You matter. Your machines don’t.

Credit: Bill Gillespie

If you follow me, you know that I think the best tool at your disposal is you! Your imagination, ingenuity, sensitivity to clients and situational awareness are all you need. Your equipment matters but not as much as those other things. Think about it, if your plant was the main thing brokers wouldn’t exist. Resellers would fold up and blow away.

I share some version of this message on social media and with Printing Impressions continuously. It’s the core message of my sales workshops too. Your mirror gives you a look at the best tool available.

If you want to improve your numbers, improve your message. Before you start selling, hit pause. Crawl into your client or prospect’s head. What problems do they solve? What are their objectives? They report to someone. How are they measured? How do they define success? What is their job description?

I spend lots of time on the phone with printers. I also spend time with people that sell machines and services to printers. These guys are full of statistics and claim to know what makes them valuable. Their marketing is full of PowerPoint slides and industry stats.

But what do these guys talk about? They talk about machines. They tout client sensitivity, but don’t demonstrate it. Their talk track is technical, speed, substrates and certifications. For my money they miss what gets them hired. They understand their stuff, but they don’t know why it matters.

Think about a plant tour. You’re showing a client or group of clients through the shop. You’ve stopped in front of some machine you’re proud of. You’re sharing what makes it special.

Where are the clients? One or more of them have wandered off. They’re looking at work going through your plant. Skids on the floor are more interesting than the machine you paid millions for. They want to see how others use your tools to invent cool communications. They want to see how others hire you to solve problems.

Here’s a quick gut check. Look at your social media. Who likes and comments on what you share? Is it other printers? Equipment people? Material suppliers? Or is it brands you want to work with?

The answer tells you everything. If your views are industry thought leaders, competitors, wannabe employees and suppliers you’re selling the wrong stuff. You want brands to notice you. You want people looking that will buy from you not people who hope you’ll buy from them.

Trust me on this. Brands don’t care about your machines. They care about your solutions. How you solve problems and turn whatever you have in your plant into results is what matters.

So, grab your mirror. Think about what you plan to say. Is it feeds, speeds, gloss, dull, foil and fancy? If it is you’re about to disappear into a horde of competitors. You’ll blend in. You will not stand out.

Parting shot: A company I admire in the Northeast does a great job of this. Their social media shows their plant, people, work and machines. They’re very active.

But everything is shared from a “this is why it matters to you” point of view. Their videos introduce followers to their company and employees in a personal and relatable manner. They never show a machine and say, “it prints this size, this fast, this many colors and has this kind of coating.” That stuff matters to printers, not clients.

I loved selling against the machine focused guys!