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One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Christmas can be a lot like the worst parts of the printing industry, by which I mean people tend to get hung up on ‘things.’ It’s evident when someone asks me, “What do you want for Christmas?” I can’t get through to them that there’s nothing I want…at least nothing I want from them. That’s because my family and friends tend to buy me things I don’t need.

Too many print salespeople treat their customers the same way. Instead of asking what their customers need, they ask, “What can I sell to you?” They focus on the products they offer instead of solving their customers’ problems. They don’t take the time to understand their clients’ businesses. They don’t build relationships.

When salespeople fail to consider their clients’ needs, it’s like giving someone clothing for Christmas that they’ll never wear. Clothing is a difficult gift to give because you have to know a lot about the recipients. You have to know what they like to wear, what they’ll look good wearing and how likely they are to wear what you give them. Without that kind of knowledge, you run the risk of giving them the wrong color or the wrong size. One of the best Christmas gifts I’ve ever received was a sweater. The person who gave it to me literally made it! Do you know your customers that well?

Another one of my favorite gifts was a wallet. The one I had been using was battered and frayed, but I loved it. Everything I needed to survive fit in that wallet without creating a huge bulge in my back pocket. I needed a new one, but I couldn’t find what I was looking for, and I don’t particularly like shopping anyway. The gift was great because it was something I needed, and the person who bought it knew me well enough to get it right.

The importance of building relationships and the need to sell consultatively are frequent themes in Print Solutions magazine. We believe that distributors and trade printers need to adopt these mantras in order to survive the industry’s convulsions. The competition is getting fiercer each year and not just from your peers. We chronicle how big box stores such as Staples and Office Max increasingly put pressure on our segment to offer technology-based solutions and turnkey programs to their clients on page 16. Any kind of successful program selling requires that distributors and their print partners work closely together.

Andy Brown
Managing Editor
abrown@PSDA.org