Print's three tribes - pessimists, optimists & opportunists - Andy McCourt
There’s an old saw about pessimists seeing a glass half-empty and optimists seeing it half-full. However, there are a couple of twists – like the one where, while the pessimist and optimist were arguing over it, an opportunist drank the wine.
With just weeks to go before Sydney’s quadrennial print-fest at Olympic Park – PrintEx combined with Visual Impact Image Expo – there are three distinct camps apparent in the printing industry.
Camp 1, the Pessimists believe:
- Profit’s gone out of the industry
- Capital investment is too high
- Print Managers are parasites
- Customers no longer loyal
- Print volumes won’t return; future bleak
Camp 2, the Optimists believe:
- There are new profit opportunities, such as digital
- Capital investment has never been more affordable
- Print Managers are potential customers
- Any customer will do for today
- There’s plenty of work out there if you offer the right services
Camp 3, the Opportunists believe:
- If a deal isn’t profitable, we won’t do it
- We don’t necessarily need capital expenditure
- Print management is part of a service industry
- Customer loyalty is not a given, or expected, thing
- While Pessimists and Optimists argue, we’re taking the work in
Opportunists are not necessarily ‘in’ the printing industry. Many see themselves more as marketing services providers and printed products are just one of the services they offer. Some are coming from the wide format sign & display area, where they have learned to print on anything from iPhone covers to coffee mugs, in very small quantities per order. If the opportunity to quote on a client’s brochures or catalogues comes up, they’ll just contact a trade offset printer and make a mark-up on the invoiced cost.
Some opportunists come from the graphic design area where once they just specified print, now they buy and sell it over the internet using stand-alone W2P applications, (or W3P in the case of Whirlwind Print’s solution). They speak a new language to print buyers; one that does not include dot percentages, stipple bearers, screen clashes, ganged-up impostions or verso-recto registration. They speak sales & marketing talk, which is mostly about ‘can-do’ rather than ‘can’t-do’ or ‘hard to do.’
Through a glass smartly?
There is another spin on the old glass half-full or empty adage. The pessimist, as usual says it’s half-empty. The optimist says half-full.
A sales rep comes along and says: “Good afternoon, my name’s Steve. Can I talk to you about the benefits of ice?”
Assuming the drink is appropriate for it, ice solves everything, for both sides.
But the role of sales, or CRM if you prefer, can go further and ‘more better.’ American rock-star sales person Rebecca Abram suggests three questions:
1) Are you happy with the contents of your glass?
2) What is it you don’t like about the contents of your glass?
3) What would make you happy with the contents of your glass?
Having a good answer to 3) is the window of opportunity for business. A solution to a problem makes people happy. A solution that can not find a problem is wasted.
And this is perhaps where many of us are forgetting the basics. No one wants to buy print; they want a solution that makes them happy; satisfied. If that is 100,000 home-delivered catalogues that return a 20% increase in sales, that’s a solution. If it is shop-front sign and window graphic that makes the business stand out above all others, that’s a solution. A tee shirt with a picture of my pet dog on it; five vanity published books of my own recipes...all solutions linked to satisfaction.
Effective sales and marketing will solve most problems in any business, printing or otherwise. PrintEx and Visual Impact will be a cornucopia of sales and marketing ideas above all else; with free workshops into the bargain. It’s not all about selling more hardware or software, although there are 14 exhibitors who can make your business ‘smarter’ with workflow, MIS and online applications. It’s about seeing beyond the boxes and towards the sales opportunities that present themselves from the printed products they produce.
When recently discussing the glass analogy with a colleague, in a bar of course, he came up with a new take on it, saying: “Who cares whether the glass is half empty or half full? It’s your round.”
But that’s another story in the naked city.