Business Management - Marketing/Sales

Competition is good for us. It keeps us honest. It makes us work harder. But it can also bring out the worst in us sometimes. If you shift your thinking away from scarcity and stop being threatened by your competition, things will change for you.

Imagine having a gnome sit on your shoulder and whisper negative thoughts into your ear. All day long, you'd hear comments that would keep you from doing good things and urge you to do bad things. He'd tell you why it won't work, why you're wasting your time and urge you to just quit. Everything he tells you is worse than a lie. They're all assumptions. Actually, you don't really need to imagine this "Assumption Gnome" scenario.

WOW! When I have finished this June column, I will have written 296 1,250-word columns for Printing Impressions since I wrote the first one. I was curious about the topics addressed in these 296 columns about selling in the printing industry. I'm going to revisit those topics here to see if I have covered everything.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan are racing to battle PayPal for the ability to allow their customers to transfer money via cellphone and e-mail. So what, you ask? So there’s a killer app in them thar words!

A company’s prices must at least cover the costs incurred for producing, distributing and selling the product. Fixed and variable costs together comprise total costs. Generally, the price a company charges for its products must at least cover the total production costs at a given level of production.

When I was in junior high in the early ’80s, my school put on a play called “The GIGO Effect.” It was a musical all about computers. I decided to adapt this message as a metaphor for your sales efforts. What I mean is, if you take a half-hearted approach to new business development, PLEASE do not be surprised when your results are less than stellar.

It used to be that the topic of print brokers vs. printers generated the most heated discussion in an audience of print buyers.  I think I’ve found the newest debate trigger for this crowd: “Printers as MSPs (Marketing Services Providers).”

There are multiple problems that can lead to lackluster blogging results, but usually there are two culprits: weak content and a lack of consistent publishing. Here are seven ways to ensure your blog has a fighting chance of being read.

Products with little competition or those that are highly differentiated are less sensitive to changes in price, or inelastic. Even if a company owns a monopoly in a product category, however, there are often substitute products available that will increase the elasticity of the monopolized product.

Why is it that sales come so easily to some, while for others each little order is like giving birth? My guess is that those who seem constantly to be opening new accounts have their sales antenna out.