T.J. Tedesco

Despite some ribbing about retiring and death, T.J. Tedesco returned to PRINTING United Expo and shares his thoughts on the industry.

This is where we left off last week on my Pittsburgh Marathon Workout Odyssey. Please remember what I wrote last week: this will not be a profile in excellence.

Readers of this blog might recall in March I announced I was running the Pittsburgh marathon on 5/1/16. Yeah, I finished it, but that’s not the point. There are demand generation parallels in five areas I'd like to mention.

I landed in Copenhagen earlier this morning, transferring en route to drupa. The flight was an hour-ish late making my connection to Düsseldorf rather tight. Waking up in a fog that Americans flying to Europe usually feel, I stumbled off the plane and walked through Danish Passport control to transfer to another terminal. Only then did I do the traveler’s pat. Passport, left front pocket. Check. Cell phone, right front pocket. Check. Biz card case back right pocket. Check. OMG, back left pocket empty.

The awful morphing truth about our beloved print industry is that solving customers' communication needs isn't nearly enough anymore. We need to use our technologies and capabilities to solve our clients’ business needs. This is how today’s printers create non-replaceable relationship value.

Concluding this multi-part blog series, here are my answers to the last three questions asked by a trade pub editor for an article on sales process.

Continuing with the second installment of a three-part blog series, here are answers to more sales planning questions, prepared in response to a trade pub editor’s request.

Practice a modified form of the golden rule. Communicate with others the way they want, not the way you want. At your first meeting, find out how your prospect prefers to be contacted — email, text, phone, online meeting, breakfast meeting, Slack, or some other way — and do it.

What's the quickest way to irrelevance? How about claiming you're still relevant? Isn't this what many of us do in the commercial printing industry? We stand on our soapbox and cite this or that study claiming variations on the theme "print's not dead." When you phrase things negatively, aren't you giving credence to exactly the opposite viewpoint?

My best drupa? drupa 2000, my first one. My worst drupa? drupa 2000 as well. I remember feeling like I was chasing my tail.