Business Management - Marketing/Sales

THE MAJORITY of us have faced challenges finding good salespeople. In my darkest days, I once found myself letting my entire sales staff of seven go because not a single one was covering their draw. Fortunately, we were later able to attract, develop and retain a staff of multi-million dollar producers. The underlying difference was that we replaced “transactional” salespeople (who sold strictly on price) with “solutions” salespeople. Solution selling is a mindset, not an ability. Solution sales and solutions salespeople can be created. The essence of solution selling is helping your clients and prospects execute their strategic vision. What is a strategic vision? In its

SOMETIMES, seemingly unrelated elements combine as brush strokes to paint a bigger picture. That certainly seemed the case as we finalized this issue before going to press. Although filled with a range of diverse articles and columns, together they serve as a microcosm of current industry realities and trends. For example, take this month’s cover story profile of Bindery 1, a flourishing trade bindery based in Des Moines, IA, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year. Founded by Polish immigrants, the company reins have been passed to the second generation—led by daughters Gigi and Renatta and their spouses. A true family affair, Gigi came

ONE OF the things many printers pride themselves on is their knowledge and understanding of color. After all, we spend a lot of time and effort on managing and matching color to meet critical customer expectations. That color expertise can be a great marketing tool as you work to build better and deeper relationships with existing clients and to acquire new ones. Of course, your ability to produce the colors a customer is expecting—accurately and consistently—is the primary way we think about applying our color expertise. But as we transition into this new world we find ourselves in, with competition from all sorts of traditional

THINK A printer in Delhi, India, has different worries than a printer in Dallas? Think again! Although Dallas and Delhi may have different cultures, printers in Delhi have many of the same concerns as their counterparts in Dallas. Interestingly, eagerness to learn varies, not necessarily between Dallas and Delhi, but even within cities in the United States. How do I know this? After more than 30 years as a printer, suffering all of the deadlines, panic and craziness common to this business, I became a consultant. Now I am having fun writing and speaking at seminars all over the U.S. and around the world. The

“DON’T MOVE, or both of us will die,” shouted Wesley Autrey as he pinned a fallen commuter between the subway tracks before an onrushing subway train in Manhattan.

Wesley had been waiting for his train on the station platform with his two young daughters when a young man suffered a seizure and fell about eight feet to the tracks below. Wesley jumped down to the track bed, rolled the man between the tracks and lay on top of him as the train passed over them with two inches to spare.

Wesley is just a 50-year-old construction worker.

He is just a good father who

LAST MONTH, I suggested some ways that you can put public relations to work and get the word out about your business. This month, the topic is self-promotion—a subset of PR in which you can showcase the skills, expertise and capabilities of your organization. The two go hand in hand. In November, for the third year in a row, I had the pleasure of judging the DICE Awards. DICE, the Digital Imaging Customer Exchange (www.dicegroup.org, formerly the Indigo Customer Exchange), has been around for more than a decade and just reached the 300-member mark. The group has expanded beyond owners of Indigo presses

DON’T BELIEVE the pundits. The U.S. economy will expand, not contract, in 2007-2008, and to an annual growth rate of nearly 4 percent in GDP. This will reverse the downward adjusted 3.2 percent in 2006 and 2005. Our industry should makeready to run forward at near the GDP rate. The reason: print growth is tied to the “knowledge economy,” which is not calculated into GDP while government, an outlay, is. Research and development, if treated as a capital investment rather than as an intermediate expense, boosts GDP by 3 percent and the national savings rate by more than 2 percent. The U.S. accounts

I GUESS you all saw that Mister Hot Shot George Clooney won People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive!” competition.

This is twice for Clooney.

Brad Pitt won twice.

Last year I called People magazine to inquire about my ranking in the competition. I wasn’t even in their database.

This year I called People again and inquired about my standing in the ranking. A kind and very patient researcher performed an in-depth search while I held on the phone. No luck.

I suggested that just maybe she would find me in the “M’s” as the “Mañana Man.” Yep. She found me. The People researcher said I was in the Hispanic Sexy

ALPHARETTA, GA—December 21, 2006—Neenah Paper, which pioneered the development of premium recycled papers nearly 20 years ago, will again help elevate the profile of its industry with a coveted appearance on the History Channel’s “Modern Marvels” program. Neenah’s innovative application of sustainable technology will be featured in a segment about recycling during the “Environmental Tech” episode on Wednesday, January 24, 2007. More than one million viewers tune in every week to watch new episodes of the hit show. “At Neenah Paper, located along the Fox River in Wisconsin, they’re recycling a lot more than paper,” the narrator says, as the program follows

LOUISVILLE, KY—12/07/06—After 118 years in business, Fetter Printing Company has completely overhauled its management structure as well as its vision for the future, walking away from some of its traditional lines of business in order to focus on others in which it can be a market leader. Fetter plans to focus primarily on two highly specialized markets. The first is printing labels and creating information management and logistic solutions for the paint and coatings industry, a category in which the company already is the number-two national supplier with 15% of total U.S. market share. Fetter has developed highly sophisticated systems that are custom-made