PrintWorthy Advice

Enthusem is Launched in Beta

For some time I have been stressing the need for effective sales people to rediscover the time-honored tradition of sending thank-you's and business notes to their prospects and customers on a regular basis. I know, I said there was nothing for sale on this site, but I will at least insert a shameless plug for a system we just built here at Prospect Smarter - it's called Enthusem.com. Check it out - because we built it for you.

We built Enthusem.com because it was what we heard from every sales rep we ever talked to: there had to be a way for an independent rep (or an independent-thinking rep) to quickly get a beautiful card in the mail with his or her personal message inside. Without hunting around for a stamp or squandering valuable selling time in card shops. But we went several steps further: we added online attachments. Just like you'd attach a file to an email you can attach a file to a real card. Inside there is a 6-digit code and the card recipient can retrieve the file online: so you can attach specifications, contract pricing, a video of the product, whatever you want - your prospect gets your card in the mail and a way to access your full sales message. They can look at it from anywhere on their own sweet time - even if they left your contract proposal back at the office. Now here's the best feature of them all: You get an email alert the instant they view your file. And you know your sales message got through and it is a good time to follow-up. It's like having your own personal direct mail and purl response system. (Hey wait a minute it's not just like that - it is that!)

No more waiting for Corporate IT to build it for you, no more waiting for the company's promotion mail program to roll out later this year and somehow help you hit your sales goals this quarter. Now you can show management how you are moving ahead on your own and taking the message to your prospects right now without needless expense. If they say they are going to get this kind of functionality in your hands soon, just tell em it's too late - the train has left the station and you're on it.

Big Money? Nope. No monthly fee, no subscription, no license. You just pay as you go at $2.95 per card. That includes the whole deal: the card, the envelope, first class postage, free file storage, the email alert, address book functionality and good designs. And they are nice looking cards on premium stock -  no schlock here. Your first card is free. After that, if $2.95 sounds like to much to enhance your sales career go back and look at the size of your cell-phone bill and ask yourself how much you spent on NOT GETTING THROUGH. I guarantee you that a quality card in an envelope has a higher open rate with a prospect than either email or e-cards. (Hellooo.. remember spam filters anyone?)

If $2.95 still looks like too much cash maybe you should re-evaluate being in sales altogether. Good Hunting!

The 'No-Special-Reason' Thank-You Card

I just picked up a book at the used bookstore. I love to haunt those places because sometimes you find a real gem. The one I got yesterday was by Florence Isaacs, entitled 'Business Notes' (Publishers: Clarkson Potter). It was published way back in the dark ages of 1998 and she was coming off another successful book 'Perfect Words for Every Occasion' . When you read books like this you have to look past your first reaction of "Who does that anymore?" to realize that not much has really changed about good business etiquette and ways to make yourself stand out in the sales arena. There are lot's of good tips in here - and the one I especially like is the Thank-You card for no specific reason. Florence says "it's like money in the bank" Now who doesn't want that ?

(Here it is on Amazon.com) The book gives numerous examples of how to interject a well-timed Thank-You in your business life. Have you considered a Thank-You card when you don't get the sale which acknowledges the opportunity and your dealings with the buyer? Florence tells you why that can come back in spades for you in the future.

I paid only $2 bucks for this book at the used bookstore and after seeing how much I got out of it I feel almost guilty.

I think I will send Florence a Thank-You card for taking the time to write it for me.

Web 2.0 Summit - Joshi on Print Mashups and The Growth of Print

We can't all attend stimulating conferences like the Web 2.0 Summit that took place last fall in San Francisco particularly because they are expensive and don't seem to relate directly to what we have to do everyday to move our print businesses forward. In this recorded interview with HP's Vyomesh Joshi, we hear the perspective of one who is engaged in stimulating print in every emerging way. There is both a lesson and an opportunity for all of us here as the industry moves headlong into new territory that redefines print: think not about your product but about possibilities for your product. If you don't someone else will and that new competitor may come from an unexpected quarter.

Close The Sale with Your Personality Not Your Price

At the end of the day why does a customer choose to do business with you? Was it because you had the best price? The product with the best features? The delivery? Because you were in the right place at the right time? Let's face it, at the end of the day in a competitive sales situation (particularly a large enterprise one) all the factors come pretty close in the final analysis: price generally meets price within a narrow bandwidth, the schedules are close and the feature set has pluses and minuses on each side...it isn't any one thing that puts you over the top and makes the sale. It isn't some magical closing line you have practiced in the mirror or a single compelling presentation. Or is it?

I think it is simply this: It is the sales person's  personality and demeanor that makes the difference. In my experience I have seen buyers choose the lesser product, sometimes at a higher price and I can only see one common thread among all the sales reps that I have managed, coached or fired. The customer wants to be around you when the problems come - they have decided that you are person that they want to solve problems with. You have that chemistry, that flexibility, that quick mind, empathy, that understanding of their business and their own personal plight that they believe will be there throughout the sale and delivery. They somehow know that you will not only be their advocate but their bodyguard and friend. An overstatement? Not really, since deep down we are all driven by similar needs and desires. And buyers are analytical and emotional at the same time - and when the side-by-side analysis is complete with full knowledge and all the numbers spread out there, emotion comes into play and trumps it all. 

Put another way, a customer often buys from the person who they want to see hanging round their office helping them, somebody who when they call it is a relief not a dread to here from them - whether it is a glitch or it is great news.

Call it a fancy name like 'Partnering', or whatever you like. Just look in the mirror and ask what you can do to be more like that person that every customer is looking for. Sure maybe you have to bone up on your product knowledge, presentation skills or writing - or maybe you just have to figure out how to be a better person: and your career will take care of itself. 

Yeah, I know: Who wants a self-help sermon when readers are looking for some quick sales tips? But stay with me here....I ran across an item posted in a non-profit website at www.becauseitmatters.net They outline the "10 Ways to Increase Civility". And when reading that list and the explanations - it occurred to me that isn't that the profile of the perfect salesperson - one who you would want to be solving your problems, partnering with you and propelling your own career forward? This whole topic was also echoed recently in a USA Today article  (12/31/07) about "The Return to Civility" as a reaction to a web-based world where we are connected yet personally detached from one another at the same time. Here is another encouraging  and related development: Research indicates that the largest segment of new buyers of high-quality stationary (at Crane/Papyrus Stores etc) are the Millennium generation. Imagine that, young people are buying Thank-you cards and letter-writing materials in huge numbers.   

So taken all together, it seems to me that if you took steps to embrace the 10 Steps to Civility you might just see your customers embrace you, and that sales career of yours take off.

Quebecor World - Just Say 'Why?'

It’s really disheartening to see a $6 billion organization on the penny stock blogs.

I never understand why, when a company knows this type of financial intersection is coming, they don’t act earlier – they end up doing immense long term damage to the brand. One analyst I was reading observed it had been a revolving door for leadership – I have to echo that. Quebecor has not been setup culturally or structurally to either attract, retain or reward the right people for the long term. There have been several  missed opportunities as the corporate culture failed to embrace the teams that built the operations Quebecor acquired. (I am thinking specifically of people like Marc Reisch post-World Color).

Quebecor’s main misstep in my view was to continue to view the US operation as if it were a collection of regional printers rather than a national brand and an interconnected service network that had to compete on its own in a no-holds barred marketplace. (Remember, in large contract printing this is the NFL) - and then ham-string their managers on the front lines and force them to run everything through the head office in Montreal.

A company with that large a footprint has to be an innovator not an imitator. One might argue that even their attempts at imitating how other companies are reinventing themselves with outsourcing models, and new digital strategies have fallen woefully short.

Admittedly it is hard to transform a large print operation overnight, ask Dennis Rediker at Standard Register how hard it is: It takes vision, tenacity, shareholder patience and money. In Quebecor’s case it could be done – but it would be long fought effort with the level of debt and cash.

More likely is that Donnelley, alone or in partnership with private capital would be interested in picking up the gravure operations that are the jewel in the crown. The gravure operations have a stable of major contract accounts and a production network that cannot be found outside Donnelley or for that matter duplicated. Any buyer of Quebecor would have to look beyond the somewhat antagonistic relationship that Quebecor has with some of its union groups – but then again, a fresh start might unlock new partnership opportunities on that front.  Quad Graphics would be a heaven-sent refuge for any Quebecor gravure plant. On the web-offset side Donnelly would find the offset contract relationships very attractive for the major magazines and short run-magazines and that would undoubtably engender a long process of re-locations and plant closures to rationalize that network.

KKR or Cerberus could assemble a dream-team’ to perform an operational recovery and part the company out over time. They did it with Bob Burton and World Color. Cenveo is a household name now in this type of deal but it is hard to see how if fits with their current strategies (but then again something with that big a footprint has a deal inside it to be made somewhere).

In my view Quebecor would find its highest value if the product groups were re-formed and sold as smaller stand-alone units. New brand identities and operational focus could be found and then the list of potential buyers expands. Those smaller units, better staffed, better positioned and marketed (or at least understood) would generate higher collective interest – Someone like Jim Conway at Courier Inc. has the vision and management team to buy and recover the book operations. The Sheridan Group TSG might also be interested in the short-run magazine/journal locations – that sort of scenario could play out across each product segment but it would be a longer process and involve some operational ‘heavy lifting’. Few have the stomach for that.

Wild card possibilities might include Michael Cunningham of CGI (nowDG3), Mike is the dynamic guy that built Cunningham Graphics, CGI Worldwide – somebody like that in partnership with a hedge fund might suddenly appear at the table. Or perhaps the American Color investors might want to buy the Quebecor gravure operations as a strategy to expand out of the cold-set offset and flexographic markets that have very limited growth opportunities. (What can their strategic Board discussions possibly revolve around in today's world?)

So for the moment, Quebecor has arm-wrestled Royal Bank to step in with some small re-financing, reportedly enticed by the future promise of fees associated with a wireless start-up Quebecor has in the works. (There is a reason hockey is the national sport). All this drama for a measly $100 million or so which still leaves the major traunche of debt still out there and no new break-through management strategies for the firm. Perhaps this gives them the room to conduct a more orderly sale if the short list of potential buyers have not already been snubbed or looked under the hood and decided this bungee-jump was not for them.

On the whole it is hard to identify a long list of entities that might have both the balance sheet and the appetite for ‘big-iron’ manufacturing in a world that it accelerating headlong into digital delivery and Web 2.0 communication models.