Seasons Greetings to all you readers, regardless of your persuasions! Whether you celebrate Kwanzaa, Chanukah, Christmas or nothing, we all need to experience some end-of-the-year peace and happiness.
I need a break from all of this Great American Print Sales Prospecting Contest bookkeeping. Hundreds of salespeople are out there generating new accounts and it looks like I have to break down and buy a calculator to keep up with their success. It's not too late to get your company involved and win the fabulous prizes being offered to the top performing contestants.
The National Association of Printing Leadership, NAPL, has signed on as a sponsor and they've come up with some great new prizes for the four winning companies and the winning salespeople. I appreciate the NAPL's generosity. You can read about the contest rules at the bottom of my column.
A lot of the entrants have been calling and e-mailing me for the results. I promise I will publish the frontrunners' tallies in the January column. I'm amazed that some salespeople are earning so many new accounts in this weak economy.
There's a lot of gift giving this time of year, so the rest of this column is my gift to you. You are gonna love this!
Holiday in the Big Apple
Sit back and get ready for a great trip. I'm flying all, yep all, you readers to New York for dinner, entertainment and awards at the Waldorf and the Plaza. Neither hotel could accommodate all my readers. Naturally, you will all be staying at the hotel where you will dine. Unfortunately, the hotels only have 288 suites, so some of you will have to stay in regular rooms.
Our Executive Chefs for dinner will be two of my favorite TV personalities, Emeril at the Waldorf and Georges Perrier at the Plaza. They have recruited the best chefs from America's finest five-star restaurants, including some from the Four Seasons in New York and Le Bec Fin in Philadelphia. I'm picking up the tab for this feast and Emeril and Georges won't even tell me the menu. I've heard them whispering about things like Japanese hand-rubbed beef at $200 per pound. Don't worry, though; I'm so conscious of being politically correct that we'll have beef, succulents from the sea and vegetarian menus.
Next, I've booked some of our greatest entertainers. Tom Hanks will emcee the entertainment at the Waldorf and Billy Crystal will preside at the Plaza. We're talkin' about Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Faith Hill, Madonna, Ray Charles, the Beach Boys, Joe Cocker, Paul McCartney and Pavarotti. Here's the best: Marvelle Stump called to say that he'd spotted the King and the Chairman of the Board at the bus station. I knew those rumors were true. Marvelle is going to find and sign them for our bash.
Here are the Lifetime Print Sales Achievement Awards that Hanks and Crystal will be presenting.
The Printing Industry Lifetime Sales Hard Work Award. This diamond-encrusted statuette and a brand new Ferrari will go to the print salesperson who has worked the hardest to serve his or her customers. This person not only worked long hours, Saturdays and some Sundays, but also worked overtime and paid dues to become the most technically competent print sales professional in America. Now who can this be? I'll bet you're thinkin' it's you.
The Printing Industry Sales Relationship Lifetime Award. This award will go to the salesperson who has best cultivated mutually profitable relationships with his or her customers. This salesperson has demonstrated the proverb that people buy things from people they like.
The winner will have developed a powerful likability factor by building trust and demonstrating a pure motivation to serve customers. This award is not for a person who tells good jokes or picks up the biggest tabs. It's for the salesperson who epitomizes the term "partner." I know. I know. About 9,000 of you are thinking that you will walk off with this Faberge designed, bejeweled trophy and the specially built Maserati.
The Most Persuasive Print Salesperson Lifetime Achievement Award. This recognition will go the salesperson who has demonstrated the greatest questioning and listening skills. He or she will have proven that you can listen your way into way more sales than you can ever talk your way into.
This person, through hard work and thought, will have mastered the ability to overcome buyers' objections without making them feel like idiots. Most importantly, this person will have mastered the spontaneous timing and art of closing—asking for the order.
This award is a Tiffany designed, 20 carat necklace—so if our winner isn't female, I sure hope he is confident of his masculinity. A limited edition Bentley also goes to this winner. Lots of you are patting yourselves on the back and saying, "The old Mañana Man will pick me for this one."
The All-time Print Sales Results Award. This winner put it all together. He or she developed great sales relationships and worked hard. This champ became a master persuader and consistently grew profitable sales for the company. You get a Waterford trophy bowl designed by some big shot like Givenchy. You will also drive away in a gold-plated Rolls.
Okay. You've had a great trip to a great city and stayed in two great hotels. You had the best meal of your lives. You saw some of our greatest entertainers. You applauded the best of the best in the print sales profession. So what if you didn't win. Go to bed. Dream of doing better, and get out there and sell something!
—Harris DeWese
About the Author
Harris DeWese is the author of Now Get Out There and Sell Something!, published by Nonpareil Books. He is a principal at Compass Capital Partners and is an author of the annual "Compass Report," the definitive source of information regarding printing industry M&A activity. DeWese specializes in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, sales, marketing, planning and management services to printing companies.
Enter the Mañana Man Sales Contest
Enter your company in the Second Great American Print Sales Prospecting Contest and win these great prizes.
1. Harris "Mañana Man" DeWese will fly to the winning company cities where he will wash the cars of the winning company salespeople in their company parking lots. The CEO and the sales manager at each winning company must assist the Mañana Man.
2. Harris DeWese will host the winning salespeople at a dinner where he will present individually engraved trophies and championship T-shirts.
3. The winning team will receive an official Mañana Man sombrero to display in the sales department.
4. The winning teams will be featured, with group pictures, in this magazine.
Okay, here are the rules.
1. Winners will be determined based on the number of new accounts obtained over a one-year period ending October 31, 2002. To qualify, a new account must order at least three jobs during the contest period.
2. There are four categories of contestants. Category I will be companies with calendar 2001 revenues of less than $5 million. Category II will be companies with revenues between $5 and $10 million. Category III will be companies with revenues between $10 and $20 million.Finally, Category IV will be companies with sales in excess of $20 million. These categories are limited to one plant location.
3. Winners will be determined by the total number of "new accounts," as defined above, opened during the 12-month contest period. A "new account" is a customer that is not doing business with your printing company. You get one point for each new account. You will receive two points for every "resurrected new account," which is an account that has not purchased printing within two years of the contest start date of November 1, 2001. Finally, you will receive three points for every "lost account" that you resurrect as a new account. A lost account is one that fired your company because of poor quality or service. Obviously, we are relying on the integrity of your sales manager, owner or CEO to tabulate correctly qualifying "new accounts" and the appropriate number of points for each account.
4. Your company "reporter" will fax your monthly results to Harris DeWese at (610) 293-0211 so he can report on the contest results in this column.
5. Your CEO or sales manager should write Harris DeWese and say, "Mañana Man, we are in." Give us your company name, address, city, state, phone number and an estimate of your 2001 sales. Mail your entry letters to Harris DeWese at Compass Capital Partners, 259 Radnor-Chester Rd., Radnor, PA 19087, by e-mail to deweseh@comcapltd.com or fax to (610) 293-0211.