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colour to standard printer paper. Add to
that, printers today must follow stringent
government regulations that dictate the
limited ways in which they can dispose
of waste products.
On the surface, it looks like the
printing industry can’t catch a
break!
Before anyone starts crying Argentina,
as bad as it is for the printing industry,
they are not alone. They are in good
company with the office equipment
industry who, over the last two decades,
have been battling many of the same
technological changes faced by the
printing industry. I personally sold on
the frontlines in the 1980s and 90s for
two of the biggest office equipment
manufacturers. I witnessed firsthand
what unfortunately for me and others,
became a fact of life … technology has
leveled the playing field! The delta
between what a printer can do and what
can now be done in-house or individ-
ually, has demonstrably narrowed!
It used to make me a little angry – and
maybe a little scared – but today I smile
when I look at the multifunctional, plain
paper, colour printer [MFP] beside my
desk and marvel at what it can do for a
couple hundred dollars. I am still awed
by the fact that a machine back in the
mid-1990s, that can do what it does
would have cost in excess of $150,000.
Suffice to say, I am no longer in that
business, for good reason: that segment
of the industry doesn’t exist anymore.
As international speaker and business
guru Peter de Jager would say, “That
industry marketing model reached its
vapour point!” Just like the ice-man in the
early 1950s when GE invented the first
affordable home refrigerator, the marketing
segment didn’t go away. Its fundamental
marketing model transformed.
So where did the low-end printing
business go? You’ll find it on shelves in
any Staples store or online at Amazon.
In less than 48 hours, I can have a
state-of-the-art, multifunctional printer
in my office… and with my computer, I’m
instantly in the printing business!
Sadly, that’s one of the biggest
@graphicarts
problems printing companies are faced
with today. There’s no mystery to the
fact that ‘sales solve most problems’. So,
what can be done to drive new sales?
Q: Is the Way you’re selling… the
Reason you’re not selling?
At the risk of sounding glib, if you’re
happy with your current sales, then keep
doing what you’re doing. Norman Vincent
Peale once posited that to change your
current situation/outcome you must
change what you’re currently doing.
You can start by asking yourself a
number of questions, like: What is your
company’s unique value-add compared
to the competition? What areas of the
business are you not good at? Why?
What are customers saying is the reason
they come back to you? What is the
reason/s customers leave you? What is
the one product or service you are best
at? Why are you best at that? How,
When, Where, etc. does this make a
positive impact on your bottom line
and for whom? I could go on, but it is
important to any business plan to look
introspectively and honestly to find
the answers you seek. As motivational
sales expert Zig Ziglar used to say,
“Questions… are the Answer!”
What you don’t ever want to do is
to compete on price! I have long
maintained: “Discount selling is the first
and final refuge of the unskilled seller
and the company that’s going out of
business.” Unfortunately, too many small
to mid-sized companies fall into this trap
and pay the ultimate price – bankruptcy.
Embolden yourself with the notion that
people will pay more for something they
value. Your job is to find out what each
of your customers values most. Is it
speed, quality, reliability, flexibility,
creativity? Once you have established
their express needs and expectations,
you can build on that in your discussions
with them, with your marketing material
and your professional sales-pitch. It is
understood in the selling business that
customers often need us to remind them
of what they want and desire and how
it is our unique products and services
that meet their needs.
Have you tried offering ‘customer
incentives’? Incentives can come in
many forms: volume discounts, refer-
rals, loyalty rewards, advanced creative
/ design services – the possibilities
are endless. Incentives need not be
the same across the board. In an article
I wrote entitled, “The Incentive Dilemma”
that appeared in a past issue of this
magazine, I said, “Any incentive cam-
paign designed to fit everyone, in the
end, fits no one.” Go back to the last
paragraph where I advocate the import-
ance of finding out what each customer’s
express needs and expectations are and
build a marketing strategy that addresses
it/them. Incentive programmes follow a
similar stratagem. Simply, what motivates
one customer may not be a motivating
factor for another. Whatever your incentive
is, it should be of value to ‘that’ customer
or it’s valueless.
The KISS Theory:
Most customers by nature are like
electricity. They tend to take the path of
least resistance, especially if there is a
timeline to be met. That’s not to say they
are lazy or untoward. In fact, just the
opposite. Good customers look to
simplicity to make things happen.
Of ten, incentive programmes fail
miserably because of innate complex-
ities either in their accounting or in how
rewards are won. If you put the customer
in a position where they are forced to
assess, “To get this, I first must buy this,
plus these, and not these, and they must
include these,” you are creating a recipe
for confusion, frustration and failure.
In the end, the incentive programme
becomes a disincentive.
The remedy? Printers must keep the
programme sweet, simple and attainable.
There can be no ambiguity. Anything
less will result in a lack of interest, as
well as a waste of time and money that
can sometimes spill over into your
employees whose task it is to administer
and account. They can lose interest too.
Education:
Edison may have invented the light bulb,
but it never went anywhere until
GRAPHIC ARTS MAGAZINE | May 2019 | 17