For far too long far too many printers have chased turnover without giving enough consideration to what their margins are likely to be. Their main priority has been to keep their presses ticking over rather than allowing them to stand idle.
However, this approach has caused irreparable damage to the sector with prices eroding significantly in recent years as print has hurtled towards becoming a commoditised item. This turnover-focused approach is also to blame for many of the hundreds of printers that have gone to the wall in the last decade or so.
Competing on price is to some extent a necessary evil in a sector when the quality of a lot of the print produced is pretty much on a par across the board, but can the way a business approaches selling a piece of print help it differentiate its offer and ultimately make a difference to its bottom line? And if it can what sort of approach to sales should companies consider taking?
Industry experts have railed about the printing industries unsophisticated attitude towards selling for decades, but while the old adage ‘they can print it, but they can’t sell it’, may still have some ring of truth about it, print consultant Matthew Parker, author of the book How To Stop Print Buyers Choosing On Price, believes that small improvements have been made by some quarters of the printing industry.
“There are certainly a number of printers out there who are selling in a more sophisticated way and there are also a large number who aren’t,” says Parker. “It’s a game of two halves.”
Thankfully there are a healthy number of printers who fall into that first camp, like Ipswich-based Healeys. Philip Dodd, managing director at Healeys, says that in order to succeed in the current business climate printers have to adopt a collaborative approach and go that extra mile for clients.
“Every printer says they print high quality, but that’s just not true,” says Dodd. “There’s an awful lot of ‘good enough’ or ‘commercially acceptable’ work out there. Well, our customers are not interested in commercially acceptable. They want the very best work that we can give them.”
This approach is reflected in the homepage of the company’s new website which showcases the type of work that Dodd says the company excels at producing. “There are still too many websites out there where you will have a picture of the managing director with his arms folded standing proudly on the running board of a Heidelberg press. That is part of the mentality of ‘I’ve got a press, you want something printing and if I give you a low enough price you might give me the work’.”
Radical approach
Like Dodd, Harry Skidmore, group managing director at Easibind, believes that the current trading environment means printers have to adapt and take a radical new approach to selling their wares like his company has.
“People don’t look at us as a printer anymore – we provide a solution,” says Skidmore. “Markets are changing so what you have to look at is this creating an opportunity or a threat, and the answer is it is doing a bit of both, but it is the way you tackle it that defines the situation.”
That’s why his company has placed a greater emphasis on the level of service it offers customers. “People don’t just want to buy print anymore. If it’s all about print then people are going to struggle. The people who are paying for the product are the brand owners and they are looking for added value so you have to look at things that will give them benefits in terms of performance and cost.”
This focus on added value is one of the reasons Lincoln-based Ruddocks decided to set up its own in-house design studio. The company wanted to offer its clients as full a range of services as possible and its investment has paid off handsomely, according to Paul Banton, managing director at Ruddocks.
“Our design studio generates and brings in new business,” says Banton. “For instance, back in March we won the rebrand job for British Steel and we are now picking up a bit of print out of that work, and hopefully we do it well and we will win more work. And it just grows and grows.”
Offering clients the ability to tap into a wider range of services is just one part of Ruddocks’ sales approach. “We are nice people to deal with and we try and look after our customers,” explains Banton. “If we promise to deliver something on Wednesday, it will be there on Wednesday come hell or high water. To me it’s not about doing anything exceptional – it’s about doing things properly and being honest with your customers.”
Machine minded
Another effective way of driving sales is investment in new technology. In the past the industry has used new investments as a way to drive sales, but far too many companies have been guilty of looking at how new equipment can help them to further lower prices. Simon Beard, sales director at Victoria Litho, for one believes that this approach is misplaced and that if done well continuous investment in new kit can be a compelling sales tool in its own right.
“You have to keep quiet about your capital equipment investment, test the marketplace, make the best investment with the funding available and purchase the correct piece of equipment,” says Beard. “This can make or break a company. Don’t give the game away. Use your own sales and marketing team to get in front of clients and personally relay the news. Take samples and get the client to buy in with your new investment and how can this work for them. A belated old customer of mine once said ‘you have to be driving the band wagon and not riding on it’.”
Part of the problem is that today most print buyers expect their suppliers to invest in and own the most up-to-date equipment, with quality, service and green credentials also taken as a given.
“These days if you sell on quality, service and the environment to the majority of customers you’re not going to get very far,” says Parker. “All customers expect good service and quality. I think the stat I saw was 80% of companies believe they deliver above average customer service, but only 11% of customers believe they’re getting above average customer service, so what you’re selling may not be as good as you think.
“If you can’t put ink on paper you shouldn’t be in business – I’m not aware of many printers that have gone out of business because they couldn’t print well – and sadly a lot of buyers pay lip service to the environment.”
The fact of the matter is that for many buyers price will always be the overriding factor when it comes to making a purchasing decision and they will never be short of takers, with far too many printers willing to take on jobs at unsustainable prices.
“I think there are still plenty of people out there who are working the way they have always worked and I think they are struggling more and more. And slowly but surely they are failing because they haven’t changed and they haven’t adapted,” says Banton.
As depressing as that might sound there are a growing number of buyers out there who are open to suppliers helping them and who don’t just want to buy a commodity. “The problem is not all printers are rising to the challenge of that,” believes Parker.
He says that to redress the balance companies can no longer afford to embrace a one-size-fits-all sales message – they need to create different messages for different markets.
“I’ve blogged a lot about the TPD principle – that stands for ‘target audience, pain and difference’,” he explains. “So you need to focus on a small number of target audiences or market sectors, you need to understand the challenges those business face and you need to understand how you solve those challenges and then you need to be able to explain to those companies why they should buy from you as opposed to from the competition.”
Those printers that can get their head around this more sophisticated approach to selling will be the ones who are better positioned to differentiate their offer and win more business in the future.
What’s in a review?
A rapidly growing but often overlooked weapon in the armoury of printers who are looking to drum up new business is customer review websites. For many customers who are researching making a purchase their first port of call is usually websites like Checkatrade and Trustpilot, which have grown significantly in recent years.
“People come to us because they trust what other people say about businesses,” explains Alan Duncan, UK marketing director at Trustpilot. “The reviews on our site are from real customers, are valid and accurate.”
That’s why they make a more persuasive argument to potential customers than any salesman could make. To maximise their impact Trustpilot offers customers a range of tools that makes collecting customer reviews easier and gives users the ability to display these reviews on their website to “amplify their reputation” and “win new business,” says Duncan.
The site also offers users’ insights into any lingering business issues and enables them to deal with any problems quickly, which in its own right can be a strong message to future customers.
“We find companies that only have positive reviews are less trusted than those that have the odd poor review that have been dealt with because nobody is perfect,” says Duncan. “So if you’re able to show that you listened to a customer, fixed their issue and you learned from it and you can do all of that publicly I can guarantee other people looking at your business will respect that.”
That’s why his message to those businesses who have reservations about appearing on these review platforms is simple: “Consumer opinions about your company will be there anyway so it’s up to you to choose if you want the conversation to happen in a place that can see, that you can act upon and respond to and manage and learn from.”
