Business Management - Marketing/Sales

At the end of last year, I was faced with two subscription renewal decisions—The Wall Street Journal and Sirius Radio. Previously in both cases I have successfully played the game I call, “Holy crap are you people stupid or what?”

Avoid wasting good money on a complex marketing plan until you have a strong customer-retention plan in place. I recall one study that said the average life of a printing customer is four to five years. That’s unacceptable.

Let’s start off with the simple premise: All of us in business need new business, and you want to develop a plan that will provide fertile ground to harvest sales season after season. Do you agree?

Offering a half-day educational seminar at your printing business twice a year will help generate customer goodwill, associate your name with expertise in the field, and afford a great sales opportunity. It’s a great way to strengthen relationships with customers.

Sales leads can be found in expected and unexpected places. In this week’s “Short Attention Span Webinar,” Kelly and Bill go into detail about how to garner valuable leads from four sources.

At the start of a new year, have you ever thought of sending an email campaign with a clear strategy in mind for garnering more business—not just for your company, but helping your clients or prospects find new revenue sources?

I pay a lot of attention to language. If you have a customer waiting for a press OK, or a job delivery for that matter, make sure you use clear and honest language that does not allow for ambiguity

The committed professional that he is, Bill Farquharson didn’t even take a break for the holidays from sharing his sales wisdom. Since “Today on PIworld” did take the week off, Bill’s Christmas Eve blog is featured here to give it the attention it deserves.

It’s critical to never take your brand leadership position for granted. Consider Borders, Books and Music or the many other great brands that are no longer with us. It simply takes a long time to build a brand into a leader because customers and prospects want to see the brand’s true value—proven over time—before they fully commit.

Develop a set of customer letters you can have sent in response to common business events. This will help differentiate your business and ensure your name comes to mind the next time a prospect has a need for printing services.