I believe that if you make quality sales calls using a process and make them with diligence, success in inevitable. Start every day with a plan. Run that plan daily. Repeat. You are doing your job.
For the past 10 years or so, marketers have been using SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) as an either/or choice. After much data gathering, it is becoming clear that most organizations should, at a minimum, consider both SEO and SEM in their overall marketing and branding efforts.
Tracking the cost of each sales conversion will allow your printing company to determine the ROI of your promotional activities and consequently make more financially intelligent marketing decisions in the future. Using this data, you can easily calculate the “Lifetime Value of a Customer (or Lead)” and, consequently, the ROI of each marketing promotion.
In-plant tours can be personal. You can see facial expressions of confusion or delight—or, God forbid, boredom. Virtual tours are tougher. Before you give a virtual tour of your e-commerce printing site, you need to visit that person’s website.
This is no existential discussion about our purpose here on earth. Today we are talking about landing a meeting with a coveted company, and what happens during and after said meeting. Too many of you are telling me that you manage to get the meetings, but then nothing comes of them.
Part of time management—a BIG part of time management, actually—is making the most of your selling day. Call it, “sales efficiency.” That is, are you making the most of the limited selling hours in any given selling day?
Where is the common sense of upper management or the owner when considering entering the marketing services arena? Why would you go after this type of work in direct competition with agencies if they’re a critical part of your business?
The growth in print decoupled from general economic growth in the ’90s, which has challenged the entire supply chain. One of the most innovative and exciting developments is CelluForce, a joint venture between Domtar and FPInnovations.
The aim of a sales conversation is that both people win. The customer obtains a new supplier and the salesperson gets a new customer. Those early sales conversations form the framework for all future communication. The media are destroying the art of good conversation.
Common wisdom says marketing students and professionals alike should study the steps that are taken by high-performing organizations to understand what they do well and how they could do even better. Surprisingly, that actually might be a very real mistake.
