DeWese--The Survey Results Are In!
June 1999
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In my March 1999 column, I included a print salesperson survey and promised to send a magic "sales power" paperweight to everyone who completed and mailed in the survey.
I hope I never weaken and make this kind of offer again. The mailman has been bringing in bags of surveys, and I am bone-tired from wrapping these little boxes.
Furthermore, in a post-column wave of euphoric largess, I decided to send every survey respondent a Sean McArdle audio tape and my book, "Now Get Out There and Sell Something!"
So, this whole stupid survey idea has cost me a bunch of money, and I had to tabulate the results. Attila the Editor wouldn't give me limited math skills of one of his blood-sucking assistant editors to add up the results.
I forget that a lot of print salespeople are lonely and are looking for any means possible to communicate with the outside world. Their bosses don't show any interest in them, except to scream at them when the plant is slow, so they're usually the first folks to pass on chain letters or to respond to the Mañana Man's surveys.
OK. Here are the results.
The first question asked the salesperson to indicate how much he/she intends to grow sales during 1999. My readers are real winners, and the average was a whopping 32.21 percent. For overall results, see the chart at right.
The next question, a fill-in-the-blank was: "I will prospect hard and develop [blank] new accounts during 1999." The average was 15 new accounts! Count 'em, 15 big ones. Fifteen new accounts! That gets my old corpuscles moving fast in my veins.
Yessiree, I will stack my readers up against the readers of any other printing industry columnist. No slackers. No louts. No bums hangin' around this column.
Question No. 3 was: "I will find the files on [blank] former or lost accounts and call on them to reactivate their business during 1999."
The average answer was 10!
There is nothing more challenging to a salesperson than to reactivate a lost account. Especially, if the lost account hates the ground your bosses walk on. When you reactivate a lost account, and you are king or queen of the world, your self-confidence will soar!
Question No. 4 went like this: "I will take my CSR to lunch and thank him/her at least [blank] times during 1999." The point of this question obviously was that it takes a team to sell a printing job and to keep a printing account. All too frequently the CSRs are ignored for their immense contribution to sales.
I hope I never weaken and make this kind of offer again. The mailman has been bringing in bags of surveys, and I am bone-tired from wrapping these little boxes.
Furthermore, in a post-column wave of euphoric largess, I decided to send every survey respondent a Sean McArdle audio tape and my book, "Now Get Out There and Sell Something!"
So, this whole stupid survey idea has cost me a bunch of money, and I had to tabulate the results. Attila the Editor wouldn't give me limited math skills of one of his blood-sucking assistant editors to add up the results.
I forget that a lot of print salespeople are lonely and are looking for any means possible to communicate with the outside world. Their bosses don't show any interest in them, except to scream at them when the plant is slow, so they're usually the first folks to pass on chain letters or to respond to the Mañana Man's surveys.
OK. Here are the results.
The first question asked the salesperson to indicate how much he/she intends to grow sales during 1999. My readers are real winners, and the average was a whopping 32.21 percent. For overall results, see the chart at right.
The next question, a fill-in-the-blank was: "I will prospect hard and develop [blank] new accounts during 1999." The average was 15 new accounts! Count 'em, 15 big ones. Fifteen new accounts! That gets my old corpuscles moving fast in my veins.
Yessiree, I will stack my readers up against the readers of any other printing industry columnist. No slackers. No louts. No bums hangin' around this column.
Question No. 3 was: "I will find the files on [blank] former or lost accounts and call on them to reactivate their business during 1999."
The average answer was 10!
There is nothing more challenging to a salesperson than to reactivate a lost account. Especially, if the lost account hates the ground your bosses walk on. When you reactivate a lost account, and you are king or queen of the world, your self-confidence will soar!
Question No. 4 went like this: "I will take my CSR to lunch and thank him/her at least [blank] times during 1999." The point of this question obviously was that it takes a team to sell a printing job and to keep a printing account. All too frequently the CSRs are ignored for their immense contribution to sales.
Companies Mentioned:
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