Letters, feedback, get it off your chest: 24 June 2009
Readers get behind Bernard Cassell, while James Cryer shares his thoughts on the sales process.
Re: Politicians are treating the printing industry with contempt - Bernard Cassell
Completely agree!
Matthew Green
Stream Solutions
I am a digital printer that ?total agrees with this article.
Tanya Yachmen
QPrint
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Re: Sales showman swoops on birds of prey
The thrust of the presentation yesterday, was that the main drivers/determinants of sales success or otherwise are the personal skills of the individual sales rep to effectively persuade the client to buy. A veritable tool-kit full of techniques was discussed: techniques to assist overcome buyer-resistance across a whole range of situations – the mastery of which would lead to sales success. And who knows, they may!
In the portfolio of tools, tactics and techniques, however, no mention was made that you have to be a technical genius, brimming to the gunnels with "product knowledge" (although, obviously, a minimal knowledge is helpful).
JPE is to be commended for running such a seminar on an important issue affecting the industry, but my point is that we encourage (even worship) sales gurus who preach the good oil, that sales success depends on personal selling skills - rather than "vomiting" (Tony Gattari’s words) over your client with a torrent of techno-babble – a point with which I concur.
So here, as an industry we've set up a disjunction, a discontinuity, a formula for failure. We encourage our aspiring, young print sales reps to attend seminars where they're taught that personal presentation is more important than product knowledge, then send them out into the real world, where many/most printing company proprietors insist they 1) come back after gaining a few years sales experience, 2) infer they may not have enough "print industry" knowledge, or 3) are really only after their clients anyway.
The fact that we held a sales seminar is laudatory – full marks to JPE for recognising the need to train more reps! But the real test of our maturity as an industry, is when we start giving young, enthusiastic sales candidates a fair go. And assess them on their personal qualities and presentation skills, not on how many customers they think they can bring across.
James Cryer