Business Management - Marketing/Sales

Printing companies that know it's not all about price will find that they often achieve higher profit margins. They will certainly find that they win new customers more often. Because they are selling on more than price, they will find it easier to create a worthwhile relationship with a prospect. The prospect will respect them.

In this week's blog, I give you a litmus test of the qualities that any “front end” consultant you bring in should be well versed in. Be sure to ask them their experience in each of the following 15 areas.

With babies, they are either hungry, dirty or tired. So you feed them, change their diapers, or put them down for a nap. With salespeople, if sales are down, the same rule of simplicity usually applies.

In almost any industry, the majority (and sometimes overwhelming majority) of salespeople fail in the first 12 months. Naturally, there are myriad reasons for that failure. Some are within the control of the sales rep and others aren’t.

When planning strategic communications, you should always keep in mind that the Internet has provided prospects with a sense of empowerment they lacked just 10 years ago. This hasn’t made things simpler, rather, it’s complicated the discussion.

It takes the exact same amount of time to write up a $250,000 order as it does a $500 order. Commission checks cash the same way, too. So let's talk about how to get you hunting the big game! Watch this week's Short Attention Span Webinar for more.

Folks, I am here to tell you that if you have not invested in building your online (social/digital space) and individual sales brand and are only using traditional tools in your sales efforts, you are falling behind.

This week's featured piece is an invitation designed for Advantage's exclusive corporate event. The invite keeps the clients corporate identity and branding in mind. The end result was a stepped accordion fold invitation, where attendees could view one page at a time like a book or extend it out to view it all in one glance.

Do you have the perfect sales rep working for you? You know the one: quiet and hard-working and never, ever needs your attention? Oh boy, have YOU got trouble brewing! Read all about it in this week's blog from Bill Farquharson.

It doesn’t matter what you think about your brand. It matters what your customers think. Survey a representative cross-section of your customers to determine their brand perceptions and biases. Change what you can, and focus on delivering stronger brand impressions in the future.