So far, 2008 is awfully unlucky for printers, but hey, who cares? We “only” sell the stuff. And, as the economy tanks, we may soon be the only ones “up-and-running” on the sales side.
Mismanaging management staff, from Quebecor on down, are firing sales and marketing personnel for no other reason than to cut costs. These same people, who gambled on capital investments in the good times, are counter-intuitively shifting blame to the working ants in what our trade associations call “the current period of challenge.”
Opposite of salespeople who are passionately outward-directed and customer-centric, the bosses are typically inward-directed toward their machinery—a peddlers versus mechanics paradox. The latter almost compulsively seeks productivity gains even at the risk of losing customers. New cylinders, which make-ready and run faster, fed by direct-plates that pop out in less time than pizzas, now render state-of-the-art printing plants counter-productive. An old shop with paid-for machinery is at an absolute economic advantage over new facilities drowning in debt or, worse, sinking in fixed lease payments.
So, how do we purveyors of the top-line get rich during this commercial equivalent of the sub-prime meltdown? Let’s pull the slot handle and see what lucky eight, progressive combinations for ’08 we can hit.
• Find the most underserved demanders. There are many print buying sectors not called upon, even during the good times. Now, with fewer salespeople and no marketing departments left to identify and qualify them, business is forfeited. The Printing Brokerage/Buyers Association’s (PB/BA) annual “HOT markets” forecast details winning combinations, including packaged foods and beverages (for point-of-sale) and proprietary higher education (for sheetfed and half-web inserts and direct mail). Meanwhile, the mechanics continue to pander to the most price-elastic, yet obvious, categories such as publishers and ad agencies. The pervasive volume-over-profit mentality lives, but it shouldn’t be at our expense.
• Sell outside of the geographic box. Many up-and-coming “micro-politan” areas—places growing faster in population and business than available impressions—are also underserved. Unlike Elk Grove Village, Ill., the geographic capital of our medium, there are hundreds of nearly-no-print zones, including Cedar City and St. George, Utah; Hilton Head and Beaufort, S.C.; Lake Havasu and Bullhead City, Ariz.; Rock Springs and Green River, Wyo.; and Kailuha-Kona, Hawaii, as well as almost anywhere in the Caribbean. (Don’t laugh, just get there!)
• Bundle print with content and distribution. Industry professionals know that reproduction is at the bottom of the media “food chain.” Both content and distribution—meaning we control or own information and its dissemination—command higher price levels and are less vulnerable to competition than one medium alone. Networks with entertainment and data providers should be in place before the customer is approached. Taking the initiative by providing a seemless system doesn’t just add up, it multiplies the value proposition.
• Spread ink via virals. Suggest the radical: print-to-web leverage, now possible at ratios of 1-to-20 (or greater). A customer’s “bet,” for example, with the purchase and mailing of 500,000 postcards ($30,000 plus postage) could yield one million Web visits (worth $500,000 or more). Opportunity-value selling and pricing produce results-optimization over search optimization. Google, in all its glory, can’t deliver the power of print.
In this scary selling environment, by using your selling skills, rather than production power, you can ring up lucky eight opportunities.
BY VINCENT MALLARDI, C.M.C.
Vincent Mallardi, C.M.C., is the founder and former chairman of the PB/BA International (pbba.org), a global membership network of print intermediaries and their trade-only and specialty suppliers. He is also an adjunct professor in economics and a consummate, life-long printing salesman. His sometime weakness is playing slot machines.