Congratulations! You just spent some real money on a new press. You’ve upgraded your capabilities with better technology and a stronger value proposition, much better than you had three years ago.
That’s all good in an environment that static, but that’s not the environment that most printers are in today. Ask yourself, did you upgrade the sales process to the same level as your technology and capabilities? Quite the investment paradox I would say.
For most printing companies, the honest answer is no. The equipment got upgraded, but the sales approach didn’t, and the result is a team still selling with yesterday’s playbook. You’re sitting on new capabilities and new technology that can open up brand new conversations.
Provide the Right Information
The fix isn’t super complicated, but it does require attention and care. Start by making customer and product knowledge a non-negotiable part of your sales culture. The more you know about how your customers make money with what you do, the better off you’ll be, and the more you’ll be able to bring good new ideas to a table. Make the time for your team to understand what your business can do and why it matters to your customers. The reps who can speak credibly about your customers, and your capabilities, will be able to connect the dots and continue with their success.
Give your sales team every reason to walk into a client meeting with confidence and walk out with the trust of the customer or prospect and a greater opportunity to earn the business.
Impediments to Overcome
Your tenured sales reps are indeed an asset, and they’ve helped you get to where you are today. Their experience, the relationships, and the institutional knowledge are all genuinely valuable. Along with that tenure can come comfort and face it, sometimes complacency. This is where you can help the situation and turn their focus back to the selling part of their role.
Let’s Get Started
A good starting point is clearly defining the roles of customer retention and customer acquisition. Our industry typically has bundled all of that into the role of a sales rep. And we’ve seen from experience that some are much better at one aspect of the job than the other. Maybe this is an opportunity to look at your sales team and divide and conquer. If you’ve got reps who can’t wait to wake up every morning because they want to meet somebody new or close a new piece of business – congratulations. Now, you might have an opportunity to shift account responsibilities so that that person is not burdened with handling the transactions, which are all important for customer retention. And you may have some of your reps who are exceptional with details, great troubleshooters, and have excellent communication skills who could be best used in a customer retention and growth role.
Why Now
As a business, both of these roles are extremely important and can’t be left for chance. As you assess your sales team, and your current go to market strategy, take a hard look at some of the options you may have in reshuffling the roles and responsibilities of the folks on your sales team. Yes, I know that sales compensation all plays an important role in this, and that can all be figured out. Right now, though, you’ve got to make sure you got the right people in the right seats for the right reasons in order for your customer to truly benefit from the new technology and product applications that you’ve installed.
Don’t let this be the next conversation topic in your senior leadership team meeting: “why isn’t anyone selling the new inkjet line, why aren’t we getting more wide format work, why does our mix look the same as it did five years ago?
A Senior Leadership Task
This structural change shouldn’t just be left to the sales team. This is a senior leadership responsibility, and the path forward starts at the top. Why? Because no one has built a bridge between the capital investment a company makes, and the sales team’s go to market strategy. Face it, equipment does not sell itself.
The new press and the technology are ready. With the right structure, expectations, and coaching in place, the sales organization can be ready too. That investment is every bit as important as the one you made on the floor, and it pays off in the same way: consistently, and at scale. The investment you made on the floor deserves a sales effort that matches it. That starts with equipping your team to actually sell what you’ve built. The good news is you can start this today.
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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