Becoming a Strategic Partner for Print Services

Selling print services to enterprises is not about getting a lead for print jobs.  You need to be proactive in the overall account strategy, not reactive to fulfilling job quotes.

Your ultimate goal is to become a strategic business partner integrated into your customer’s business process, acting as an extension of their operation.

Your Mindset and Approach

You need a strategic mindset and approach to establish partnerships with enterprise customers:

• Making customers, rather than finding This means earning more time with the customer, with an open invitation to continue a dialogue, and with a sincere commitment on the customer’s part to take action.
• Leading the customer to your solution, i.e. they come to the conclusion that your solution is best for their organization, rather than fulfilling the requirements that have already been established.
• Working strategically toward a business process change, rather than tactically for a project, or even a program. Don’t focus on or limit yourself to procurement/purchasing.
• Building a network of advocates with multiple decision makers and influencers. The value of multiple relationships cannot be understated. Decision makers and influencers change roles and responsibilities.
• Getting your customer to think differently about how they operate and see the benefit of making changes, even ones that can be disruptive.

Get Past the Commodity Print Sale

Your discussions should not focus on a single project. Once you get an entrée in the account, you must re-frame the conversation from project to program.

A program sales cycle involves different business issues and different players, especially those outside of purchasing. It’s about selling to the decision makers in the departments, who then provide their requirements to Procurement.

Get there first!

Focus on situations where you are there first, and haven’t been called in by the customer. A customer who calls you in to give a presentation has likely already chosen a frontrunner and is simply looking for comparison points.

Customer Receptivity to (and Reasons for) Change

Focus on customers who are receptive to change and have an emerging set of needs. This is something you may not have done in the past. You must heavily influence how the customer thinks about their business, and how the customer will approach the emerging issues.

While it’s critically important to figure out if the customer is receptive to change, it’s equally important to know their reasons for making a change.

Within an organization, different people have different degrees of receptivity to change and differing reasons.

Working with Committees

For more complex high-value business partnerships, the stakes are high and decisions are often made by committees.

The #1 reason sales people fail is that they spend 60% of their time with people who can’t or won’t buy.

Selling to one person is tough enough. When two or more people have to sign off on the deal, selling becomes a lot more complicated – a series of decisions must take place, not just one.

The decision team can range in size from a couple of people to a large committee with members in multiple locations.

Either way, you need to quickly identify who has the most buying authority and who is included as an influencer.

Challenges with Multiple Decision Makers

Think of each decision maker as a separate sale. Keep in mind that different decision makers may be looking at entirely different aspects of the solution.

Building rapport is even more important when dealing with multiple decision makers than it is with a single decision maker. You'll need to earn enough trust so that all the decision makers are comfortable discussing what matters most to them.

Armed with this knowledge, you’ll invest your effort in presenting the benefits that resonate with each decision maker.

Consider the following conditions that impact the way you need to handle individuals:

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A common mistake is to try to sell to the group rather than the individual members. Often there isn't a dominant buying motive for the group as a whole.

What’s more relevant are the goals and biases of each stakeholder, as well as their business and personal objectives.

Planning for Success

Identify your committee members, decision makers, and influencers.

For each one, determine:

• Their goals and biases
• Their business objectives for their function/department
• Their personal objectives for their career or personal interests
• The conditions that may impact sales efforts for individuals