Business Management - Marketing/Sales

The new year is nigh. If December signals a slowdown of jobs coming into your company, you have more time to plan how to make better connections with your print customers in 2015. Maybe it’s time to examine your own—and your firm’s—customer development strategy. May I suggest your list include the following 10 items?

How do you respond when a prospect says, "Call me after the holidays?" This week’s blog by Bill Farquharson will give you a strategy which will result in an appointment.

Networking events are great opportunities for us to expand our customer base but only if they are done right. Learn what to do and what not to do in this week’s sales tip video from Bill Farquharson.

You won’t see this one coming. In this week’s Short Attention Span Webinar, Bill Farquharson and Kelly Mallozzi school you on why three seemingly harmless words can destroy your sales and/or your business.

Creating content takes time and effort. Think of it as one of your best tools—it will work better with regular maintenance and polishing—so don’t let it rust. Content that’s in good condition will do a better job of connecting you to your audience and growing your business.

Print salespeople face a common problem these days. You contact a prospect. You have a good conversation with them. All seems to be going well. Perhaps you’ve mentally booked in a job from them. Then everything changes.

Your phone rings. It’s a company calling you out of the blue looking for a price. Wait, what? Someone is calling me? Warning, warning, Will Robinson! What’s wrong with this picture? Maybe this is a sale that you don’t want to make.

Compiled annually for the past 31 years—and arguably the only list of its type for the commercial printing industry—our latest Printing Impressions 400 ranking of the top printers in the United States and Canada is featured in a special pullout insert bound in this issue. I’m always amazed how far the tentacles of the PI 400 reach—from print buyers and specifiers, to Wall Street analysts, M&A specialists and private equity investment firms, to industry suppliers analyzing their market shares.

Regardless of whether you choose to concentrate in manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, insurance, gaming, financial services or any other vertical, be confident that, when it comes to creating real domain expertise, less is truly more. Here are seven helpful steps from Bill and T.J. to attack a vertical market.

Today is the first day of your last opportunity to generate some sales momentum for 2015. While sales is a marathon sport, December is a final sprint to the finish line. Today’s sales tip from Bill Farquharson urges you to create outrageous sales goals and then tells you why you want to stretch yourself.