“Show Up and Throw Up”

Have you ever had a customer interested in your product, and you scrambled so quickly to impress him and submit pricing and samples quicker than the competition, that you were unprepared and totally missed the real “need” of the client? This selling tactic is called “Show Up and Throw Up.”

It can be found in any industry. But in the inkjet industry, it has an overall negative effect on the market.

When selling high-speed, wide-format inkjet output, the sale can take up to one year. It is highly competitive, with many inkjet devices producing about the same print quality all around the same pricing structure. Yes, it is a long sales cycle. But, it must be remembered, it’s not a used car sales transaction, but rather a world-changing event for the buyer.

This makes growing the high-speed inkjet market a slow-evolving process. We would all like it to move faster and gain a faster acceptance into the printing world. But, as long as we use the same sales tactics designed around selling a “product” and not how the product will “impact the customer’s market,” the sales cycle will remain a long-duration sales process.

So, if it is a long sales cycle, why is the selling tactic, more often than not, a high-speed, who can get there first, let’s throw everything at it all at once and see what sticks, selling concept?

Let me explain. I had the pleasure to sit in with the VP of Production at a large print shop who was looking at a new piece of inkjet equipment. We will call him Bob. Bob took over the family business and has expanded its market during the past few decades. Currently Bob’s shop runs offset and digital toner devices in different forms, both color and mono. Bob is interested in integrating this new inkjet technology into his workflow.