible to their customers and their plants.

8) If you draw your paycheck from the printing industry, you need to brag on it everyday to everyone who will listen.

9) March yourself right over to the nearest mirror, look inward and ask yourself, "Have I done my job as well as I possibly could?" I beg you to do this. Actually, maybe you better find a private mirror where no one will see or overhear you. I don't want any of you hauled off in a strait jacket. It's just you there in front of that mirror, so be honest. Do it because I'm telling you that there are salespeople and managers in this industry right now who are soaring, zooming and making it happen.

10) If you are consistently unable to earn your draw, you either need training, a better attitude or another job. I don't know many owners who consciously set sales draws based on a salesperson's living expenses. A draw is only intended to smooth a sales-person's commission income stream so they don't experience dramatic income peaks and valleys.

11) You will be able to get appointments if you first learn as much as you possibly can about your prospect companies and the people who buy printing. The research that you do will inevitably lead to ideas that will get you appointments at a high rate of probability.

12) It is not your job to supervise your jobs in production. For most salespeople, this rationale is a lousy cop-out to avoid making sales calls. You may have "call reluctance," in which case you should see a shrink and get yourself straightened out. If your beef is legitimate, then go to top management with specific, positive recommendations for ensuring that your jobs are produced according to your customers' specifications. Never whine! Never complain! You must "sell" the changes you seek without rancor and with a smile on your face. You will not get results with the screaming squeaky wheel strategy.

13) Management should never "hand down" quotas. The only achievable quotas are the ones that are mutually agreed to by management and the salesperson. Solid, attainable quotas are the result of good sales planning by the sales-person working with management.

14) "Our prices are too high" is the most common complaint that I hear from print salespeople. Someday, I am hoping to find the unscrupulous printer who is undercutting everyone's prices. I will tell you that in today's printing markets profits, as well as sales success, result from cost and service leadership, not price leadership.

15) If your plant isn't performing or you aren't performing, try speaking to the owner. Invite him to lunch, on you. Tell him how you are doing and ask him for advice. If you can't partner with senior management, I doubt seriously that you can partner with customers. On the other hand, if the yo-yo is a real dunce, get a job where the owner has his head screwed on straight.

16) You won't find a niche in the Lands' End catalog. A niche is a group of customers that share a common set of specific needs. In this case, printing needs. The more well-defined the niche, the fewer competitors you will have.

Gosh! Only 384 more tips to go and I'll be finished. Wait a minute? Each of these tips is about 30 to 40 words, and that means this column will run around 15,000 to 16,000 words. My columns are usually around 1,250 words. Maybe the magazine will cancel some of the advertisements to run this column in its entirety.

17) Why, oh why, are you arguing with customers? We don't argue with customers because they are always right. When they have a beef we "resolve the conflict" with great negotiating skills. Read the book titled "Getting to Yes" and you'll cure your malady.

Well, the stupid editor called and said they aren't canceling ads just so they can run this entire column. I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. If you want the remaining 383 sales tips, write me, care of this magazine, or e-mail me and I'll send the whole 400 tips to you.

I've got to keep typing 383 more tips. While I do that, get out there and sell something!

—Harris DeWese

About the Author

Harris DeWese is chairman and CEO of Compass Capital Partners, a Radnor, PA-based investment banking firm that specializes in the printing industry. Compass Capital specializes in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, valuations and management advisory services for graphic arts companies. DeWese has completed more than 100 transactions involving printing companies and is viewed be many as America's "dealmaker." He can be reached via e-mail at deweseh@comcapltd.com.