Advice for 2010 from my father
My father was the consummate print salesman. Uniquely successful for over 50 years, he retired last year at age 85. He never cared about recessions and did extremely well through the economic downturn that seems to occur once a decade. His was a simple sales process: he focused on one person only, the print buyer. That was his bull’s eye. He never stopped hunting, building relationships by taking an interest in their lives and helping them get jobs and, lastly, providing the best service and quality printing. But today, the bull’s eye has changed. Successful print sales require selling beyond the printed page and the print buyer. They demand understanding your customers’ business and contouring your products and services to improve their current business processes. The takeaway: recessions come and go, but are nothing compared to the enormous fundamental changes in technology, data, and media choices that have impacted our industry. As a sales person, if you spend twice as much time selling the old way, it still will not translate into increased sales and larger commissions. Today’s successful sales persons have developed the skills to literally create their business with prospects and customers. To do that means spending that extra time to: • Speak about your company only in terms of the benefit it provides to their business. • Focus on selling solutions to people in the organization who have a stake in the benefit. So back to my father’s advice, “Son, you can never stop hunting for new business. The second you do, your business starts going backwards.” He is still right Just make sure you aim at the right target. Steven Amiel is the President of Marketing Mentors Inc. Follow our weekly updates of marketing trends in the major industries you sell into. Use the information to begin dialogs with customers and prospects to develop creditability and intelligence for sales opportunities. Twitter-http://twitter.com/mktgmentors |
February 12th, 2010 at 11:58 AM
Steven -
My father and yours must have gone to the same school of printing sales. Thanks for bringing back great memories.
And your words about sales today are exactly correct – it’s a different era that requires different skills and approaches, but we can be just as successful as our fathers if we pay attention to our customers and keep hunting.
Dick Rossman