If you don’t have the sales you need, nothing else matters. I believe this wholeheartedly. You can have the best equipment, an excellent team, an operation that runs lights out, and you’ll still lose ground. As the CEO of the business, you’re number one responsibility is getting those sales in the door.
So, if this makes sense, let me ask you something. When was the last time you took a hard look at how your company actually sells?
By Design or by Default?
For years, we’ve had sales teams made up of folks that really knew printing, and how to keep jobs going through the shop. They were great at creating relationships and built lifelong friendships with their best customers. Those were also the days when print was growing, and customers could size up a company by looking at your equipment list. Price was always an issue, but never like it is today.
Most companies had a sales process; they just didn’t intentionally build it. With the changes to how print is bought today, the sales playbook from yesterday may not be as relevant as it once was. As you prepare to deal with the structural changes to the industry, passively depending on the sales team without active intervention is not a strategy. It’s a gamble, and it usually doesn’t end as planned.
A Real Sales Process
A real sales process covers client retention, and client acquisition. It means fully penetrating your key counts. Each buyer within those accounts should know who you are, what you do and why it should matter to them. In a sense, why are you uniquely qualified to work with them? And it means finding the right kinds of new accounts, not just the ones that their check will clear. The ones that align with your capabilities, your capacity, your growth goals, and perhaps more importantly with the passion that you have for the business. Start moving from randomly chasing leads to being intentional about client acquisition – it’ll make a significant improvement to your business.
What you can do
So, where can you start? Here’s five areas that you can evaluate and work to align with the goals of the business.
- Your new business development process – do you have one and is it working?
- Learn why your customers buy from you. Both why they keep coming back (retention), and why they bought in the first place (acquisition).
- Build a value proposition that is rock solid and makes a difference to your target markets.
- Invest in your sales team. Their proficiency shows up with every outreach and client interaction.
- Level out the “sales prevention departments” – remove the internal obstacles to your improvement.
The printing industry continues to be competitive, consolidating, and changing faster than ever. Fundamentally shifting. The companies that will win are led by CEOs who treat sales as a strategic priority, not a department that runs by itself. Nothing matters if you don’t have the sales you need, so treat sales as the oxygen your business needs to thrive–period.
Mike Philie helps owners and CEOs in the Graphic communications industry validate what’s working, identify what needs to change, and create a practical path forward.
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