Straight Talk About Sales

Sales are central to any printing company. Sales activate the digital systems and make the presses roll. As such, as occupants of the Executive Suite, we want to minimize our sales costs and maximize our profits. For the next few columns we will use this space to look at sales from that particular vantage point.

You must think very clearly about sales. There are many seeming oases out there, but if you are not careful a sense of urgency may direct you toward a mirage rather than a genuine oasis.

Sales Manager?

There is one preliminary item—a cost: Do you really need a sales manager? You certainly do not need a full time one if you have good salespeople. If you do have a sales manager at all, chances are he (or she) is your best salesperson who wanted a promotion. What sense does that make? Great players rarely make even good coaches. In sales, every minute your ace is not selling it is costing you money. A good sales manager makes the other salespeople better, helps them sell more. If your sales manager, even part-time, is not doing that it is costing you (sales) money. And furthermore, if he (or she) is your best peddler and is not out selling, it is costing you twice.

If you do need your salespeople managed, consider outsourcing it. You should be able to find a surrogate sales manager by going online. Such a service should give you exactly what you need and are not getting currently—good analysis, a sales strategy and some sound people development. Most of the other things, like pricing and handling specific customers can be handled inside by someone else. If you do find a surrogate service, make certain the terms are right, you know exactly what you are paying for and check the references carefully.

Thinking Clearly About Sales

You do not need sales. You need the right sales in relation to your costs. Look closely at a number of factors here. Let’s begin with profitability. You need to know as best you can the actual profit in each sale. As elementary as that sounds, it is a point that needs to be made. Businesses in trouble often do not know exactly how profitable any sales may be. In a crisis situation, a sale is often made just because it is a sale. That is the business equivalent of running and gunning in basketball, for no other reason that to drive up the point total. When a run-and-gun offense is not fundamentally sound, it will generate points at the expense of taking good shots, while minimizing defense. If you run the floor with the right patterns you will get easy shots. If you just fire it up, the point total will go up but you will not win.

Better Not Bigger

Ben, a printing client of mine, was in a lather-panic to get some sales in. He imprudently agreed to a contract deal with a company that stole everything but his shorts. Enticed by the hefty sale numbers in the contract he failed to think carefully as to how profitable the sales would be and whether he could deliver the goods (literally) on time to hold up his side of the deal.

But the deal was done and all his company’s efforts were poured in to meeting the contractual demands. And it all but killed him. Why? First, because the deal was not profitable enough given the procrustean tortures through which he had to put his company’s resources to produce the job. And second it meant pushing his loyal clientele to the back of the service bus, imperiling the very accounts that were keeping him in business.

Beware of any “major account” thinking at the expense of diversification. Having one monster account, for example, is often short-term ecstasy and long-term agony.

George entered in to an exclusive contract to do the printing for a well-known national company. For the first few years it was a bonanza. Soon, however, that beneficent client began chewing into George’s cashbox like an alligator. Each year the client bargained for price concessions. George’s costs rose while his financial volume headed downward.