October 2009

My June 2009 column innocently introduced the Maňana Man Economic Stimulus Plan for Printing Companies. It was enormously successful. More than eighty companies sent me reasons they deserved the package. And some companies are already reporting that the program worked for them and sales are zooming.

The entrants got a one hour brainstorming conference call with one of four industry experts. They also received my two books, The Adventures of the Maňana Man Part II and Part III for each of their salespeople. I gave away almost 1,200 books. They also received a pound of Café Dumond French Roast Coffee and a package of Café Dumond Beignet mix.

My granddaughter, Caroline, age 19, carefully packed, addressed and delivered all the boxes to the post office. She elected to use the USPS new Priority Mail Flat Rate cartons because the cartons were free and most shipments were only $10.35 or at most $13.95 up to 70 pounds. So we probably spent around $1,000 for shipping.

I was so impressed with Caroline’s help and, especially her advanced wisdom, that I hired her as my Life Coach. Every day she imparts great advice and some super admonitions about work and saving and health. I had relied on that stupid Maňana Man for twenty-five years and he had gotten me nowhere.

One company took their cell phones out in the parking lot for the brainstorming session, sat Indian style in a circle, threw my books in the middle, lit them, brewed the coffee and laced it with two quarts of Jack Daniels and waited for the cops to come.

The next day, sobered up but hung over, they went to work and report their sales year to date are up 23% over 2008.

The Stimulus Package companies came in all shapes, sizes and graphic art segments. Some companies had one salesperson and some had more than thirty salespeople. Some had sales of $1.0 million and many had sales in the $5.0 million to $20.0 million range. Two had sales over $100.0 million. Some companies were all digital. Some were all sheetfed. Some were flexographic. Some were all webfed. Some had multiple capabilities.

The companies had compelling stories. They were suffering in this miserable economy but urgently wanted to survive and prosper. The writers love their companies and coworkers and expressed that love beautifully.

It became more evident than ever that our industry is shrinking and there will be fewer and fewer companies coming out this recession. The survivor companies will have the best salespeople, not the best equipment. Oh, they will have good equipment, and good software, and good management, and good (low) costs but, above all, they will have dynamite salespeople working within and propelled by a superb marketing program.

The survivor companies will continue to be very different. They will serve different markets serving customers with different equipment. They will serve some markets where buyers are sophisticated and managing multi-million dollar budgets. Other companies will reach buyers who are relatively unsophisticated, overworked and holding down multiple jobs in smaller companies.

My stimulus package program and my reader e-mails reminded me that no matter the complexity and magnitude of your sales job, you all require the same skills.

I have written about these skills many times. It’s helpful, however, to review these skills to make sure you are growing as a salesperson, not static, but growing.

If you want to be among the salespeople who are selling graphic communications in the year 2012 and 2015 and 2020 you should have shown improvement with every new client, with every new job and with each passing year. If you assess yourself honestly, and find that you are not growing, then you had better start carving out some new career role for yourself.

There will probably be great opportunities for bank auditors in the future. After all we can’t afford any more Washington Mutuals, Bank of Americas or Wachovias.

Or, there should be great new openings for SEC investigators for hedge funds or investment funds in general. The SEC can’t stand any more heat for any more Bernie Madoffs.

As a matter of fact, you can probably carve out a career slot in prison supervision or prison guard in the country club prisons. The Madoff-type residents in the cushy correctional clubs are not likely to attack a guard unless he drops the golf bag.

I’m just trying to help those of you who are not going to be around in the future. Here’s another booming field that’s part of the green movement. It’s healthy outside work and you are your own boss. Can and bottle collecting can make you big bucks as you walk the highways of America. I hear you get $.05 cents for cans and $.10 cents for bottles in most states.

Then there is blogging. That’s another self-employed job where you write about whatever you feel like and if it’s good enough you will get a lot of advertisers who pay you money to advertise on your site.

Okay, get ready to take the test. Rate yourself on each skill on scale of one to ten. Ten being outstanding and one being lousy.

1. The first characteristic/skill is honesty. You must be 100% full of integrity or forget print sales and go for one of the jobs above.
   
2. Listening skill. Rate yourself and be HONEST.
   
3. Sincerity. This is a characteristic and a skill. You are not officious or pretentious. You are not self-righteous or condescending.
   
4. You have an outward focus on other people versus yourself. You are generally regarded as a helpful person. You can quickly list ten helpful acts you provided last week. At parties you ask questions of others and don’t bore others with constant chatter about yourself, your children, your dog or you pickup truck.
   
   So far you should have at least 30 points. If you are below twenty, then you should think about apply for a job in bill collections. You know banks, loan companies or credit card collections.
5. Responsiveness. You are super fast in returning phone calls and e-mails. You respond to customers in minutes, not hours even if they are red-hot mad and calling to complain. You are just as responsive to small accounts as you are to your largest account.
6. Knowledge. Great salespeople know their products thoroughly and have the ability to educate and to persuade co-workers to meet their own high standards.
7. Creativity. Finally, excellent salespeople are spontaneously creative, which gives them the ultimate competitive edge. This applies to problem solving for customers or on the spot humor. The world is starving for laughter.
8. Persuasiveness. You understand and practice the principals of the Socratic Method for persuasion. If you are going to survive, then look it up and learn it.
9. Closing skills. You know how to close and you are willing to close. If you are good at this, you will also be good at any potentially “confrontational” situation. You ask for the order and then shut up! You should rate yourself a superior closer. It requires courage.
10. Finally, you are diligent. A worker. Willing to put in fourteen hours a day. Willing to call on a prospect in creative non-annoying ways until you have unequivocally disqualified the account. This requires stamina and creativity and optimism.
11. There are at least a dozen more skills and/or characteristics but I will have to write about them later. I’m out of space for this column.

Okay, if you scored less than 60, you probably ought to investigate one of the job opportunities listed above. How about Forest Ranger - the kind of ranger who sits at the top of a tower and watches for forest fires. But don’t take this job in California. There are too many actual fires.

The letters for Phase II of my Maňana Man Economic Stimulus Plan for Printing Companies are pouring in. The four judges, Dick Gorelick, Linda Bishop, Mark Potter and Wayne Peterson are going to have a tough job picking winners for fabulous array of prizes I have planned.

I’m going to take a nap while you readers tally your scores and then either look for a new job or GET OUT THERE AND SELL SOMETHING!