Sales Clinic: Looking Back On 2009

I took an informal survey of 20 commercial printers last week, asking them just three questions:

1. On a scale of 1-10, how successful was 2009?
2. On the same scale, how difficult was 2009?
3. If you had it to do over again, would youdo anything differently?

The response range to Question #1 was 2-9, with an average of 5.1. If you take out the 20% who reported high levels of success—eights and nines—the average drops to 4.3. I think that qualifies as not very successful. The response range to Question #2 was 3-10, with an average of 7.3. Again, if you take out the 20% who reported low levels of difficulty—threes and fours—the average rises to 8.3. Obviously, that represents very difficult. The response to Question #3 was 16 “yes” and four “no;” leaving us with a fairly classic 80/20 relationship.

So some printers had a pretty successful year with a minimal amount of difficulty, while the majority had exactly the opposite. The question now is how to use this knowledge to make 2010 a better year for everybody.

Quicker Reaction

The most common “do over” was to react more quickly to decreasing sales levels. Interestingly, those responses were heavily weighted toward cost reductions, with only a few people mentioning “ramping up my personal sales efforts.” I think that speaks volumes about the mindset of the industry, and it takes me back to a question I used to love to ask printers: Do you make things or sell things?

The answer has almost always been make things, in spite of the fact that this is a custom manufacturing industry—which means that nothing gets made until it’s ordered. But that is the mindset, at least in our segment of the industry. It’s not a selling mindset, it’s an order taking mindset.

Think about that. When people have asked you “How’s business?” over the last 12 months, how have you answered? Have you said, “We’re not selling as much,” or “Our customers aren’t ordering as much”? I’m betting it’s the latter, and I think that’s highly symptomatic of the state of the industry.

Obviously, that suggests changing your mindset, and I know I’ve been harping on this topic, but if you’re not happy with the state of your company, it really is time to step up and put on your selling hat. The situation is pretty straightforward. Your current customers are placing fewer orders and/or smaller orders. (Some of them aren’t placing any orders!) You are not getting lots of calls from people looking for a new printer—or if you are, they ask for a quote, you give them a quote, then you never hear from the again. All of that means that you have to sell; not just wait for business to materialize.

Positioned To Grow

Before you do that, though, I think you should consider whether you’re positioned to grow. In other words, having (probably) cut back on staff, do you have enough people to handle the sales increase you’re hoping for? Several of the printers I surveyed reported that they’ve cut to the bone—survival mode was mentioned a couple of times—while others reported that they feel pretty good about their current staffing. “I knew I was overstaffed,” one wrote, “but now I’ve trimmed all the fat and I feel pretty good about moving forward.”

If you have cut down close to the bone, you should be thinking about how to rebuild your capacity as you rebuild your sales volume, and that refers to both production people and sales/customer service people. If you don’t do that, you may be positioned to fail rather than grow.

The worst case scenario would be quality and/or service problems caused by your inability to supply an increasing demand. If you screw up the first order with a new customer, you may not get another one. If you screw up the next order from an established customer, the same possibility (likelihood?) applies.

Dialog and Follow-Up