By Michael Lang

I am frustrated by the printing industry at present.

Let me tell you why, perhaps you can relate this to your experiences and maybe this also happens inside your company ( I hope not and yet the law of average suggest it does).

I have engaged with 3 print companies to find out the pricing and quality of wallpapering a 9m inside office wall.

The first company I engaged with was interested in sales training so I asked the sales manager for a quote – which he then asked a sales person to take care of. No sales person engaged with me. I followed up the sales manager. I then received a quote and had several technical people engage with me. I ordered and they failed to deliver, so I cancelled.

I reached out to a print contact on linkedin, she passed me to her sales team – no reply. I chased her up – received a quote. They said they were doing it tough through Covid, I offered sales training as a contra deal – they said they’d asked the sales people if they would like to receive sales training instead of the commission for the print job – they said no – go figure. Great leadership here!

The linkedin contact provided another print company they maybe interested in the contra deal – sales person engaged, sent quote and now 2 weeks later have not had a follow up.

The pattern in all 3 print companies is no sales person engages me on the phone and no follow up. I found out the one print company has a 5% win/loss ratio – imagine if they called an enquiry straight away to engage, build rapport and seek to understand more before providing a quote (if one at all)! I don’t know about you but I find it hard to part with my money to any organisation that does not display an interest in me or a desire to take my money.

FOLLOW UP – is it that hard. Guess what, your people are possible guilty of not following up enough. Here at SG Partners we continue to engage up to 9 times before we let go.

Why – because so many times people, like yourselves, have thanked us for following up because they got side tracked.

So imagine how much business could be slipping through your fingers because your people do not follow up enough.

Statistics show that on average sales people give up after 3 attempts and yet prospects decide to engage after 5 - 7 attempts.

After all - this one tweak could make a huge difference in your revenue stream.

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