[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:05] DC: It takes the right skills and the right innovation to design and manage meaningful print marketing solutions. Welcome to Podcasts From the Printerverse, where we explore all facets of print and marketing that create stellar communications and sales opportunities for business success. I’m your host, Deborah Corn, the Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse. Thanks for tuning in. Listen long and prosper.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:33] DC: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Podcasts From the Printerverse. This is Deborah Corn, your Intergalactic Ambassador. Today, we are going inter-country, I guess, you could say. We are jumping across the pond and then some to Scotland. We are talking to Colin Sinclair McDermott. Colin is the online print coach. He has over 20 years of experience in the printing industry. After scaling his own print business to 12 locations across the UK, he shifted to coaching, helping printers grow profitably as a certified business coach and creator of Print Mastermind. He equips print professionals with the strategies and support to succeed. Hello, Colin. Welcome to the show.
[0:01:19] CSM: Deborah, thank you so much for having me.
[0:01:21] DC: You don’t say g’day. What do you say? Is there a proper greeting in the morning in Scotland? Top of the mornin’ to you.
[0:01:29] CSM: Top of the mornin’, but it depends which country. I’m starting off in as well, depending upon where I’m coaching. Yeah, no. I’m trying to think now. You’ve caught me off guard.
[0:01:38] DC: You live there. You don’t know what you –
[0:01:39] CSM: We’re going to say, all right, all right.
[0:01:41] DC: Oh, okay. All right, then. All right.
[0:01:44] CSM: Yeah, all right.
[0:01:45] DC: All right.
[0:01:45] CSM: We’ll go with that. Although, we’ve taken it all right.
[0:01:48] DC: Okay. Well, I’m not going to try to speak with that accent. That’s one that gets me all the time. I’m not so great at the Irish one either. Okay, I want to start this podcast off with a speed round of questions that you can answer yes or no to, until we get to the end, where I’m going to ask you for one word, and that’s it. Okay. You recently presented at the Edge Long Beach Conference. Was it the first time in the United States for you?
[0:02:16] CSM: Yes.
[0:02:17] DC: Was it your first time in California?
[0:02:20] CSM: Yes.
[0:02:21] DC: Did anyone say, ‘dude’, or ‘bro’ to you?
[0:02:25] CSM: Yes.
[0:02:26] DC: Did you eat Mexican food?
[0:02:28] CSM: Lots, yes.
[0:02:30] DC: Did you see or dip your toe into the Pacific Ocean?
[0:02:34] CSM: Yes.
[0:02:36] DC: Did you learn a new American phrase?
[0:02:39] CSM: No.
[0:02:40] DC: Hmm. We’ve got to work on that. Were you asked to repeat yourself due to your accent?
[0:02:46] CSM: Yes.
[0:02:47] DC: Did you ask others to repeat themselves because of their accent?
[0:02:52] CSM: Yes.
[0:02:54] DC: One word to describe Americans.
[0:02:57] CSM: Welcoming.
[0:02:59] DC: One word to describe meeting me.
[0:03:01] CSM: A delight.
[0:03:03] DC: Oh, thank you, Colin. That was fun. All right, let’s talk about DSCOOP for one moment, and it was your first time in the United States. I only heard raves about you as a human being and you as a supplier of relevant and topical information to the printers in attendance.
[0:03:23] CSM: Thank you. Yeah, it was really well received. I was doing a presentation there in the middle day. Yeah, the feedback as we spoke about offline beforehand, even now five, six weeks down the line, it’s still lots of really great communications going on. Actually, had a meeting this morning with a company in Texas in the follow-up to the seminar that I gave as well. Yeah, no, it seemed to be really on point. Yeah, it was a – then rectify after this. Not my first time in the States. Apparently, my first time there as a print coach and certainly in a business capacity. Yeah, no, I absolutely loved the whole experience. Really great community. Yeah, I hope it’s not the last time that I’m over there.
[0:04:06] DC: Excellent. As you mentioned, we were speaking before I pushed record and you mentioned that you’re still feeling the buzz from that event. It’s very rare that you hear people saying that about printing events. Can you elaborate a little more on that?
[0:04:20] CSM: Yeah. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Obviously, you’re a new person coming into that environment. Again, how are you going to be perceived? Are people going to even know this is my very cautious of Scottish accents? Yeah, you wonder how the accent barrier is going to be, and if what you’ve created and content-wise is going to resonate. Thankfully, and we seem to hit the nail on the head on all counts. Yeah, it’s generally just the conversations I’ve had with numerous people following the event. I’ve met some real, to what I would know, classes is friends within the industry. There’s a few really interesting collaborations in the pipeline as well. Yeah, I think I’m going to be excited for a good time to come here.
[0:05:06] DC: Excellent. I’m sorry for the little noises here. I have a cat who is obsessed with the podcast microphone, and he keeps trying to get on this podcast, but I don’t think you have anything interesting to say, Brexter. Okay, so you’re a sales coach, we’ve established that. What is the silent killer of sales in a print shop?
[0:05:30] CSM: I think, certainly, consistency is a big challenge I witnessed with the companies that I coach, did not follow a coach properly. There’s no real system in place. They’re a bit reactive rather than proactive. I think inconsistency is a big challenge. And being visible. Certainly, a lot of the companies I work with just now set me in the early days when I’m getting to know them. It’s about building that visibility. It’s about letting people know that they’re there. A lot of companies just sit back and wait for the business to land in their laps and hope that it’s going to come through word of mouth and referrals. It doesn’t always happen. You’ve got to take the bill by the horns and you’ve got to go out there and get it.
Visibility is another one. Then along the lines of what I was speaking about at DSCOOP is they focus too much on selling the products that they offer, rather than the solutions that they bring to the clients. I know you and I have spoken a lot about that in the past as well. Again, what I was talking about at DSCOOP was all about understanding that I call them customer avatars, people call them buying personas. Actually, speaking to the audience in a manner that’s relevant to them and understands their challenges, their pain points, and like I said, just selling that solution ultimately, best customers are the ones that come back time and time again.
Who can refer you to other people that are happy to become brand ambassadors for your business? Yeah, you’ve got to show them a good return in investment, if you want them to come along that journey with you and become one of those customers. Yeah, I think they’re probably a few of the main things that I would say are silent killers in the sales world.
[0:07:10] DC: Where do you fall on the printer as a marketing services provider? Although, I don’t think that that is the best term. I think marketing solutions provider would be a better capture. You’re talking about being visible. If you’re just visible with “buy print from me” and maybe not have ideas, that could also be a silent killer. A lot of printers don’t think that that is their lane. Where do you fall down on that?
[0:07:39] CSM: Certainly, again, something I’ve touched on quite a lot recently is we are more than just printers nowadays, like we have to be thorough. Certainly, when I’m working with the non-coaching clients, I’m trying to educate them and we have to change that persona. We’re not just a print company. We are marketing experts. It’s our job to know what customers need. Because we always assume that the customer knows what they need, and that’s not the case. It’s up to us to show them the products that they should be buying from us and what solutions we deliver and make sure they get a good return on that investment.
Yeah, very much, I think. I would say that’s a big challenge in our industry just now, because not enough current companies have adopted that mindset yet. Hopefully, by having conversations like that, like this, we can change that.
[0:08:30] DC: Yeah. I think customers do know what they need, but they don’t know how to verbalize it correctly, because on the other end of the phone is somebody who’s trying to fit it into something they can sell. When someone calls and says they want a postcard, or they want to mail something to somebody, usually you’re like, “Okay, what’s the size? How many do you want? Is it front and back?” Instead of, well, what are you trying to do with this postcard? When the person says, “I’m trying to get people to come to my event,” then a printer can be collaborative on that situation. But if they’re not asking, what is the purpose of this thing that you’re getting from me? That could be a problem. How do printers make their collaborative prowess known to customers, or potentially people searching and finding their print shop, because it’s the closest to where they want to print?
[0:09:30] CSM: Yeah. I mean, I think certainly you’re spot on with what you’re saying there, and certainly with what I suggest when I’m working with clients is again, they’ve got to understand the business that’s coming to them. They need to understand their avatar. They also, I think, need to be able to demonstrate that they’ve got experience working with similar businesses, so case studies, testimonials, that type of thing. If you can throw results that you’ve managed to get, so again, in your example there where you’re talking about the postcards and mailers, you might be able to say, “Okay, we understand that’s a product you’ve always had, but have you considered this product, or that product? We’ve worked with a similar business to yours, this alternative solution, and actually got a 5X return based on what they would have got with the postcard mailer.”
I think you’ve got to position yourself, but you’ve got to be able to showcase that you’re not just talking nonsense, and actually, you can back it up with real prowess, you know what you’re talking about. You’ve got to understand their business and what they’re trying to achieve, and be able to showcase that.
[0:10:35] DC: Okay, well, let’s just stick with this example for a second, because part of the marketing to people to come to events also includes digital media. Are printers leaving money on the table, not turning those printing pieces into templates for emails and banner ads and all of the other, or again, is that somebody else’s business, not a printer’s?
[0:10:57] CSM: No, I think printers need to take ownership of that as well. I think we live in an omnichannel marketplace, and we need to understand, and again, I think there’s a lack of knowledge across the industry, which again, we can help change. But yeah, you need to be able to understand how you can use the multi-channels to effectively get the clients to where they need to be. There’s very much space for both, and I think if we don’t adopt the two different approaches, you will get left behind.
[SPONSOR MESSAGE]
[0:11:26] DC: Girls Who Print provides women in print and graphic communications with information resources, events, and mentorship to help them navigate their careers and the industry. As the largest independent network of women in print and a nonprofit organization, our global mission to provide resources, skill-building, education, and support for women to lead, inspire, and empower has never been stronger or more accessible. Through our member platform and program, as well as regional groups forming around the world, your access to Girls Who Print is just a click away. Gentlemen, you are most welcome to join us as allies. Get involved and get empowered today. Link in the show notes.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:12:12] DC: I was speaking with Matthew Parker. We actually recorded a podcast this morning. I gave an example where if you have a customer that prints magazines and now they’re printing less magazines, you have the files. Turn it into a digital magazine, and use it to prospect. Here’s a free copy of our magazine, if you like everything that’s in here, or just a piece of it. Give them a tease of it. Or let people have a different subscription, send both, or if they want to only subscribe to the digital, subscribe to the digital. The printer still has skin in both of those games, and there are plenty of companies to work out there that create interactive publications. This is not just a PDF that flips. It becomes more valuable to the sponsors, to the writers.
You can put different advertisements in that digital publication that you have in your printed publication, which means that there’s a secondary opportunity to sell more advertising space for that customer. These are big conversations, but I don’t come across many printers who have the time to investigate all of the other things they could be doing with the assets they already have. I want to turn that situation into my next question, which is, can you walk us through a recent sales challenge where a printer was stuck, and what you did to help them break the pattern? You don’t have to mention that by name, by the way.
[0:13:46] CSM: Yeah, no, it’s okay. Again, a few examples here. The one that comes to mind, I think this answers your question, one customer in particular I was working with in the early stages, so this was maybe not too recent, maybe a bit two years ago. It’s one of the obvious ones that always jumps out at this kind of question. Like many of us, we get so focused and caught up in the day-to-day, and we tend to focus on the bigger clients. We tend to focus on the ones who are going to –
[0:14:16] DC: Paying the bills.
[0:14:16] CSM: – calling up and emailing. Yeah, paying the bills. But this particular client was very much of the opinion, well, they know where we are, if they need anything else. We’re focused on those top 50. I challenged them on it. Actually, we brought someone in to basically work with their clients using existing databases. Let’s say, there was another. I think there was 550 customers who were receiving the generic emails that were going out, but they were only being treated as a reactive customer, if you like.
We put someone in to call them, just a general courtesy call, just touching base, but not [inaudible 0:14:51], or it’s coming up for that seasonal order or whatever it was, just a general, is there anything we can do? Do you know that customer in the back of that one phone call, around all 550 customers, increased their turnover by 35% in the next few months?
[0:15:10] DC: You said 35%? 35?
[0:15:13] CSM: 35% over the next few months. That money was being left on the table for various reasons, and that’s the one thing I witnessed. A lot of time, people just don’t have the time to do it, they don’t have the resources, they don’t enjoy doing the calling. Not everyone’s comfortable with it, but you’re leaving money on the table. I highly suggest, every customer who’s ever ordered from you needs to hear from you once every few months. Break it down into daily calls. It might be you only have to make maybe five calls a day or something, but every customer who’s ever ordered from you at least once every few months by telephone.
[0:15:49] DC: Is that including any orders that might come through e-commerce?
[0:15:53] CSM: Yeah, absolutely. That would be my stance on it. Again, that’s not to me, but I think if someone’s ordered from you, they should be receiving a telephone call.
[0:16:02] DC: I mentioned in the introduction that you are the creator of Print Mastermind. What is that, and why did you create it?
[0:16:10] CSM: Yeah. five years ago, and just passed five years now, I embarked on this world of business coaching for the print industry. Having been a print business owner in the past myself, I really wish there was more support available to me back in the day. I came into this industry, I was a salesperson that didn’t know anything about running a print business, and I went the hard way. I guess I wanted to make sure that others didn’t have to go through the same challenges I did, and I could stop people from making some of the mistakes that I did along the way.
With the business coaching, and again, because it’s such a niche service that I offer for the industry, capacity filled up pretty quickly, which I’m very grateful and fortunate for. But I still wanted to help more people. I started researching online training platforms and membership communities. Probably done a good two years training on just understanding how to build that successfully. Then about 18 months ago, we launched Print Mastermind, which is an online training platform and community for – it started out as being for the business owners, and it’s since became for everyone involved in the industry, and we teach everything in there from sales, marketing, leadership, management, systems and processes, finance. Everything’s related to the industry.
Initially, it was more of a, okay, people that I’m not coaching will filter into the air, and vice versa. People will drop into the one-to-one coaching as and when slots become available. What I’ve found is, I mean, people come for the training, people want to learn new things, but they stay for the community. We’ve got a really strong community in there. Like-minded people from within the industry who are happy to help and share ideas. It’s moderated by myself to make sure that it’s a safe space as well. But we’ve got something quite unique and quite special going on in there, and my job going forward is to build and grow that and add as much value as I possibly can, and make sure we get the right people coming into it as well. Yeah, I’m really excited about what Print Mastermind can become.
[0:18:21] DC: What problem do most members come to Print Mastermind thinking they have, and then what’s the real issue once they discover, once they get in there?
[0:18:32] CSM: Yeah. Okay, there’s probably a few. I mean, again, a lot of people come in thinking, we’ve touched on this a little bit already. We need more sales, we need people who are doing bigger jobs. A lot of the time, it’s not new leads we’re looking for, but positioning within the current customer base, and the guy I’ve just spoken about is a prime example, because so much of the time, the growth that a print company is looking for is sitting within the client base they already have. They’re so desperate to go out and get, find new leads that they forget that and they neglect that. That’s usually a big realization once I’ve had a chance to sit with them.
A lot of the time, they’re coming looking for a marketing strategy because they don’t know where to start. We’ve created a blueprint for them to be able to follow. A lot of people are stuck in that paradigm, where they feel they need to be bringing in more staff, but they can’t justify the costs. Quite often, it’s just a lack of good systems. I work with them to try and create better systems for them within their business, so they can work a bit smarter, streamline workflows, implement automation, that type of thing.
Again, a lot of the time if they’re having – I think probably the biggest surprise for me as I’ve come into this role, I didn’t expect so much of the challenges businesses faced to be staff-related, to be HR. That’s become a very –
[0:19:57] DC: Sure, they were like problem employees, so they can’t get employees, or both.
[0:20:03] CSM: Most of the challenges with having staff, just the challenges of managing people. Managing relationships is one of the toughest things to do. But a lot of the time, it comes down to their leadership style and communication. Quite often, it’s a case of function in those points. I mean, they might still have staff issues at the end of that, but certainly, there’s a client I’m working with just now, and that’s very much, there’s a bit of a divide between the leadership team and the rest of the company, and we’re working to try and improve, so the staff understand the importance of the role they play, that they’ve got a mechanism to give feedback and make sure their voice is being heard. And understand the overall remit of the business as well, because quite often, that’s not communicated well at all. Yeah, there’s numerous things. We could probably spend a bit five or six episodes in this one topic alone. But yeah, that gives a taste, I guess, of the thing that comes up.
[0:20:56] DC: How much do the employee issues stem from there being a disconnect in the company culture, or it’s not clearly defined?
[0:21:07] CSM: I would say, a large part of it, for sure. A large part of it. I mean, even this morning I was coaching a client, and we were working through creating a new mission statement for the business, because even the business owner wasn’t entirely clear about where the business was going, and the values that they wanted to be putting out to the customers. Yeah, sometimes you’re going to start at the top and what you’re really doing. But yeah, I would say, it’s definitely more common than you would think.
[0:21:35] DC: Yeah. There’s not a great answer for how do you get everybody aligned with your culture, other than to make sure that new people coming in are fully aware of it, even if that’s how you’re getting rid of the old culture and bringing in a new culture, and maybe having the people who are not on the culture train to get onboard, because there’s more people who want to present the mission of the print shop in a different way, which is not we have the best quality, the best service, and the best pricing, but that we also support the community this way.
[0:22:12] CSM: Yeah. I’m really glad you brought that up. I’m a licensed practitioner of a thing called LEP, which is the Leading Energy Profile. You’ve heard of psychometric things, like [inaudible 0:22:22] and things in the past. It’s an alternative to that. It was created by the people I’d done my coaching certification with. What I like about it is it gives more actionable advice. Just what you were talking about there, and another situation just now with another company, and we’ve got two production managers in the business, who both mean well, who both ultimately want the best for the business, but they’re at loggerheads just now, they’re cracking in the middle.
What we’ve done is we’ve put them through the LEP. As I can attest, you go through to help them understand why they think the way they think. Also, again, in the workplace, this is really powerful, because if you’ve got two personalities clashing, it’s not that there’s any badness intended in there. It’s just, you might think about one way to do something to get the same result as someone else. We’re looking at ways to improve communication and help staff members understand why that person thinks the way they think, and make sure that things they accept, it works both ways in trying to find that. Have the conversations. Find that in a common middle ground. It’s really, really powerful stuff.
I think when you highlight that to someone, and the test that I do, it gives them takeaway sheets and things that they can go away and understand not just themselves better, but understand how they can communicate with different personalities in the workplace as well. The transformations I’ve seen have been phenomenal.
[SPONSOR MESSAGE]
[0:23:55] DC: Print Media Centr provides printspiration and resources to our vast network of global print and marketing professionals. Whether you are an industry supplier, print service provider, print customer, or consultant, we have you covered by providing resources and strategies that enable business marketing and creative success, reporting from global events, these podcasts, Project Peacock TV, and an array of community lifting initiatives. We also work with OEMs, suppliers, industry organizations, and event producers, helping you connect and engage with our vast audience and achieve success with your sales, marketing, and conference endeavors. Visit Print Media Centr and connect with the Printerverse. Links in the show notes. Print long and prosper.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:24:51] DC: If you ever need any input on that, an advertising agency is a life lesson in exactly what you just said, especially when the presidents, or the co-owners of the agency, one comes from the account side and one comes from the creative side. It’s not even a mommy-daddy situation. It’s Venus and Mars. It’s like the account president wants everything about numbers, and the creative president wants everything about awards. Damn the budget. Spend it all. Yeah, how do you survive in something like that? You look out for yourself and cover your ass at all points, and make the account people as responsible to the account guy. It’s much easier.
You have a very interesting vantage point. You have a community of business people with similar problems that you’re helping them to overcome more obstacles, whatever it might be. What are a few things that a print business needs to stop doing before it can move forward?
[0:25:59] CSM: Yeah. Again, I’ve touched on this a little bit at the start as well, but we’re trying to service everyone. I think if you want to be successful, consider niching down, making sure that your business stands out, whether it be niching down on certain products, or niching down on particular sectors that you want to target. I think, stop trying to be everything to everyone. I think that would be my first one.
Another thing that comes to mind is we see a lot of print companies comparing themselves to other people, comparing themselves to other print companies. It’s not a level playing field. On one hand you could have – and I’ve heard that like, I’ve heard it just this week, like a small five-person operation comparing themselves to a Vista print. Now, it’s not even comparable. Again, different start. They’ve been on the go for so many years. They’ve got mass volumes coming in. You’re never going to be able to compare yourself to a company of that size.
On the flip side of that, I’ve got a situation with a client just now, where there’s a print company down the road, who are just basically in a race to the bottom to compete and basically, try and buy the business [inaudible 0:27:10]. That’s not going to help you though, because if you’re trying to keep up with them, you’re going to end up at the bottom as well. I’m trying to work with them to build up their value proposition. I mean, ultimately, you want to get to a point where customers are coming to you because you’re the expert. Let’s be honest, the best customers are the ones that don’t even ask you for the price, because they obviously value you enough to give you the business, no matter what the price is. I know that’s very far between, but a nice one to do come along.
I think, stop tolerating unprofitable work. Again, there’s so many companies out there, the low margins. I had another situation with a client this week. They’ve not changed their prices in about three or four years. I’ve been trying to push them to tweak the elasticity of the price model a little bit just to see where they start to get some pushback. We’ve put the prices up by 12 and a half percent. To be fair, they were too cheap anyway. The impact that’s had in the overall margin and that had zero pushback from clients, because they’re good at what they do, and they can justify that value. They were just scared to do it at the prospect of losing business.
My message to anyone would be to stop tolerating unprofitable work, because again, typically the customers that you’re not making a high enough margin on are the ones who probably give you the biggest pain in the ass. They’re the ones who are always looking for a little bit extra, and they drain every little bit of energy, if it obvious to you. That would probably be my top three. If I can squeeze another one, is actually stop ignoring data.
My point, here to see this all the time, but if you don’t measure something, you can’t manage it properly. We’re not using the data in our businesses enough to an advantage. Tracking just basic KPIs. I’ve got a huge list. If anyone wants to reach out, I’m happy to share. Yeah, tracking the right KPIs in the business to measure can have a factor for what you’re doing is. Quite often, it’s not massive. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it’s just a little marginal gain here and a little marginal gain there. It has a big impact in the overall bottom line of the business. It is four. You asked for three, I gave you four.
[0:29:32] DC: That’s okay. I said a few. Three is a few, but you gave us a bonus one. All right, I’ve got some comments on that.
[0:29:38] CSM: Okay.
[0:29:40] DC: I call it data for decisions. It’s not just decisions about, oh, I see that we’re ordering a lot of this paper. Maybe we could get a bulk deal if we’re going to keep on – we have a lot of customers requesting this paper, or works the best for our press, whatever they figure out there. There’s also data for decisions that you can use with your customers to help them. For example, if you have a florist as a customer and you look back and you see for the last seven years, they’ve ordered print around flower holidays. But they’re not ordering window graphics and they’re not ordering floor graphics and they’re not – they’re sending one postcard to their mailing list and they’re not – here in America, we have something called every door direct mail, which means that you can choose the zip codes around your business and it will go to every house. It goes as resident of this house. It’s not a personalized thing, so everybody gets the same thing.
The point is that you can go back to those people and say, “Hi. We’ve made a subscription program for you, where you sign once on the dotted line all year for the whole entire year, and we’ve gotten you some great pricing because we already know the materials we’re going to need. We could order them now if we wanted to, in case anything’s going to become more expensive, because of supply chain issues, or anything else like that. And we’re going to give you what you’ve always asked us for. Now, we’re going to give you more stuff that you don’t need, so the window thing. We’ll come and we’ll switch them for you.”
Or you give them a branded bottle of glass cleaner and a branded squeegee, so they always know to call you when it’s time to change that banner, or they’re always thinking about you for other things. You turn that data into something that could benefit the customer, that makes them feel like, “Huh, you’re really thinking about me. Thank you.” The only thing I have to do is tell you the discount on the roses from Mother’s Day and the dates of the sale. That’s all I have to do? Yup. You can email that, or you could put it in the portal. If you don’t have art, it’s flowers. You can get generic art of a rose. You can get stock art of that. Or talking about being a marketing service people, send somebody over there with an iPhone, or by the way, my Android has a better camera than the iPhone. Send somebody over there with the phone to take a few pictures of the shop. What is the big deal, to do that to help somebody? You now have ChatGPT, because more than likely, that florist cannot write a copy for their postcard. I mean, think of all the headaches and worrying, and “How am I going to get this done? I’m not a photographer. Oh, no, I forgot to order something for Mother’s Day, because I’ve been so busy trying to order flowers.” There is a way to use that data, not just to improve the efficiencies of your print shop. Do you want to comment on that before I make my other comments?
[0:32:57] CSM: Listen, I completely agree. It’s something I’ve been trying to hammer home to our community for quite some time. You just came up with a perfect example there like, trying to find a good, recurring revenue. There’s not enough printers out there.
[0:33:13] DC: Sporting goods stores, clothing stores, shoe stores, they have seasonal sales.
[0:33:18] CSM: If you get this nailed and you’ve got a subscription, hundreds of clients are coming in. You’re starting the month off with $20, $30, $40,000 guaranteed coming in.
[0:33:30] DC: For the year.
[0:33:31] CSM: Yeah.
[0:33:32] DC: Then if it all goes well, you do it next year. By the way, customer convenience, you can raise those prices every year. Sorry, customer convenience will never outweigh. I always say, there is no price of peace of mind. I was a print customer for 25 years. Trust me when I say, if those business owners are like, “Oh, I don’t need to worry about any. Mother’s Day is coming. No, I don’t have to worry about it. I’m going to have everything and everyone’s going to know when my sales starts.”
[0:34:05] CSM: Yeah. The other thing you can do now as well is you can have a closed portal, where those florists, you have one for florists, they log in, they’ve got all this seasonal stuff put out. You’ve got the design templates. They can use your images. They can use the run. You can have any I bought built in there to write the content. If they don’t want what you’ve got, it can be predetermined. Like, it could be so seamless, so much automation in there.
[0:34:29] DC: Totally. They can have options. Bring your own, or it’s this price. Have us created, it’s this price. The point is that if the person is choosing it, they’re not being sold to. They’re presented with options and they’re picking the ones that they think is best for them. If it’s not best for them, then that’s where your trusted advisor calls you and says, listen, I see that you’re asking for a stand-up banner. Let me just tell you, they’re not really weatherproof and where you live, it’s going to have to be weighted down and all this other stuff. We suggest a sandwich board instead. I don’t know if you call them sandwich boards there. They’re like the wooden triangle things.
Or some other way of helping them achieve the same goal without just being like, “Well, that’s what you asked for. I’m sorry, it blew away. You should have known that.” Or, they order a sign and you call them and you say, “Hey, do you have the permits for this? Because you’re asking for electricity.” Or, we need to get up there. I know that the installers do a lot of that, but I’m just saying if they don’t even know the questions to ask, that’s when a phone call is important.
The last thing I want to say is that the first thing you said was that you can’t be everything to everybody. I agree with that. If you’re trying to be everything to everybody in the same messaging. But I don’t agree if you are segmenting your messaging to attract as many verticals as you can serve by being the expert in that vertical. That could be as simple as the homepage saying, “If you’re in real estate, click here. If you own a retail store, click here. If you’re an association, click here. Then, when they click in there, they find relevant content, relevant marketing stats, a little glossary that tells them what a varnish is, and why if you add a varnish to something, it might get more response rates. Why personalization will blow your response rates from a stagnant piece out of the water. And data for decisions, not just data for decisions, but visuals, too.
I never understand why there are a lot of printers websites out there that tell you all the things you can do. Fantastic. I happen to know what most of those things are. I don’t know what all of them are sometimes, and there’s no explanation. There’s no picture that says, “Here’s your work without a spot varnish. Here’s your work with a spot varnish.” Yes, those are a little difficult to photograph, but you can make a video or whatever you need to do. You don’t have to be Francis Ford Coppola to make this video. Shoot it on your phone. It’s perfectly fine for a little snippet. Share it on social media.
I’m a firm believer in the “did you know” email series. That is because, as I mentioned before, I was a print buyer in advertising agencies for more than 25 years. I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that I’ve thought that the printers I work with, that’s the only thing they did. I don’t know why. Still to this day, I cannot answer that question. I do not have any reason for it other than that’s where I get the banner from. That’s where I get the packaging from. That’s where I get. Sending me something like, “Did you know we also do wide format?” I’d be like, what? I can send everything to one place and not manage two jobs, especially when they’re connected to each other and they have to match, I mean, everything?
I think you can be everything to everybody, but not in a spray-and-pray way. If you can’t speak authentically to those verticals, then I agree with you, you should be nowhere near it, because once you mess it up, they’re not going to trust you with anything else.
[0:38:38] CSM: Yeah. What I was going to say there was, I like what you say about the digital, because so I’ve got one client I’m working with just now. Typically, obviously, there’s more than this, but we’ll typically look at one particular system. She’s gone after one particular sector just now. We’ve identified, well, can I build out the avatar, we’ve identified what the top 10, top 15 products are? What she’s done is she’s basically created an email sequence that goes out, educating them, like you’re talking about there with the digital. Because how many times have you spoken to a printer and they’ve lost the client, they’ve lost their job because the client didn’t know that they’d done that particular thing? I hear it all the time.
[0:39:19] DC: Every day.
[0:39:19] CSM: All the time. We’re not educating them well enough. That’s a problem. Yeah, a big advocate for the socials, emails, phone calls. One of the things that I’m going to teach my guys when we’re – if they’re on the phones and they’re doing some prospecting, or trying to upsell, cross sell, have a list, have a relevant list that’s suitable to that particular customer you’re speaking to and make sure that they understand if you get the opportunity to drop in the other products, “Did you know we’ve done this? Did you know we’ve introduced this new product to our range?”
We don’t do it well enough. Again, you’ve got to be armed with the tools to be able to do that as well. Yes, I think when I was going with the being everything to everyone, yes, certainly on the messaging, but unless you’re a big company, the chances are, I guess, you’re not going to be able to understand every vertical to the full extent. I mean, I’ve niched down in this business. There’s millions of other print coaches, there are business coaches out there, but there’s a lot fewer who focus in on the industry. For me, it’s an easier sale.
I guess I’ve tried to go with that same approach with the clients I work with as well. Yeah, obviously, if you’ve got the manpower or the knowledge to be able to service all those and by all means, but again, most companies don’t have the manpower to be able to cater for that.
[0:40:35] DC: Yeah. I don’t know about that, because it’s the same things, just being packaged to different people. Now, I agree with you. If you don’t have compliance people there who can be compliant with whatever regulations there are about packaging with food in it, or regulations about protecting data, or securities stuff, I mean, like investment things that have regulations and they want to make sure their stuff is compliant, and you need super-secret security. Yeah, you should not have that on your website, unless you’re an expert on that, including being an expert on zoning issues and hanging installation issues, if you say you can hang signs.
I wouldn’t go after a lot of people that you can install, unless you can also be an expert about regulations and permits, anything else that people might need to know, including some places now in the United States, they don’t like that the lights are so bright on signs. They’re trying to make laws that create a universal brightness of signs, or something like that. Well, what if the person doesn’t know when they hang up that sign? All of a sudden, they have a problem.
Otherwise, what are you making? You’re making postcards and promotional materials and shirts and everything that a regular print shop would be. You’re just putting it as, “Hi. If you’re a realtor, come in here.” It’s the same damn list as what’s in for the florist, it’s just a different – maybe you’re not putting the lawn signs for the florist, because they don’t need it. You’re not putting the window graphics for the realtor, because they’re not really changing them out that often. Although, they do put houses on their outside, but they usually just put flyers that they printed out, because it changes so often.
Again, you can have a program for that. Like, if you give us the information by Monday morning, by Monday, mid-afternoon, we’ll drive it over to you, and there it is for the week, because it really is just color copies and they don’t need a lot of things. I don’t know. I think I wouldn’t close any doors now, except for, I agree with you. If you can’t deal with regulations or anything like that, stay the hell out of it.
[0:42:56] CSM: Absolutely.
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[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:43:34] DC: Okay. Last question is more of a discussion topic. Google is reportedly laying off sales and marketing teams, including cuts to the global business unit that is focused on sales and partnerships. It has been reported that it is because digital ad sales are down, which should not be surprising to anybody, but also, because Google, who has skin in this game, believes that AI can do those jobs more effectively.
I did a little research and I found out that Amazon has a skill called Wine Finder for ALEXA. I can’t say it, because it’s next to me. It’s described as your very own personal wine pairing expert. I’m using that example, because I think in a lot of ways, the purchase of print could be compared to buying wine. You need some, either the wine finder needs basic information, or the printer needs some basic information, purpose, preferences, and price, right? That said, is sales still a viable long-term career path for those starting in the printing industry?
[0:45:01] CSM: Oh, good question. I would say, yes for a couple of reasons. I mean, listen, the industry has changed so much since I came into it. Back in the old days, clients had time. We used to swing by the local shop in the morning and pick up five or six boxes of biscuits. We’ll be going to fit in the clients, and they would have time to spend with us and we’d have a couple and it was all about relationships. Which it still is, to be fair. I think that’s why I don’t think AI will ever replace those relationships. I’ve always been a big relational person.
What I would say, I throw a caveat into that and say that the salesperson – salespeople will be left behind if they don’t start adopting to using AI. I think the salespeople who use AI to their benefit will succeed. The ones who don’t, and I think to be honest, they need to start through, will be left behind.
I listened to a really interesting podcast, just last week in fact. I was at a nine-hour drive in the car, so I had quite a few podcasts to listen to. Can’t remember the chap’s name. He’s known as the godfather of AI. He was heavily involved in ChatGPT in the early stages, but I listened quite intently to this podcast. He was talking about a well-known brand here in the UK. In fact, with a big poll center. They have gone in the last 18 months, I think they’ve gone from 7,500 customer service agents now down to 4,500. I think by the end of this year, that will be below 3,000.
Listen, the landscape’s changing. It’s definitely evolving. I’m still a big believer, certainly in our industry, that relationships play a huge part. I’m a big networker as you know. But you have to start adapting to the changing landscape. You have to work smarter, and AI can help us do that. Yeah, if you don’t, you’re going to get left behind and that’s probably where the short term to your path kicks in. What do you think about that?
[0:47:14] DC: I actually agree with what you just said, that there are certain instances where people still want to talk to humans, certainly in the sign industry. I had no idea how that’s really required, because a sign is quite different than a postcard, or something like that. I agree with you. There are going to be less people doing sales and marketing jobs, but they still need humans there, even if it’s to prompt the AI correctly to do the prospecting, to write the copy about your new technology, to do all that. You still need humans to participate in that process. I agree with you, that sales in the printing industry will be a long-term viable career for those who can use AI to sell print and to market their print shops.
The era of let’s just call our list and let’s send emails and all of that, I believe, is seeing its way out the door. Okay, so we actually agreed on that one. I think that’s a good measurement of sanity. Yeah.
[0:48:29] CSM: We’re a bit under one hour in and I’ve only disagreed slightly on one thing. I think we’ve done very well.
[0:48:34] DC: I don’t think we disagree. I think I just add on to what you’re saying, or for a different perspective on it.
[0:48:40] CSM: Yeah, absolutely.
[0:48:40] DC: I don’t think there’s any right or wrongs. Certainly, I’m not a print business owner and I never have been. I would err to anybody who’s owned a print business than to listen to me, but I’m on the receiving end of all of it. That’s where I like to come from. I thought this was a really interesting conversation. I really do appreciate the opportunity when we have to speak together, because you do make me think about a lot of things. I respect where you’re coming from.
As I said, as a print business owner, I always find anybody who’s serving the industry in any way, or printers in any way, if they were a printer in some capacity, and I don’t care if that’s an organization head, or a salesperson, or somebody who’s selling presses now. I always gravitate to those people because they have real-life experience of what it’s like to run a print shop. Thank you for sharing that experience with everybody. Any final words for the audience? I’ll put links for everything to connect with you in the show notes.
[0:49:48] CSM: Yeah. No, I just want to thank you for the opportunity. We’re talking about trying to make this happen, and life has been busy for both of us, so I’m really grateful for the chance to come on and talk to you. Again, as always, it’s a pleasure and obviously, to speak to your audience. I hope they take something away from the discussion that we had today. Thank you.
[0:50:07] DC: Yeah. Definitely, when we share this podcast, let us know your thoughts on the viability of print sales for the long term. Until next time, print long and prosper.
[END OF EPISODE]
[0:50:20] DC: Thanks for listening to Podcasts From the Printerverse. Please subscribe, click some stars and leave us a review. Connect with us through printmediacentr.com. We’d love to hear your feedback on our shows and topics that are of interest for future broadcast. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Print long and prosper.
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