Selling is too damn hard so get a job as a beachcomber

Dear Salespeople in North Americaland:

     I've been wanting to write you about some of things that are on my mind. 

     About half of you are unsuited for print sales and it would really help the other half if you found something else to do.  I hear there are great career opportunities in broadcasting and long distance truck driving. 

     The half that's misfit really isn't committed to the tough job of selling printing.  You can't succeed at anything if your heart isn't in it.  Oh, I know it's probably not your fault; the thing at Merrill Lynch didn't work out in 1987 and you sort of fell into printing.  If you would leave printing, however, it would make things a lot easier for the half that's fired up for sales.  The print buyers complain a lot about us tripping over one another in their lobbies.

     One New York buyer told me she hadn't lunch in six months because she answers her own phone and can't resist listening to printing salespeople.  She's thinking of joining Printanon. 

     If you're determined to stay in printing, here are some things you need to know.

     Selling printing is hard work.  It takes 10 hours a day or more for most of you.  There is no room for competing "avocations" for most of us mere mortals.  You must concentrate all your work energy on your customers and your company.

     You must be fiercely loyal to your company if you have any hope of succeeding.  This means that you respect at least 90% your owners, your management, your sales manager (if you have one), the customer service people, the estimators, the production folks, and the people in the plant.  Whether you are right or wrong, if you think 90% of your co-workers are incompetent buffoons, you really should find somewhere else to work.  This is true because salespeople are advocates for their companies.     Nobody can convincingly advocate anything that doesn't capture their conviction and stir their blood.

     If you are a loyal advocate for your company, you must be skilled at advocacy.  This means that nobody in the company, save one of the other salespeople, can tell your company story better than you can.  You've studied it.  You can talk persuasively about every one of your company's nooks and crannies.  I've said it before, but you have to be able to paint glowing word pictures that convince and re-convince your buyers and prospects that your company is different.  You have to do this even when your biggest competitor has the same folders, the same stitchers, and the same six color press.

     Loyal salespeople who are skilled advocates behave like they're on a mission.  Success, however, only comes if your mission is organized.  It takes planning and organization to pursue prospects and to serve the accounts once you get them.  This requires a foolproof follow-up system and self-discipline.   Success in printing sales absolutely requires honesty.  You must be skilled at telling the truth to customers and keeping their business.  You can't do this if you don't know what your plant can and can't do.  This fierce attention to honesty is also required in all your internal plant dealings.  It's hypocritical to tell customers the truth and lie on an expense account or forecast sales that are wishes and not reality.