Death of the print salesman: Print 21 magazine article

The old stereotype of the print salesman as a savvy rep who knows his customers inside out and guards his contact list on pain of death has supposedly given way to a new era of prospecting dominated by the internet and print management companies. But while these new developments have certainly changed the nature of print sales, there’s still value to be had in holding onto a well-honed client list, as Patrick Howard discovers.

The arrival of the internet with the availability of web-to-print sites was supposed to herald the death of the print salesmen. Undoubtedly a lot of print buying is conducted over the web but it shows no sign of making a sales force redundant. Google in ‘Print’ or ‘Buy Print’ and you’ll come up with millions of entries. Many of these are perfunctory portals for printers who feel they should be doing something, anything, on the internet. Many printers I speak with regard their internet webs site as a cost to the business not a profit centre.

On the other hand, making use of the ability of the internet to transfer files electronically and to combat the growing production power of the large printing companies, the advent of the ‘hub and spoke’ printing systems has introduced a new element into print sales. This is where printing companies of a certain size join together, either in a franchise or as shareholders, to make use of a central hub stocked with equipment the individual participants could not afford on their own.

A number of Snap and Kwik Kopy franchises have made use of this model as well as Worldwide Online and a group led by David Fuller of Focus Press in Sydney. While solving the production problems, they continue to rely on a local catchment of print orders. However, it does mean that print sales people are able to offer a much wider range of products than previously.

The arrival of the internet and the global corporation has also mirrored the rise of the print management companies. Large corporations once had purchasing departments wherein lived specialists in buying whatever the business required. The print buyer was a designated individual with graphic arts expertise and the ability to write specifications and compare quotes.
The move by the corporations to outsource non-core activities brought with it a determination to reduce the number of suppliers it dealt with and the redundancy of the experts in the purchasing department. In terms of printing, this meant that a single point of contact was required through whom all printing across the corporation was purchased.

Many printers regard the existence of print management as a disaster, the introduction of an intermediary between them and their customer. No longer can the sales person build a relationship with the person who will use the product. Corporate and government tendering has introduced a new era of transparency where personal contact counts for little. The print salesman finds himself competing with brokers who are, in most cases, pricing the jobs below the ability of the stand-alone printing company to match. Printers often find they were quoting to a print management company on a job they used to perform on a one-to-one basis with the customer. Invariably they have to take a cut in price.

The print management companies claim they are the future of print sales and that any salesman who represents a printing company with its own limited capacity will lose out to a bid that makes use of the capabilities of many different printers. Most of the large printing companies have moved to meet the challenge by setting up their own print management structures. Bob McMillan of McMillan Printing was a successful pioneer in the field before selling his enterprise to Blue Star (which closed the factory last month).

But despite the advent of the internet and the print management companies and the plethora of print sales gurus who have ‘magic’ formulas to sell more print, it is unlikely any printing company will be getting rid of its sales people. In fact the long-established printing sales course run by Printing Industries has never been more popular, giving credence to the adage that printing sales people are made, not born.

Reports of the death of the print salesman are greatly exaggerated. And the contents of a well-managed client list have never been more highly valued.

Customers are assets too
There was a time when a printer aiming to get out of the industry would put his business up for sale confident his well-maintained presses would attract serious bidders. A good Heidelberg was regarded as a solid superannuation investment, maintaining its value year after year and worth almost as much when on-sold as when first bought new. No longer!

There is a surfeit of capacity in most sectors of the industry and only the most determined printers are prepared to upgrade to the super efficiency of the latest generation of offset presses. Any kit more than five years old will hold little interest outside the knockdown online auctions. What will attract buyers, however, is a well-maintained list of certified clients.

Client lists are where the value in the printing industry has migrated. They represent the real assets of a printing business and will get you a better deal than all the shiny, lovingly maintained equipment in the world. In extreme circumstances, where a printer has not bought any new equipment for many a long year, the client list is likely to be all that is of any value. The printer may as well get as much money as he can for it, pull down the roller door and walk away from the rest.

Of course, he can’t really walk away, because customer loyalty is negligible in current business circles. Client lists are built up over many years, mostly by personal engagement. Customers buy from the individual, not from the firm. (This lies at the heart of the continuing guerrilla warfare between sales people and the boss – who owns the client? We’ll get to that later.) Most owner-operated printers, which constitute the vast majority, do as much business on the golf course, at the bowling club, the Chamber of Commerce or the local Lions as they do at their desk. They sponsor the under-15s football and netball teams and are on first name terms with the mayor and local councillors. Or they should be if they want to have a viable local business and a solid client list.

Which means that when a printer sells his client list, it goes with strings attached, usually an earn-out period of a couple of years. He has to stay around to make sure that the customers stay around. Loyalty is a two-way street with little that is transferable when the individuals change. The purchaser cannot depend on the sales staff to take up the slack. In fact the sales staff are often part of the customer loyalty problem.

Every good sales representative carries a notebook with details that never make it into the company’s customer relationship management system. This is the good oil, the personal details and histories that allow the rep to believe that the customer’s loyalty is to him, not the firm. Once the boss saddles up and rides off into the sunset, the rep is likely to be out the door straight after him, hawking his own personal list to the highest bidder. It’s up to the boss – it’s always been up to the boss – to be able to trump the sales rep when it comes to personal contact with the customers.

Buyers beware
On the other side of the fence, there is a question mark over the whole tactic of increasing business by buying customer lists from departing printers. In the first place, it’s an expensive and risky way to develop your business. There are only so many businesses available with good lists and no matter how eager the printer is to depart, he will still want a decent price for what he now regards as his crown jewels. Then you have to construct the buy-out contract so that he has decent motivation to work for the two years. Even with the best will in the world it may prove that the boss was not the powerhouse behind the business. That may be the salesman, who will want due monetary recognition to stay with the new team.

Then there is the whole vexed question of customer loyalty in the first place. How large a percentage of any successful printing business is based on contract or long-term customers? Even those businesses that focus on large corporate clients would be lucky to have more than 60 percent of sales that could be termed as contract, formal or informal. Which means that the majority of sales must come from competitive tendering as print jobs become available. Often print contracts have a non-transferable clause making them not worth the paper they are printed on.

Due diligence is just as essential when buying a customer list as when making a takeover for an operating business. One printer who has recently gone through an acquisition invested time talking to the major clients to sound them out on their thoughts of the takeover. He found that provided certain key staff – not necessarily sales staff – continued with the firm, the customers were happy.

But gaining access to a client list when it is all there is may prove more difficult. Gauging customer sentiment, even how pleased they are with current levels of service, can be difficult if you are restricted to contacting a selection of the list. There are few certainties in customer loyalty and caveat emptor – let the buyer beware – is the rule.