Ten tips to win top of mind positioning
By: T.J. Tedesco
For: High Volume Printing
Published: December, 1996

No customer loyalty? Price gouging? Impossible schedules? Problems in the plant? Is this you? Unless you’ve won the battle for "top of mind" positioning with the business influencers you need most, it probably is. Top of mind is where you need to be. If your customers and key prospects hear the word "print," and your name immediately comes to mind, you own top of mind market position. Nurture your customers. Rome wasn’t built in a day; a tree doesn’t grow overnight; and you won’t consistently convince print buyers that you are their printing solution unless you nurture them. One of the old sales rules is true now as much as ever: Show you care before they care what you show.

1. Be An Information Donor

Develop a sales approach which provides more value than your competitors. While most sales pros are familiar with the concept of value-added selling, few know about information-added selling. You can be sure your customers are hungry for information about their own company, industry, and job function. If you help them in these areas, then you and your company’s services are irresistible because you are helping them overcome fear. And, fear is the #1 reason why people do not buy.

Put a pair of scissors in your briefcase and clip articles about your customers and their industries. If you see a great article in a trade magazine about estimating, production, management, customer service, etc., then clip, photocopy and distribute it to appropriate key business influencers. Information providers are more valuable than non-value-added donut providers. A simple yet effective rule for sales success is to bring valuable written, spoken, or digital information with you on every sales call – without exception!

A century and a half ago, the following statement appeared in a New York Life Insurance Co. sales training manual: "To sell John Smith, what John Smith buys, you must see the world, through John Smith’s eyes." This is as true today as ever. Think like your customers and search for information to help them better understand their world.

2. Be A One Minute Manager

Do not speak continuously for more than a minute, even in response to open-ended questions like, "tell me about your company." When answering these types of questions, avoid the data dump. Make a short statement about your capabilities and ask an involvement question such as, "do you see your company needing this?" If the answer is "yes," you’ve established need, and your prospect can mentally involve himself in your company. If the answer is "no," you won’t continue down a non-fruitful path and lose your prospect’s interest. Feature-oriented sales reps frequently fail this one minute rule.

3. Ask More Questions

Top sales reps ask 25 times as many questions as poor performers. Hard to believe, but true. Rather than stating, "my company offers fast service," a top rep will ask a tie-down question like, "You need your blue lines fast, don’t you?" (A tie-down question is a short question following a statement.) Another example is, "details are so important, aren’t they?" instead of "we are detail oriented." Every time your prospect nods in the affirmative, you are getting closer to quote and job opportunities. If your natural speech cadence becomes: statement; question; statement; question; etc.; you will soon be asking 25 times as many questions as poor sales performers.

4. Listen, Listen, Listen

Develop your listening skills. Do you ever find yourself formulating responses in your mind while your prospect or customer is talking? The average person can hear 400 to 500 words per minute, but can only speak at 130 to 175. If you’re thinking of a response while someone else is talking, it’s a pretty safe bet that for every word you formulate in your mind, you will miss three. Most buyers tell you exactly what you must do to earn and keep their business, but if you don’t hear it, you won’t do it.

5. Appoint Yourself Ambassador

Become an industry "Ambassador." Join the associations where your customers are. Then participate. But don’t go handing out a ton of business cards at the meetings. People will see right through you. Truly help out the association. Join the membership committee. It’s a great way to make an impact and meet lots of people too. Give talks and write articles. If writing’s not your strength, jot down your points and hire a ghostwriter. Unfortunately overcoming public speaking anxiety isn’t as easy. Just remember that every speaker once made his first speech with his or her knees knocking. With experience, speaking does get easier and after a while, it even becomes fun. The more people see you in a position of authority, the more you earn the coveted "halo" effect.

6. Develop Your Own Standard Business Letter Book

How many times would a customer or prospect of yours have appreciated a letter but you didn’t sent one? Events occur every day which should be acknowledged. Here are a few examples:

• Congratulations on your promotion.

• Thank you for your first order.

• Your loyalty to your current printer is admirable, but we have much to offer.

• Thank you for visiting our plant.

• We apologize for our shipping error.

Usually sales people don’t write because of time constraints. If you compile a book of letters for common business situations, then you won’t need to compose a new letter every time you need one. Using a letter template book is simply a matter of filling in the blanks. To help you write your templates, most book stores, computer stores and libraries have pre-written business letter books and software which can provide a good starting point.

7. Improve Your Invoices

Anytime you do anything for a customer and you don’t itemize it, you are missing a value-added selling opportunity. On the invoice, type the item and next to it, an "N/C." If you’ve gone the extra mile, at least make sure your customer knows.

8. Get On The Professional Tour

Funnel as many people through your plant as possible. Once someone has visited your facility, they can visualize how their jobs will flow through your plant. They are involved and they have made an investment in you. Place covered sample bins near your production machines. Have operators fill them whenever they run great jobs. So many printing plant tours don’t succeed because important equipment either is idle or is running unimpressive pieces. If a bin next to the idle machine contains samples, then a valuable visual connection between your equipment and quality work can still be made.

9. Preflight Your Jobs

This may not be entirely in your control, but somehow, try to preflight your jobs the same day you receive a disk from a customer. Print customers get irritated when they give a reasonable schedule to a supplier and are notified of problems when it’s almost too late. There’s no easy solution to this, but try to have someone same-day-preflight your disks.

10. Embrace Technology As Your Friend

Every serious print sales rep should have a mobile phone and a laptop computer. Your investment in these products will pay for itself many times over because you will gain time and retain valuable information. No longer will you need to pull off the highway, look for a pay phone, and fumble for change just to tell your prospect, "I was running a little late but since it took so long to find a pay phone, I’ll be very late." Similarly, computerized contact managers are much more efficient than paper based systems. If you’re making the right number of calls, you cannot possibly remember everything you need to know about your clients and prospects, but your database does. Receiving job status information by modem will put you even further ahead of your competition. Run your day by the clock, but your life with a vision. Technology helps you with the clock part.

Follow these 10 tips as much as possible. They will help you win the battle for top of mind position, and sell a lot of print.

T.J. Tedesco is a “hands-on” marketing, sales, coaching and training consultant to the post press industry. He is the author of Binding, Finishing & Mailing: The Final Word, and Win Top-of-Mind Positioning, both published by GATFPress and available at Amazon.com. T.J. can be reached at (301) 294-9900 or tj@growsales.com.