Mastering Print Industry Sales: Strategies for Success & Effective Management

welcome everybody to our mastering print industry sales and management webinar my name is Morgan DiGiorgio I’m the senior

vice president sales and marketing for Direct Mail 2.0 so a little bit about us and what we do at Direct Mail 2.0 it is

our sole purpose to make Direct Mail the most effective form of marketing by integrating it with Cutting Edge

Technologies so we have a 14 technology marketing automation platform that integrates into direct mail to make it

more effective doing a couple of different things one we want to seamlessly track the mail either showing

attribution or tracking deliverability but we also layer on an omni Channel marketing approach so that

we can really harness the powerful impact that’s driven by mail and we utilize an employee the power of

repetition to repeat that exact same message over and over again we also have a real-time reporting dashboard so our

resellers or printers and msps they can manage all their clients Direct Mail campaigns and then their clients can log

into our dashboard in real time and they can see the results of all their direct mail campaigns and really have access to all that data so that they continuously

can improve their direct mail campaigns so I’m really excited for today’s webinar I’ve

got a stellar panel today I’m going to just individually introduce each one of them and have them tell a little bit

about themselves and their organization so our first panelist today I have is Rob Bradshaw he’s the cro at Postcard

media Rob tell us a little bit about yourself hello everyone uh my intro will

not be as robust as Morgan unfortunately but um I I I’m the chief Reven off

postcard Mania uh post Mania started in

1998 um I think I started in 2003 so I’ve been here a little over 20 years um

I run a sales marketing team of about 90 individuals uh in my area uh companywide

we’re about 365 staff um we pretty much do everything in house um we have a few

different facilities right here um and our main audience is small to mediumsized business owners um and uh

you know we generate all of our leads for our team and um you know we use Direct Mail as our number one source and

then we add in all the digital online components to go along with it so fantastic thanks Rob uh and our next

panelist is Kelly MOSI the owner principal at success in print yeah so I am uh just recently

celebrated my 30th anniversary in the printing industry which continues to be very difficult for me to admit uh but

I’ve worked in print shops I’ve been a sales manager sold equipment and for the last 14 years I’ve been doing

independent Consulting bill and I work together on a lot of different things uh but primarily I’m focusing on coaching

and mentoring and I am all in on sales enablement this year so that’s all your pretty much GNA hear from me so I’m just

really excited to be here thank you Morgan and thank you everybody for having me yeah we’re excited to have you

KY thank you all right and then we have Bill farguson Chief content creator at

sales vault.pro thank you Morgan I am a sales trainer

for the graphic arts and I include print signage promo labels packaging uh I’m a

columnist for printing Impressions magazine also a blogger done that for a long long time I come from the print

industry I have sold everything that I talk about I’ve sold print and I’ve sold labels and you name it signage

everything else um during covid when everything shut down I Rak all of my

training cont together my wife Allison is a web designer she put a website

around it we call it the sales Vault and this is a combination of of uh

searchable content and about 15 to 18 live Zoom workshops each month uh one of

which is done by Miss Kelly maloi and we are working with sales reps

and selling owners who want to get from here to there want to get to the next level so we CH what to do and we have a

hell have a lot of fun along the way good fantastic thanks Bill um and last

but not least we have guy Fano he’s a sales manager at mailing Systems Inc tell us a little bit about yourself and

your organization guy hey Morgan thank you for the opportunity um I appreciate

uh this great venue and looking forward to sharing with everyone I’m I’m not sitting on the Golden Gate Bridge but

since uh I’m the one on the west coast I think you guys are all back East I figured it was appropriate to put the

Golden Gate Bridge in there um MSI is located in Sacramento California about 90 miles from San Francisco 90 miles

from Tahoe or Napa so if you guys want to have some fun out in the west coast this is the place to come uh MSI has

been in business for about 30 years we have approximately 40 employees under roof at this facility we are part of the

Delta print group Delta print group is a um accumulation of eight different

companies that all work under that name um and they have another facility so we

have two facilities about 15 miles apart um both of them about 100,000 square

feet um depending on the Time of the Season um we do a lot of political work so we ramp up with a lot of employees

then so right now we’re probably sitting about 400 employees and we have 15 sales reps um on staff right now and we do

everything because of the nature of how we’ve merg multiple companies and and Morgan would know this is we have

anything and everything as it comes to presses everything from you know long run open webs to Short Run digital and

everything in between so we’re a very very dis Diversified Print and Mail company I’d say yeah that’s an

understatement I’ve seen the facility so strong performance over there guy for

sure well I mean as as you can hear collectively from coast to coast we have

a wealth of knowledge uh with our panelist today so uh I know that I personally am looking forward to all the

insights that they’re going to share with us in our audience today so um you know the first question I want to pose

uh you know historically there’s been a proverbial tug OFW between direct mail

and digital I mean here at Direct Mail 2.0 of course we know who the real hero is right and that’s direct mail and

we’ve built an entire business around capitalizing on the direct mail marketing channel and and utilizing

digital to improve that and you know the truth of the matter is is that it really shouldn’t be One Channel versus the

other right in today’s Uh current environment we really should be utilizing the perfect mix of both but

with price challenges and um you know our audience being uneducated maybe on

the value of print I think that it can be very challenging in in a digital world today so the first question I

posed to our panelists is how should a sales rep effectively communicate the value proposition of print services in

an increasingly digital world so um I don’t know rob you want to kick

us off sure yeah I mean Direct Mail you know it it is the conversation starter

you know uh digital does complement it very well you know digital is an easier way out it’s a little bit cheaper it’s a

little bit faster you know Direct Mail has been around for a long time you know we have a a pretty robust marketing

Budget on our side and we still and we track everything we’re very analytical

on everything we do and the Lion Share of our budget still goes to direct mail every single week every single month

every single year and I could I could go over four or five instances where we had

a team our marketing team somebody within that marketing team approach us and say hey we need to move more money

to digital and every single time we’ve done that our stats our Revenue has

dropped without a doubt so we we will just will not do that now it’s it’s a

it’s it is they’re both important and like you said Morgan they do complement each other very well um so you do have

to do both of them but Direct Mail starts a conversation a lot better in in my mind

and and proven stats-wise for us than digital uh you know ads alone sure yeah

and that’s one thing that I have so much respect for with with postcard media I you know I hate to say this but I work

with hundreds of printers all over the country and you would be surprised how many of them do not use direct mail for

marketing and it’s like yeah and it’s like Practice What You Preach right utilize it’s an expens

it’s an expensive Direct Mail is way more when you’re comparing it to digital ads it’s it’s the you know the price is

there you know but if you want to stand out and you want to take market share you’ll do it right and I mean the proof

is in the statistical data that you’ve accumulated I mean obviously you’re showing that you’re getting the ROI and

when you drop it it has an adverse effect on your leads into your organization so I think that speaks for

itself um what about you guy so I I think the conversation isn’t A or B I

think Direct Mail is now digital I mean meaning that you have to have some component of direct mail and digital

when they’re going out together I I think the conversation is very straightforward everyone I don’t think

anyone can deny the fact that when you pair the two together you’re going to get better performance from your direct

mail um and that’s really what we try and do is start the conversation and let

them know we’re not here to compete with your digital we’re here to enhance it we believe all marketing works together and

specifically when you pair digital with Direct Mail even if it’s something simple like informed delivery it you’re

going to see a higher impression rate it’s it’s not a question if um and I think the other thing that’s that we’re

seeing today in our Market is um the fact that it’s a political uh campaign

year you know the traditional spaces like TV and radio are getting more expensive right Google is getting more

crowded lots of privacy going on it’s it’s pushing people towards direct mail

and our job is to help them you know make that that transition easy and specifically ask them and be bold and

say hey we think it’s in your best interest to take some of your traditional marketing TV radio and put

it towards a direct mail digital enhancement absolutely I mean even before the the political season began

the cost of all marketing was going up and the results were were becoming less and less you know with all digital it’s

it’s just becoming a saturated space and you know there’s a lot of real estate in

the mailbox right so if you want to make an impression you definitely need to inject that offline piece into your

marketing strategy so absolutely um Bill what about you how should a sales rep effectively

communicate the value proposition of print services in an increasingly digital world I think it’s it’s the job

of the sales rep to educate you know there was a story two three years ago where Nordstrom decided hey let’s stop

mailing to our nordis they’re they’re remember that yeah one of my favorite

use cases oh it was fantastic and they had a disastrous quarter and the uh

president of the company came out and said it’s because we stopped printing shortly after that J Jill did the exact

same thing had the exact same results but you got to educate this is I just

wrote a Blog about this Morgan my daughter meline who’s 28 she’s a business coach or professional coach

over in in uh London and she had she had to go to a conference so she had some business cards made up at the last

second one of the options was do you want a velvety paper she said sure it’s

only four bucks so she would hand someone a card they would run their hand across it and go oh I really like this

and she said what’s fascinating she first told me the story 10 days ago when she for got first got back she said

people would take it and she’d say ah this makes me feel really calm and she said what better what better impression

right well so yesterday I’m talking to her she said 100% of the people that

took her business card got on her calendar for an appointment a 100% hit rate because of

the paper so that kind of story sells print it’s a heck of a proposition for

tacti and sensory for sure that’s a great story um thanks Bill and Kelly

what about you I I I think to keep it incredibly simple what I always say to my clients

is this is the conversation you get seven pieces of mail in your mailbox and you get

hundreds of emails a day where do you want your message where where do you think your message is going to be seen

more clearly in that mailbox with seven pieces or the email so to me I you know

I continue to repeat over and over again print is a crucial part of the marketing supply chain nobody does business today

without doing some sort of printing and to Bill’s point it’s our job to educate people about all of the resources that

they have available to them all the ways that they can use print to be more effective and that that story that bill

told I think is really going to be informative for us about the younger Generations because they are spending so

much time on screens all day long on their computers all day long on their devices and kids are now getting really

interested in records again right they’re getting interested in things and to them it’s like retro but um again I

just again print is a crucial part of the marketing supply chain we all just have to keep shouting it from the rooftops yeah I agree we just need more

good PR for direct mail and you just have to educate them and really get them thinking and enter and engage in that

consultative sales process where you start asking them questions like hey uh do you open every single email that

comes into your mailbox uh no I don’t I never receed that impression or you know how many digital ads do you see on a

daily basis how many of them do you remember right just educating them and and really poking holes and whatever it

is they’re thinking about digital being more effective so um all right so our next question uh

what do you each of you encounter as the primary objection when selling a new customer print and how should a sales

rep overcome it Bill let’s go ahead and start with you simple came right to mind

uh which is we already have a vendor oh and number one objection I

hear and I think the way to get around that is to say is to basically say to

someone who says that to you when’s the last time they brought you a new idea so

the way I would phrase it is by saying it sounds like you’ve got a good vendor and that’s terrific they’re a good

vendor if they are delivering a quality product at a fair price on time but

they’re a great vendor when they constantly challenge the status quo they

bring you new ideas as if they’re still fighting for your business and that’s why my clients buy

from me and that you’re you’re you’re dropping the suspicion of doubt in the

in the customer’s mind and you’re also proving your worth that you will never

take their business for granted so it’s a great way to overcome that objection at a professional and you know keep the

bar up here sure yeah yeah never never want to uh you know dissuade them about

the existing relationship but you know try to open up the possibility of new ideas and what Additionally you might be

able to bring to the table but I always love to overcome an objection with a question that’s for sure but Morgan you

were surprised by my answer answer you kind a a visceral response over that that’s yeah just I don’t know that we

already have an existing vendor yeah I don’t know I mean that’s not the one that I hear most of the time but that’s

why I love opening up these panels because I get to hear a lot of different Insight you know so all right yeah all

right Kelly what about you I think if you can imagine that’s what what’s really at the core of this

is that people don’t know who you are if you’re a print sales rep so awareness I

think is a is a really big challenge and that building trust so you know in

in a world where when most of us got started selling it was all over the phone and face to face sales reps today

face the the issue of using social media and having great content to share and

things like that so to me the the objection of I don’t know you is is the

Big Challenge and people need to have a very specific process of how they are

going to make sure people know who they are what problems they solve and that they can be trusted and again you can’t

do that unless you’ve got a great website great social media and a very specific sales process to implement sure

become a trusted advisor and Market yourself appropriately absolutely yeah

Rob what about you what do you not necessarily maybe you but I mean you manage a sales team of 90 reps uh what

what do you think is the most the common objection that you guys get and and how do you overcome it all right so for us

the probably a couple of the biggest are you know what’s my Roi going to be what’s my response going to be you know

it’s more response-based uh tracking Direct Mail you know knowing that somebody’s going to your website and

then it goes through that maybe they click on an ad somewhere down the line um and and tying that back to the direct

mail piece specifically can be problematic or a challenge for us you know um we we we had a a dentist for

example that was like you know it really didn’t work and when we tied the list back there was quite a few people on the

list that called him and he’s like oh wow you know they’re all saying Google and it’s like that’s pretty common so you know we do get that upfront we try

and address it before before it’s posed to us as a problem another one that’s that can be uh a challenge for us is as

we’re working with a client for a good period of time you know they will see the numbers through the digital uh

aspects of the camp campaign and say wow I’ve got a million impressions here I got I have this here and they’ll want to

move more towards that and try and take the direct mail out of the equation and

you know that’s always a fun conversation because you’ll find out exactly how well the Direct Mail work for you and usually you’re then playing

catchup for the next three to four months to get back to where you were so it’s like there is definitely a way to find out if the direct mail was working

unfortunately it’s going to cost you a little bit of money sure 100% they’re not realizing that you know those

digital impressions are just enhancing that powerful impact that was driven by the mail yeah I mean it’s a costly

lesson but you have to let them do it right but would would you say that you

know the majority of the people that that occurs with they come back and they reinvest in direct mail I would say the

cases that I’m thinking of yes yes and you know we you know we’re we’re pretty good at educating them obviously on that

point um you know like I had a credit union once that was just set on it and I was like listen let’s let’s give it a

shot and track it and the stats just went you know three months in a row and he’s like you know okay you win you win

we tried it it it didn’t work you know we didn’t save any money we lost money whatever um but you know that is one of

the challenges you come up and it does it’s just an educational point you know it’s an educational Point UPF front you know some of the best way to handle an

objection is to handle the objection before it becomes an objection to them

you know it’s an educational point to where they’re like oh you know and they don’t get to the end of the the consultation and saywell what about this

what about this what about this if you’ve educated them very well then a lot of times you can you can get around

that you know Bingo hit the nail on the head right because if you are truly engaging in a consultative sales process

you are going to ask the most appropriate questions to gather all the information you need to put together and

present such an effective presentation that the objection isn’t even going to come into question right and then if it

does it’s like um well you know maybe I just missed something here so let me ask some more questions right and then be

able to drill back in that point home so yeah I mean you definitely can set

yourself up to where you do not get those objections in the first place that’s for

sure um guy what about you what’s the most common objection how do you guys overcome it you know I think it’s

similar to Rob when we talk about print we’re talking specifically about print and mail so a lot of times when we’re

talking to someone like a new prospect it’s specific to not utilizing direct mail today and the first thing they say

it’s too expensive it’s too complicated and hard to measure um those are

traditionally the things that we hear and it goes back to education asking good questions and you ask them you know

what’s the cost to acquire a customer a lot of times they don’t even know that right and you say well you know what

does that mean say how much would you spend with Google or TV to get a new customer and if you show them that

Direct Mail lives in that same world then they’re going to benefit um the other big thing too is measuring right

we we have a matchback report pretty pretty sophisticated but basically we can show them specifically hey we mailed

to all these people within this time frame and they became customers and they say well they could have saw a TV ad or

they could have came in we said okay we’re we’re not going to fight with that we know that we put a piece of mail in

their mailbox and and just like Kelly said hey how many emails do they get compared to pieces of mail why know for

a fact when I put that piece of mail into their mailbox and I know that they picked it up and they touched it right

because it’s probably not in there today so I think the education talking to them about the cost to acquire a customer and

the the long-term value of a customer and helping them get to that number even if they don’t know it to show it to them

and then you know really talk about the cost of mail and making it easy for them we’re a complete end to end solution you

know from the list to The Graphic Design to the print to the out the door we do it all for them so I think that’s key

too is M’s got a uh you know a connotation is difficult it’s

complicated it’s hard to execute so we we really try and make that easy for them sure yeah great answer great

response budget is definitely a common objection that that I hear but you have to make it make sense right and it

sounds like that’s what you guys are doing over there so absolutely so I have a couple of ideas

about this next question but i’ I really want to hear from you guys um do you have any insid or strategies on programs

that can be used as a sales tool to stay ahead of competitors and differentiate print offerings in the marketplace I

mean of course every business especially you know in the print space it’s really challenging to try to remain competitive

right so we’re all looking for ways to differentiate ourselves or to have a unique selling proposition and be able

to effectively communicate why you know print or mail with us versus another provider and I think a lot of times it

comes down to you know dollars and cents and ABC printer can print it for two cents less less and you know that’s a

real poor place to be you don’t want to be in a cost-based environment and I think that it’s really important that

we’re finding ways that we can add value right so yeah um any insight uh on

strategies or programs that can be used as a sales tool to differentiate yourself in the marketplace um Rob what about you guys

sure uh so you know we we don’t typically do too many print jobs jobs per se you know we are a marketing

company we’re doing marketing campaigns for our clients our our our result or what they’re paying us for is to help

them generate leads going to generate traffic it’s going to generate Revenue okay um the best tip I could probably

give would be to align yourself with your perspective client that you guys

are an actual team right and you know there’s a there’s obviously a technique and an art to that you know if you the

salesperson are trying to sell them you know that comes across one way if you the salesperson are teaming up with

them to attack said problem which is I don’t have enough leads I’m not making enough money whatever that’s going to

come through and ultimately caring enough about that person that you’re talking to whether it’s on the phone

face to face and willing being willing to take responsibility for what they’re

trying to accomplish right so you know I’m sure a lot of people on here listening are the owners of their

company right you know my reps are not the owner of this company but we get a lot of people that ask are you the owner

and when you’re getting questions like that that means that you’re presenting yourself as if you you’re putting

yourself in such a light that they think only the owner of that company would do that because they care about me and my

results that much so you know I’m sure there’s a lot of different techniques but you know for us we try and care

about you enough to where you know that we actually care about you and we want to see the results that you want and we

want to team up to help that happen yeah so building the relationships which is so integral for ongoing and repeat

business as well right so definitely an effective strategy um Bill what about

you I think as I observed this Morgan the the people who are doing the best

differentiation they’re the ones who are telling stories on LinkedIn look what we did for this customer look at this

example and because I look at that and I say that’s brilliant you know you’re saying here we did this solution we did

this solution when their phone rings and it’s someone seeing it they’re they’re gonna say I’ve got that same problem you

clearly understand what I’m doing that is the differentiator with all due respect to

the equipment manufacturers it’s all Bay Asian that uses electricity you the sales rep are

the differentiator your ideas your professionalism your I think Rob would back me up on this you’re selling skill

that’s what’s going to be the difference that’s what’s going to get in and say let me solve this problem let me understand the story behind the printed

piece let me take the time to move up the food chain from the quote stage to

the design stage that’s the best differentiator because those sales are made without mention of price sure

correct yeah and it’s and it’s just to touch on that you know it’s not always about the price it’s about the price

difference right so you know if somebody’s 300 or 400 500 whatever size of the campaign differ you know is it

worth taking less risk with company a or saving with Company B right so that’s a

good point absolutely 100% And then I like what you said too Bill about using

LinkedIn and and knowing how to appropriately Market yourself as well you know as a print provider or an MSP

you are providing marketing campaigns for for mailers right so they’re going to be looking at how effectively you’re

marketing yourself they’re going to be looking at like Kelly said it they’re going to be looking at your website

they’re going to be looking at all of that I mean if you’re doing a really poor job at marketing do you think that they’re going to trust you with their

marketing right so something to think about there um all right Kelly what about you well it’s exactly what you and

Rob were talking about at the very top of this conversation Morgan which is use print to sell print we talk about this

on marketing matters on the Vault all the time our guy our guy Primo is always saying how did you use print this week

and Rob’s point is extremely important there are a lot of folks out there that are not doing any self-promo at all and

we all know that we’ve seen websites where it’s like was this created in 2004 like what

are you doing here so everything that Bill said about being anecdotal is so

true because it’s it’s like everyone can understand a story right everybody

understands J jills sto doing direct mail and they’re sales tanked like that is a sticky everybody understands its

story so those um that again that firm belief and confidence and pride in print

should inform everything that we do and Bill’s absolutely right about LinkedIn and that same content you put on

LinkedIn can go on Tik Tok and can go on Instagram and can go everywhere right because we know that not all of our

audience is on LinkedIn yeah and while some of us don’t want to admit that there’s a thing called Tik Tok there are

a lot of people there A lot of people there and very easily you can put your stuff there as well sure 100% thanks

Kelly what about you guys uh you know I think about it from the perspective of

the client you know I think uh really relating with them specifically when you’re dealing in Niche markets and

really being able to understand their needs their wants their challenges that they’re having today and trying to

change the conversation from a cost per piece or and really the results that

they’re going to get I think when they feel like they’re understood and you understand their Market that strategy

really is impactful and and I think it goes to you know bottom line building relationships I think that’s that’s the

the core of everything and the strength right there is the true strategies if if they felt valued and they felt heard you

know they’re going to invest with you um and I think being blatantly honest with people too to and telling them you know

I’ll have a guy or a customer say Hey you know I only want to do one mailing

and I’ll say hey you know what that’s great I said I I wouldn’t recommend that

I could take your money but I I you’d be better off going to Vegas or Taho putting on red or black you know it

doesn’t work it’s not a oneand done if if you don’t understand that then you then I haven’t done my job in educating

you on how Direct Mail works right it’s not a faucet you don’t turn it on and off right it’s it’s a consistent invest

if you can’t invest in a a minimum of a 90day strategy you can’t support that then then maybe it’s not good for us to

work together and and I tell them I win when you win that’s it if if you don’t

want to come back because it didn’t work then I didn’t win and I don’t want to be

taking your money knowing the fact that this is probably not going to be successful so I think when you’re that

honest and willing to walk away from something people go you know that’s I want to do business with that person I

love her everything you’re saying guy I’m just like eating it up you know because a lot of times in the print

industry we have a lot of order taking you know but what I’m hearing for you is that you’re a sales rep you are a sales

rep through and through you’re not just picking up the phone and taking that order you’re really caring about the results that you’re driving for your

customer and you’re willing to pull those punches and you know ask those uncomfortable questions because you care

about the results that the customer is going to get so I love that so you know guys hey it’s our

webinar so I I just have to put a little plug in here for Direct Mail 2.0 because you know a sales tool or uh you know a

program that can be utilized to differentiate your print offerings is Direct Mail 2.0 right so we have that 14

technology marketing automation platform that you know you can be pitching something above and beyond just ink on paper you can be going to a customer and

and asking them if they want to get a 23 to 46% lift in response to their mail and is their current print provider

doing this and you get a revenue stream by selling our product but Additionally you get a revenue stream by going out

and acquiring new new mail business from print providers that aren’t offering Omni Channel they’re not offering

reporting dashboard they’re not showing that attribution um and and there’s a lot of other programs and tools out

there like that just technology-wise too that can be utilized to differentiate yourselves as well you know it could be

uh print equipment or you know there’s just ton of tons of other things that technology that I can think of um there

are a lot of question questions too coming in through our chat so everybody that’s putting your questions through there will’ll get to those just at the

end of the webinar so keep them coming and and we will address them hey hey Mor I’d like to add one thing yeah so it I’m

sure there’s a lot of owners and operators on this call that are printers I’m living in your world and I want you

to know I partnered with Morgan and her company and Brad many years ago and

we’ve had great success with it so if you want to talk to me directly I’ll

answer the question straight with you that’s just kind of my personality and I’ll tell you the the the the the Good

Bad and the Ugly and I would um highly recommend checking it out I have nothing but great things to say about Morgan and

her team they are just really good people thank you guy hey I appreciate that I really really do I know you’re

really busy so by you being willing to take the time to speak with somebody if they have questions I I really

appreciate that thank you absolutely yeah yeah they’ve been a partner a long time and they’ve had a lot of success

with the product guys has been really ramping it up this year so I’ve been really excited to see that too

absolutely so um all right this next one uh are any of you willing to share what

has been most successful in generating New Leads or prospects for print

recently we’re all interested in growing our business and in order to do that we

need fresh blood we need new leads and Prospects I mean obviously Rob we heard from you that you guys are investing a

ton of Market of money in marketing right so I mean above and beyond that you know do you have any anything else

that you you have to share sure so you know this one comes up a lot and that is

you know obviously you’ve done step one you know you you you youve got to reach from somebody whether they phoned you

whether they sent you a message filled out a hit a landing page the nurturing

process after that needs to be robust like you know you you have to have

system in place to stay in front of that person for a uh a pretty aggressive and

long period of time that’s probably the best advice I can give you you know um you know once you figure out how to get

somebody to that page to that site on the phone that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to turn into a client

doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to call you so you’ve generated an interest don’t let It Go Don’t Let it go

you have to stay in front of them and we’ll do that for years um you know we will get clients that have been in our

database for for years I mean we five six seven years to be you know give you

some crazy examples but you know just because they filled it out doesn’t mean they’re ready to go doesn’t mean you should just move on you know absolutely

and that’s why marketing is so important like we never know when that serendipitous moment is going to occur when they’re ready to do business with

you or you know maybe all of a sudden two years later they have a falling out with their their existing vendor and

they’re still getting your marketing they’re still in your funnel and they’re like hey let me give them a call right so that nurturing process is super

important uh you know somebody wrote a wrote a a question here you know it’s kind of

relevant um and it’s addressed to Rob and guy if you’re comfortable sharing

how much mail do you send to Market your

companies uh I’m fine answering that uh we send we send a couple hundred thousand pieces per

week 100 few 100,000 yeah we send it’s it’s right

around 190 to 210,000 pieces every week right now and that’s and that accounts

for probably about 65 to 70% of our budget and then the rest is spent on ads

paperclick and you know all the other avenues that’s strong guy what about you

guys I can definitely tell you it’s not that much direct mail and i’ I’ve known

this about Rob and his company enjoy that that was kind of the foundation how she built her company right she talks

about that yeah and and it’s it’s admirable and and I wish I could say

that we did a better job doing that um and I know Morgan and I are working on some programs right now where we’re

specifically working to take some of our technologies that we have the DM 2.0

stuff but also the variable we have a we brought on a a a a web press an HP um

digital web press um that’s 100% variable about a year ago it’s it’s an incred incredible piece of equipment um

changes the game for Direct Mail because you can do every single piece variable at a very high speed so we’re leveraging

that to get out very specific messages to very Niche markets so gives us that

opportunity to have that one-on-one conversation but um now that I know Rob’s number I have a I have a goal now

to push my ownership to start marketing at a higher let me know how that meeting goes

guy I’ll let you know if I need your help to help me close that they are not

playing over there no they do a great job marketing they really do thanks Guy um Bill what what

about you what do you think uh you know is most successful right now for generating new leads and prospects for

print for print well my wife were here she would roll her eyes because I say

this a dozen times a day marketing is the new sales and it’s long range my marketing

director says to me you gotta well she starts out with Dad you’ve got to look 18 to 24 months down the road and I can

tell you it’s absolutely true we went all in WE Post every single day quality

material uh valuable material not ads we don’t sell through Linkedin but people

respond and we are seeing a hockey stick kind of uh growth recently and it’s just

some some days it gets crazy but when everybody call whenever anyone calls they don’t say what do you do they say

when can you start and that is Rob was saying you know use the phrase qualified lead man

if you can get to that because you’ve done the storytelling we hit the markets people that hate selling but they need

to grow people that want to harness LinkedIn people that are new to selling or they want to hire a rep or they want

to get to the next level they’re stuck I don’t know what to do I’m paralyzed I’m overthinking everything or I’m in cruise

control that’s our target audience that’s what I write to that’s the content that I create answering the

questions that they would ask so that people call and they’ll say it’s as if you were in my sales meeting it’s

exactly the problem that I’m having that’s Dynamite lead genen yep

solution-based marketing and I think what I’m hearing from you is that you’re providing educational content too right

it’s not that hard sell or you know 50% off or I mean you’re providing them

something of value through educational content right plus it’s fun and it’s personable yeah you know it’s these are

it’s if it can be entertaining then entertained you know if you have a sense of humor let it out but if you don’t

don’t try like chicken suit right like a chicken suit for example where’s the chicken suit let’s see it if you guys

haven’t seen the chicken suit you have to go on LinkedIn and see Bill and Kelly’s uh D scoop promotion it’s

hilarious so just Kelly was out that day Oh I thought that you uh I thought you

did a another rendition of it right after maybe you were just commenting and threatening to bust out your chicken

suit Kelly um what about you what what do you think has been the most successful for generating New Leads or

prospects for print recently well I I think that what people strategically need to do is be extremely laser focused

on the kind of business that they make the most money on and that is the most the best fit for their organization and

that you know sometimes might mean getting rid of a lot of your prospects that just are not the right fit for you

um you know the very first thing that I think everybody needs to do is look at here are our top accounts this is the

vertical markets that they play in become as Bill always taught me a subject matter expert in those vertical

markets because you can solve their problems over and over and over again so

I think there’s a lot of printers out there who think everybody’s their customer they don’t have any rules I

love love what guy said about if if you want to do one mailing with me I’m going to say no just like Primo won’t do

printing for somebody if they don’t have a website right his policy is first things first yeah right and so we might

even say let’s not get over our skis on on print before we lock down some you know some very specific things about our

about our companies so we we need to be almost like cruy surgical about who we

go after and know we will be successful with those kinds of companies because we

already are yeah so that is that is um you know very very clearly defining who

our customers are and and what they order from us and with what frequency and you know we

nobody’s making money on onesie twz projects right we want repetitive

relationship mutually beneficial and mutually dependent relationships so quality vers

quantity makes sense yeah yeah so you know one thing that I I

I know that the print industry really struggles with and you know not just with sales reps but in attracting good

talent or you know people into the workforce and of course like I said before I work with so many different

printers and mail service providers and historically the type of sales rep that

I see in a print organization is an account manager and and don’t get me wrong I mean they play a really

lucrative role within that organiz ation I mean a lot of these account managers are managing millions of dollars of

business within these organizations and it’s very important but we all want to grow as well right and a a true sales

rep that has a hunter mentality and that’s going to pound pavement and dial for dollars is a totally different breed

than an account manager right we’re talking about two totally different types of people um so you know I think

that there’s definitely a use case for both and I think they’re both an integral part of the organization but

you also need quality you know sales Talent too so what are some ways to Source attract and not just source and

attract them because you know there’s a lot of money spent in in acquiring talent but also to retain them to retain

top sales talent to a print company Kelly we’ll start with you I mean the onboarding is everything

right if we find somebody and let’s face it if we found somebody that had um was

not afraid to have conversations with people who just presented well was confident and fearless and had all the

best communication skills that’s something to work with right so we could take that person and teach them

everything they need to know about the solutions the questions to ask and being

able to present a personality that inspires trust and confidence sure

so that’s the Baseline for will you come and work for me and that and then they

say yes that’s where the problems start because then the owner goes there’s your desk

best of luck to you sure right and today with anybody under the age of 40 that is

a recipe for disaster so we have to be very intentional about what our onboarding process is what are the first

90 days going to look like for this person who’s going to support them who’s going to train them who’s going to help

them Implement a strategy and and execute on a sales process and do

everything in your power to make sure that you are setting them up for the best amount of success so if you are

like most printing companies out there with all due respect that don’t have this locked down to me I would never

hire another sales rep until I had this unlock which is how am I going to set

them up for success and how much do you know about jenzy and how much do you know about younger Millennials because

we cannot apply our lived experience as proud most of us maybe gen xers in

this on this call and out there in the world just because you did it and bootstrapped and you know managed it all

does not mean you can expect a 24 year old fresh grad from a business school to act like you did so we have got to

change how we measure it how we train how we support uh it is no joke I’m not

saying it’s easy but we have to be very intentional about it and we have to really think it through I would say at a

minimum 90 days I know exactly what this person’s life is going to be like for

the first 90 days of them working with us and I know exactly how I’m going to support them how I’m going to measure

success with them how I’m going to encourage them lots and lots of encouragement right and that is the only

way it’s going to work because please please stop with the I need to hire a guy with a book of business please let’s

stop that all of us please advice Kell thank you Kelly well

I mean if there if there’s one person that I know does have this unlock it’s Rob Bradshaw I mean I personally know

that he he he definitely has this unlock so I mean what are some ways that you

Source attract and retain top sales Talent at Postcard Mania Rob uh well I

mean I don’t know that I have it unlock as much as you think I have it unlocked I do I do we do have a we do

have a very good onboarding program um we didn’t always have that Kelly that’s it’s funny you bring that up that was

that was something you know we’ve obviously had it for quite a few years now but you know it was kind of like you

know the people that do well here can just sit down and do it and that did change you know and to Kelly’s point you

know you do have to be careful you know when you have younger generation in there and you’re you know 40 plus or

whatever your age is above that you have a different reality than

they do I promise you that so you have to you know you can’t be like well I would have never done that or I wouldn’t

have done it that way that’s not going to get you where you want to go you know what I mean you have to be willing to adapt with the people you have um you

know I think you know as far as as far as getting somebody in the door and keeping them you know you have to

deliver on what you say you’re going to deliver on um you know when we go over our comp plans uh I show them I just

show them what everybody’s making I say hey here’s here’s the numbers here these were all the bonuses last month these

were all the bonuses last quarter this is what this person made this is what they’re projected to make The Good the

Bad and the Ugly and it’s like so you know exactly what you’re getting there’s no well I was promised this or I thought I was going to do this you know um so I

think that’s important um I think the culture of your environment is very

important um you know whatever your culture is it’s not to say it has to be my culture or your culture they have to

fit your culture you know and if they don’t don’t necessarily expect to change

them you know if person’s super quiet and they don’t like talking to somebody or they don’t like interacting or

they’re not very social and you have an environment that’s very social a lot of things together probably not a great fit

you know um for me personally I’m not I’m not as big of a part of the

interview process but if I was and when I was my whole goal in determining was

would would I sit next to you if I were on my sales floor right now would I sit next to you and if the answer is no then

it was probably a no the manager whoever had you in front of me was going to have to fight really really hard if I

wouldn’t sit next to you like why would I put you next to somebody else like my culture in postcard Mania is is super

important you know we’ve we’ve it’s a big part of how we got here so sure

there’s a longwinded answer no I mean it makes sense and you know I just I know you you do a good job

over there and you have good training programs and I mean you definitely have a lot of things implemented we have a

lot of recurring training too um we you

know you know I I use the analogy I I you know all the I have a lot of people

that aren’t sports fans but I like to use Sports analogies but you know when you think about like a you know a pro

athlete for example they they practice for you know 20 to 50

hours a week for you know an NFL guy plays one g a week for three and a half hours and he might practice for 30 40

hours like this is our profession we’re professionals at this you should be practicing what you’re doing um and it

shouldn’t be like h i just get to practice on the people that call in or whatever you should be practicing you should be retraining you know you should

have some points that you know that help retread uh things that might get lost too you

know 100% um so you know that was fantastic guys listen I I really thank all of you

for taking the time to join us today on the webin AR for being transparent and sharing all your insights I personally

found it to be really valuable I want to get over to to some of the questions here that I have um in the chat you know

one is from an enduser and uh she said we’ve been doing postcards targeted to our market for a new operation how long

do you think it takes before a user like us can see a measurable buy invoice

count result what’s the price point can they can they give us that that that that

determines a lot of it you know if you’re selling million dollar pieces of equipment that’s a that’s a different story than you know a landscaper that’s

$100 a month right yeah I think that you know maybe this will be a good question for us to take offline Jean you know

maybe we could pose it to to the panel um you know and I think that to Rob’s

Point there’s so many different variables right I mean what marketing you’re in how many people are you marketing to what your audience look

like you know what’s the creative look like what’s the offer what’s the call to action I mean there’s just so many things you know so I think all of us

would probably love to take a look or have a discussion with you about your campaign and you know definitely like to

give you some feedback on that for sure uh Mark hail is curious how do you pay your salespeople so I know a lot of

times they’re like 100% commission sometimes their base pay plus commission how do you guys pay your

salese Rob sure um well for for a long time for probably the first 12 13 years

here it was it was pretty much commission-based um uh from the get-go you know maybe for

the first six weeks you made x amount of dollars um I found that that that that kind of faded and and I don’t think I

can get away with that anymore and we changed it we changed it years ago and

now we have uh you know we they do get a base salary that’s very competitive um

and then we also have certain certain quot of bonuses we have closing bonuses

uh you know we’ve determined what we feel as a qualified lead um I feel like that’s important you know

just because somebody walked in or called you or filled out a form you know you can obviously use that as your gauge

you know uh which is fine uh you know I like it I have something similar to that

so we have closing bonuses monthly bonuses quota bonuses there spiffs on specific products um you know and and

and that’s important and then I also have a system in place that that gives them actual measurable increases in

salary which I think is super important today you know everybody wants the salary so you know if you meet certain

benchmarks and not just productivity driven not just Revenue driven if that’s

the stat um more of like I took what you

know what’s important to me in an overall rep and I took those attributes and and those are what I look for and

because those are the guys that I want to stay with me for a long period of time and you know I do have people that have been here for five years 10 years

15 years I have people out here that been here longer than me so wow it’s a pretty lucrative compensation package

you’ve got all kinds of different bonus structures it it is performance-based you know what I mean but and the earning

potential is obviously good but I think that’s important and it needs to be achievable you know it has to be

achievable when I if I go over the bonus structure with somebody I’m like listen this isn’t like a pie in the sky like

you know one day you’ll be here you know it’s like I expect you to hit these numbers like these are expected not you

know so I the word bonus sometimes can get a little like well you know if I get this and I get a bonus it’s like no this

is kind of like where I want you to be I actually want to pay you this you know what I mean I in my role at Postcard

Mania I’m not really in the cost you know I’m not part of the cost saving conversations they don’t bring me in on

those right bring in the money what about you guys are you 100%

commissioned or do you guys have base pay plus commission or so it’s it’s base

pay bus commission but the majority of the opportunity to earn is is on a commission basis I would say we’re

probably on the other end of the spectrum from where Rob’s living you know we have um you know probably the

majority of our reps are are Gen X and to Kelly’s point you know we we do um go

out and we seek to hire people with a book of business or they come to us um because we’ve acquired a lot of the of

our competition um we’re pretty well known in the area so we’ll have customer or reps come to

us and you know we’re from a different air so the eror that I am is we’re not

going to micromanage you we want you to be motivated to make you know money so bringing in you know that that new uh

gen Z probably be it’ be a heavy lift for us because I don’t think that’s kind

of the world that we’re living in today I think that’s kind of where we’re going to migrate to um but right now I would

say the majority is you know a small base and the majority is commission um

and that’s kind of where we are cool thanks guy and Bill you Bill you have a

point to add I do just remember gang it’s it’s not just pay it’s

compensation so I do some work on the side as an expert witness when somebody

in the industry when a sales rep leaves and they take business and they’ve got a non-competitor confidentiality they call

me in to Define what that means every single case I have done it has nothing

it has less to do with somebody saying I want more money and more to do with the

rep saying they had no idea how good I was and I could I could sit and have

three beers with Rob with 90 different sales reps 90 different personalities it’s one thing to say you made a ton of

dough but if you can make that sales rep feel appreciated and I bet there’s 90

different ways that’s it’s something youve got to consider as well it’s true and some

people take appreciation in the form of money but you know others others but

others have different values for sure well hey ignore it acknowled I encourage

everyone to ignore that because that’ll mean there’ be more business for me as an expert witness I’d love doing that stuff no it’s well I think go ahead I

think an important there too is that to to dovetail what bill just said is

people want to be acknowledged you know they want to be acknowledged they want to be told they did a good job they may

not ask you know salespeople you know they may not openly ask for it but they do like to be acknowledged and you know

your comp plan should do that you know what I mean it’s like they want to win when somebody achieves a goal or a

Target they want to win you know if if if you know the president of the company or whatever takes them out to dinner

whatever I I actually for my management team I cook for them and I’m telling you

I’m like hey let’s go to Capitol Grill let’s go to Burns they’re like no I’m like it’s going to be way better than what I’m cooking for you but it’s the

idea that I’m sitting there cooking for them it just I’m telling you I can’t outrun it they’re like I’m always like

hey here’s our options they’re like you cooking is not an option I’m like no I want to hang out and talk to you guys not cook for you for three hours and

they win most of the time on that argument so and the food’s not that great I promise yeah it’s true

acknowledgement goes a long way and I think you know you’re taking that time and you’re utilizing your time to spend

with them and that communicates a certain message to them right and so acknowledgement does go long way

everybody likes an attab boy it feels good right we like to know that we’re contributing to the organization and

that we’re valued right people want to feel valued so yeah they also want to be in the loop too I mean I don’t you know

I know for our company you know we survey them I’m like hey do you guys want information like this and

they’re like yes they want to know where you’re going how you’re getting there they want to be a part of it you know so

we you know we’re pretty overt you know I’ve answered some questions on here that some people might not answer but we’re kind of like that you know we’re

like that as our culture so you know we you know we’ll we’ll answer you know

most of everything we do a staff meeting we share tons of things every week with everybody we do it every week we’ve done

it since the get-go and uh you know it’s a 45 minute to an hour long meeting that

we do with as many people as we can cram into the building and we go over lots of things to make him feel part of the

group a part of the growth and and and a part of the overall goal I love that

yeah that’s really good keeping everybody involved well hey guys we’ve reached the

the hour mark here at 3M I I really just want to thank you again this has been a great webinar I really appreciate you

all taking the time um anybody has any additional questions just email me personally and I can shoot them over to

our panelist so thanks everybody for spending some time with us this afternoon enjoy the rest of your day

thank you Morgan thanks Morgan