Get Back To The Basics – Prevent A Summer Sales Slump
By: T.J. Tedesco
For: The Binding Edge
Published: Spring, 1998

Like many industries, trade binding and finishing is subject to seasonal swings.  Preventing a work shortfall for your company is possible, but it usually requires a market share gain.  Get back to the basics and earn your summer success.

Every spring it’s the same story.  All across America, trade binding and finishing professionals throw their hands in the air and say, “soon we’re going to be slow again.”  Once owners and top managers start thinking this way, guess what happens?  You got it – a slowdown.  Attitude starts at the top.  If you think there isn’t much you can do to prevent a slow summer ... you’ll have one.  A good attitude alone won’t keep your plant busy, but it’s a great place to start.

The 7% Solution

Since I don’t know which state you live in, let’s make one up and call it New Illifornia.  Assume you and your four main competitors each average $200k in monthly sales ($2.4mm a year).  This means the annual marketplace for your services is $12mm and you have a 20% market share.  When it’s slow, each bindery averages only $150k a month, which reduces the total monthly market size to $750k (5 x $150k), down from $1mm.  For your company to sell $200k during these slow months, you now need a 27% ($200k ¸ $750k) market share instead of your normal 20%.  Think about this for a moment.  Does a 7% increase in market share seem achievable?  Of course!  Your competitors may not even notice their share loss because they were expecting to be slow anyway.  Granted, New Illifornia is fictional, but these market share principles ring true for many post press companies all across the country.

Conclusion: In most US post press markets, a relatively small increase in market share will prevent a summer slump.  Since it’s probably mid to late spring by the time you read this, creating and implementing a full-blown sales and marketing program at this late date probably isn’t practical.  Instead, let’s concentrate on the basics.

Contact Your Customers

Whenever you can, visit customers.  An old Chinese proverb is as true today as ever, “A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step.”  Start with one customer, then visit another and then another.  If your time is already overextended, forget grandiose sales territory plans for yourself.  Start with customers that like your company but for some reason send more work to your competitors than you.  Even if you think you don’t sell well, your occasional physical presence shows you care.

Is simply visiting customers enough?  No.  Bring information with you.  If anyone in your company has authored any trade articles or if you have been in the news, get out the scissors and distribute clips.  If not, scour the major printing trade publications and find something pertinent and useful.  Distributing valuable information is a whole lot more worthwhile than handing out donuts or bagels.

When you have a few minutes at the office, pick up the phone and call a customer or a prospect.  Ask lots of questions.  You just might hear these wonderful words: “I have a finishing job I’d like you to look at.”  When I was a bindery services salesman, I worked closely with a great customer service representative.  When John had a free minute or two, he’d grab that receiver and call people he hadn’t heard from recently.  He sure helped make my sales job a lot easier.  Incidentally, a few years ago, the Society for Service Professionals in Printing (SSPP) named John Schultz one of the US’s top five graphic arts customer service professionals.

When in front of customers and prospects, should you ask for an order or a quoting opportunity?  Absolutely every time!  But when asking, don’t fall into the “we’re slow now, do you have anything to bid on?” trap.  Think about it for a moment.  Do you want to do business with companies that are slow?  When is the last time you drove by an empty restaurant and thought, “man, I want to eat there!”  Even if you sit down for a meal, aren’t you just a little bit leery placing an order?

Contact By Mail

Direct mail doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective.  Did you know that the average American is exposed to 3,000 ads each day?  Think of the last time that you received a handwritten note.  Didn’t it stand out?  In today’s impersonal advertising world, handwritten notes get noticed.  Even if you send out only a few each week (for virtually any reason), your effort will make a difference.  Getting your people to do the same means your company will perform even better during traditionally slow periods.  Once again, if you don’t have adequate time to conceptualize and implement a comprehensive “customer nurture” program, taking small steps is better than doing nothing.  Remember that Michael Jordan once crawled before he could fly.

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You and your company can beat the summer slump.  Although you don’t live in New Illifornia, a small market share gain will make a large difference.  The best way to prevent a work slowdown is to plan well in advance but since it may be a little late now, settle for sticking with the basics.  Do the little things because they add up.  PS. In case you were wondering, the summer is my busy season.

T.J. Tedesco is a “hands-on” marketing, sales, coaching and training consultant to the post press industry. He is the author of Binding, Finishing & Mailing: The Final Word, and Win Top-of-Mind Positioning, both published by GATFPress and available at Amazon.com. T.J. can be reached at (301) 294-9900 or tj@growsales.com.