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NPOA NEWS • NOVEMBER 2016

In a recent InfoTrends Study entitled Micro to Mega: Trends in Business Communications, only

seven percent of over 1,000 SMB respondents noted that they had switched print providers in the past twelve months. Only seven percent!

As a sales trainer and coach, I routinely hear from owners and reps that their customers aren’t loyal and are often ready to jump ship over a price difference of just a few dollars. Wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth, these sales reps say that customers today don’t care about service and only think about price… yet InfoTrends’ data seems to say otherwise. Your customers may have taken a job to another provider, but they don’t feel like they have left you – at least not yet. Perhaps they’re just waiting for you to do your job.

The reason you aren’t winning more business lies in the difference between your value proposition and your customer’s value perception. According to the Corporate Executive Board, only 14% of customers perceive a real difference between supplier offerings AND value the difference enough to pay for it. If your customers can’t see a difference between suppliers, price can easily become the deciding factor.

When InfoTrends’ survey asked SMBs to rank a number of criteria when choosing a printer, the top responses included quality of output, the ability to meet promised deadlines, and competitive pricing. These areas are table stakes that every competitor in the market must offer. If you focus on these aspects when trying to convince a customer to buy, you will only be seen as equal to your competitors rather than better. These criteria are also job-focused, not customer-focused.

According to a Sleeter Group study conducted in 2014, the top three reasons that SMBs choose a CPA include expertise, responsiveness, and proactive advice. Low fees were eighth on the list. SMBs want CPAs that will protect them and keep them out of trouble, and they are willing to pay for it. Furthermore, choosing a CPA is based on the full relationship rather than just one specific request.

If you help a customer execute a successful lead generation campaign that drives customers into their store, you are using your expertise to protect them from lost opportunities and lower sales. When you help them communicate more effectively with customers using personalization, you are keeping them out of customer attrition trouble. When you help a customer order from you more efficiently via the web, you are protecting them from low profitability. When you advise your customers against executing a marketing initiative that won’t work, you are keeping them from wasting their money.

Your job is not to give your customers what they ask for – any of your competitors can do that. Your job is to use your expertise to help them grow sales, keep customers, and operate more efficiently. Customer service in today’s world isn’t about waiting until a customer needs something and then doing it perfectly. If you think that this is your job, you’ll force your customers to think of each interaction separately rather than focusing on the relationship they have with your company. Your competitors can deliver quality output and meet deadlines too, and there’s always the possibility that you will get beat on price.

By changing your definition of service from responding to customer requests to proactively using your expertise to help them grow and be profitable, you can shift the way that the customer evaluates their relationship with you. If you use your expertise and proactive advice to become a critical tool to your customer’s success, they will make decisions that are based on more than just price.

What’s Your Job?By Kate Dunn NPOA

NEWS and UPDATES

New OrleansJoin Us in

for Our 2017 Annual Owners Conference

NOVEMBER • 2016

NPOANational Print Owners Association301 Brush Creek Road, Warrendale, PA 15086-75291.888.316.2040 • www.printowners.org

Mechanics: Getting the Process RightPhilip Beyer is founder/president Ebiz Products LLC

and Beyer Printing Inc., in Nashville, Tennessee. After opening his commercial printing company in 1988, Beyer set out to totally systemize every facet of his operation. In the process, he developed unique, easy-to-use, integrated systems that are now used in various businesses around the country.

Beyer’s popular business book, “System Busters: How to Stop Them In Your Business” is now available in Kindle and Audio versions, has become a much used desk item for serious-minded business owners and managers who seek order, lean and sustainable management, and continuous improvement in their operations. His mission is to help other owners and managers bring their businesses to sustainable order, to reach their maximum potential through lean and error-free systemization.

His Friday morning presentation on Mechanics: Getting the Process Right is one of the important keynote sessions for NPOA’s New Orleans Conference focused on Mechanics, Message and Mardi Gras! Join fellow Print Owners in the Big Easy for information packed workshops, valuable networking among peers and N’awlins fun February 2-4, 2017.

Register for the conference at www.PrintOwners.org

Thank You to Our 2016 Sponsors!!!


for Mechanics, Message and Mardi Gras!

Printed by GAM Printers on the RICOH 9110 on 80# Gloss Cover


In a recent InfoTrends Study entitled Study entitled Study Micro to Mega: Trends in Business Communications, only

seven percent of over 1,000 SMB respondents noted that they had switched print providers in the past twelve months. Only seven percent!

As a sales trainer and coach, I routinely hear from owners and reps that their customers aren’t loyal and are o�en ready to jump ship over a price di�erence of just a few dollars. Wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth, these sales reps say that customers today don’t care about service and only think about price… yet InfoTrends’ data seems to say otherwise. Your customers may have taken a job to another provider, but they don’t feel like they have le� you – at least not yet. Perhaps they’re just waiting for you to do your job.

�e reason you aren’t winning more business lies in the di�erence between your value proposition and your customer’s value perception. According to the Corporate Executive Board, only 14% of customers perceive a real di�erence between supplier o�erings AND value the di�erence enough to pay for it. If your customers can’t see a di�erence between suppliers, price can easily become the deciding factor.

When InfoTrends’ survey asked SMBs to rank a number of criteria when choosing a printer, the top responses included quality of output, the ability to meet promised deadlines, and competitive pricing. �ese areas are table stakes that every competitor in the market must o�er. If you focus on these aspects when trying to convince a customer to buy, you will only be seen as equal to your competitors rather than better. �ese criteria are also job-focused, not customer-focused.

According to a Sleeter Group study conducted in 2014, the top three reasons that SMBs choose a CPA include expertise, responsiveness, and proactive advice. Low fees were eighth on the list. SMBs want CPAs that will protect them and keep them out of trouble, and they are willing to pay for it. Furthermore, choosing a CPA is based on the full relationship rather than just one speci�c request.

If you help a customer execute a successful lead generation campaign that drives customers into their store, you are using your expertise to protect them from lost opportunities and lower sales. When you help them communicate more e�ectively with customers using personalization, you are keeping them out of customer attrition trouble. When you help a customer order from you more e�ciently via the web, you are protecting them from low pro�tability. When you advise your customers against executing a marketing initiative that won’t work, you are keeping them from wasting their money.

Your job is not to give your customers what they ask for – any of your competitors can do that. Your job is to use your expertise to help them grow sales, keep customers, and operate more e�ciently. Customer service in today’s world isn’t about waiting until a customer needs something and then doing it perfectly. If you think that this is your job, you’ll force your customers to think of each interaction separately rather than focusing on the relationship they have with your company. Your competitors can deliver quality output and meet deadlines too, and there’s always the possibility that you will get beat on price.

By changing your de�nition of service from responding to customer requests to proactively using your expertise to help them grow and be pro�table, you can shi� the way that the customer evaluates their relationship with you. If you use your expertise and proactive advice to become a critical tool to your customer’s success, they will make decisions that are based on more than just price.

What’s Your Job?By Kate Dunn

NEWS and UPDATES



NOVEMBER • 2016

NPOANational Print Owners Association

1.888.316.2040 • www.printowners.org

Mechanics: Getting the Process Right






NPOA NEWS • NOVEMBER 2016 NOVEMBER 2016 • NPOA NEWS

As the owner of a printing company, you wear a lot of hats. You probably also have more on your plate every day than you have hours in the day. How do you manage all of that? �e strategy I

recommend is to plan your day, in blocks, around those multiple hats. And to remember that some things are more important than others.

I start my days with a three-stage evaluation of all of the things I have on my plate. �e �rst issue is prioritization. Which things have to get done? Which things have to get done by a certain time? Which things could slide to tomorrow or another day? Which things are going to help me to reach my goals, and which things are not? (Like I said, some things are more important than others!)

�e second stage is to assign time limits to each task, and limits is the most important word here. You don’t always know how long something is going to take, but you can decide how long you can allow

it to take, and I think you’ll �nd that limiting a task to a speci�c block of time will help you to accomplish that task within that block of time. �ere’s a thing called Parkinson’s Law which states that work expands to �ll the amount of time allowed for it. �e reverse can also be true, and that’s what I’m talking about here.

�e third stage is to assemble my plan for the day, based on my priorities

and time constraints, and also based on building blocks of related tasks. For example, I might have 15-20 new business development tasks on a particular day, and I know from experience that I can complete 8-10 of these tasks per hour (since most of them involve leaving a message or writing an e-mail, maybe 1 in 4 involves any sort of substantive conversation.) I don’t “hope” to get to these tasks during the course of a day. Instead, I schedule two one-hour blocks to put on my sales hat, and while I’m wearing that hat, I don’t let myself get distracted by any other task that goes with any other hat. �is allows me to get into the rhythm of sales calls, which means that I’m far more e�ective than I might otherwise be.

Here’s another important part of this strategy. I always schedule a few reactive blocks into every day. Today, for example, I blocked out an hour to write this, and then an hour of sales calls, and then a 30 minute block to check my e-mail and phone messages and deal with anything that comes in during the two hours I’ve committed to speci�c tasks and/or hats. I don’t let myself get distracted by the “tyranny of the urgent.” I plan my work and work my plan.

�at doesn’t mean I never change my plan. But I never change it without a conscious decision, based on priorities and that understanding that some things really are more important than others.

Here’s a �nal thought for today. Like you, I usually have more on my plate than I have hours in the day. �at means that there are things I’m asked

Time Management and Organization: Blocks and Hats and PrioritizationBy Dave Fellman

I usually have more on my plate than I have hours in the day. That means that there are things I’m asked

to do that I simply can’t get to, which usually means that someone is mad at me every day.

Potential buyers don’t always share the full story . . . Why? Is the answer simply that . . .

All Buyers are Liars?By Wendy Weiss, The Queen of Cold Calling™

Earlier this week a participant in a training session posed this question: “Wendy is it true that all buyers are liars?”

Many sales professionals certainly believe this statement to be true. By simple logic, however, the statement, “All buyers are liars,” cannot possibly be true. While it can be true that some buyers might be liars they cannot all be liars.

More importantly, the mindset that every prospect with whom you speak is lying to you is not a mindset that supports you. It is not a belief that will help you become successful. Instead, the mindset that every prospect is lying to you is depressing and demoralizing and keeps you from asking the questions you might otherwise ask to dig deeply and clarify the needs of that prospect. If they are all lying to you, why bother?

A prospecting call is an interruption. Sadly, our prospects are not all sitting by the phone waiting for our calls. �ey are all doing something else when that phone rings. In addition, a prospecting call is an introduction. Once you introduce yourself to a new prospect it takes some time to build trust and to build a relationship. At the beginning of your relationship, your prospect may not tell you everything – this is a very natural and a very human response.

My recommendation is to remain neutral – no jumping to conclusions, no mind-reading, and no assumptions about what the prospect is “really thinking.” Instead, listen to what the prospect has to say and then ask relevant questions. Buyers are not liars, they are simply human beings.

Wendy Weiss, is known as �e Queen of Cold Calling. She is an author, speaker and sales trainer who is recognized as one of the leading authorities on lead generation, cold calling and new business development. Download her Cold Calling Survival Guide.

If you have 20 things on your plate, I wrote, and there’s only enough time to do 10 of them,

you have to prioritize aggressively.

1. Determine a Realistic Price Range.

2. Understand the Tax Consequences.

3. Prepare for a Sale.

4. Seek Potential Buyers.

5. Negotiate The Deal.

6. Get a Commitment in Writing.

7. Prepare and Sign the Sales Agreement.

8. Plan for the Closing.

Eight Essential Steps to Selling Your BusinessBy Graphic Arts Advisors, LLC

of a day. Instead, I schedule two one-hour blocks to put on my sales hat, and while I’m wearing that hat, I don’t let myself get distracted by any other task that goes with any other hat. �is allows me to get into the rhythm of sales calls, which means that I’m far more e�ective than I might otherwise be.

I always schedule a few reactive blocks into every day. Today, for example, I blocked out an hour to write this, and then an hour of sales calls, and then a 30 minute block to check my e-mail and phone messages and deal with anything that comes in during the two hours I’ve committed to speci�c tasks and/or hats. I don’t let myself get distracted by the “tyranny of the urgent.” I plan my work and work my plan.

never change it without a conscious decision, based on priorities and that understanding that some things really are more important than others.

usually have more on my plate than I have hours in the day. �at means that there are things I’m asked

Is time management a challenge for you?

Join your fellow Print Owners at the NPOA Conference in New Orleans for Dave’s presentation on “Making Time for Process, not just Production” on Friday, February 3, 2017.

Dave Fellman has been a regular columnist for Quick Printing/Printing News for more than 25 years and has presented seminars and keynotes at industry events, across the United States and around the world. He is the author of “Sell More Printing” and “Listen To �e Dinosaur” which Selling Power magazine Selling Power magazine Selling Powerlisted as one of its “Top 10 Books To Read” in 2010. Purchase these books or contact Dave at www.DaveFellman.com.

To register for the NPOA conference, go to

www.PrintOwners.org


ATime Management and Organization: Blocks and Hats and PrioritizationBy Dave Fellman



to do that I simply can’t get to, which usually means that someone is mad at me every day. I ultimately make most of my time management decisions based on who I want to be mad at me.

�e point is that you get to choose. I wrote an article for Quick Printing magazine once about “violent” Quick Printing magazine once about “violent” Quick Printingprioritization. If you have 20 things on your plate, I wrote, and there’s only enough time to do 10 of them, you have to prioritize aggressively. If you have 50 things on that same plate, you have to prioritize violently. If someone’s going to be mad at you, choose the person whose anger will hurt you the least.

Don’t forget, by the way, that you are one of the people in this equation. How will you feel if you get to the end of today and realize that you made one of your vendors happy by returning his phone call, but you might have missed an opportunity to increase your sales volume, pro�ts and earnings by not following up on a sales opportunity? I would hope you’d be mad at yourself!

Dave Fellman is well known in our industry. He’s been a regular columnist for Quick Printing/Printing News for more than 25 years, and has presented seminars and keynotes at industry events across the US, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. He is the author of “Sell More Printing” and “Sell More Printing” and “Sell More Printing” “Listen To �e Dinosaur,” which To �e Dinosaur,” which To �e Dinosaur,” Selling Power magazine listed as one of its “Top 10 Books To Read” in 2010. Both books are available at his website: www.davefellman.com, where you’ll also �nd information about his Sales Coaching and Sales Coaching and Sales Coaching Sales/Marketing Audit programs. You can reach Dave by phone at Audit programs. You can reach Dave by phone at Audit 919.363.4068, 919.363.4068, 919.363.4068or by e-mail at [email protected].











1. Determine a Realistic Price Range.

2. Understand the Tax Consequences.

3. Prepare for a Sale.

4. Seek Potential Buyers.

5. Negotiate The Deal.

6. Get a Commitment in Writing.

7. Prepare and Sign the Sales Agreement.

8. Plan for the Closing.




www.PrintOwners.org

to do that I simply can’t get to, which usually means


ATime Management and Organization: Blocks and Hats and PrioritizationBy Dave Fellman













1. Determine a Realistic Price Range. If you price your business too high, you’ll scare away buyers. If you price it too low, you’ll risk selling at a bargain basement discount. Your goal is to �gure out a range that’s realistic. Get a valuation done as that can be used to help market your company.

2. Understand the Tax Consequences. Taxes can take a huge bite out of the money you receive for your business. You’ll need help from a CPA or other tax expert.

3. Prepare for a Sale. �e getting-ready process, of course, includes sprucing up your business premises – everything should be attractive and orderly. But more important is getting your numbers in good shape. Consider recasting your tax-return numbers for prospective buyers. �is involves, for example, adding back to your pro�ts discretionary expenses.

4. Seek Potential Buyers. Finding buyers may not be easy. Usually you’ll need to reach out to a big pool of potential buyers. �e more interest you receive, the better o�er you will get. You may want to engage a consultant or broker to reach more buyers.

5. Negotiate The Deal. Once you attract an interested buyer, you need to work out the terms of the sale. �e key issues are whether you want the whole business or some of the assets? How will you be paid? What are the terms of payment? Will you continue with the business as an employee or independent contractor? Will you have to sign a non-compete? If the deal is

an installment sale or earn-out, how will the buyer guarantee or collateralize the payments? Of course, you need to have professionals help advise you through this process.

6. Get a Commitment in Writing. Once both parties have agreed on a deal, you need to have a signed Letter of Intent (LOI). Usually, the buyer puts this together. Make sure the LOI is detailed and covers all the major points including the length of the due diligence period and the closing date. LOI’s are generally not legally binding albeit they should not be altered unless either party �nds out some new information during the due diligence period.

7. Prepare and Sign the Sales Agreement. Once you’ve worked through the due diligence period with the buyer, you need to put the deal in writing. Again, the buyer usually prepares the �nal purchase agreement but sometimes the work is shared by both the buyer and seller professionals. �e Purchase Agreement, Non-Competes and any Notes should be written by a professional and reviewed by your business lawyer to make sure you’ve covered all the bases.

8. Plan for the Closing. �e closing is the meeting at which you transfer the business to the buyer. To reduce the chance of last-minute hassles, make a checklist of all the papers you’ll be bringing and all that the buyer is expected to bring. Final inventory, employee accruals and work-in-process numbers may be required.




www.PrintOwners.org


IWhat’s Your Job?By Kate Dunn

NEWS and UPDATES



NOVEMBER • 2016

NPOANational Print Owners Association301 Brush Creek Road, Warrendale, PA 15086-75291.888.316.2040 • www.printowners.org

Mechanics: Getting the Process RightPhilip Beyer is founder/president Philip Beyer is founder/president Philip Beyer Ebiz Products LLC

and Beyer Printing Inc., in Nashville, Tennessee. A�er opening his commercial printing company in 1988, Beyer set out to totally systemize every facet of his operation. In the process, he developed unique, easy-to-use, integrated systems that are now used in various businesses around the country.

Beyer’s popular business book, “System Busters: How to Stop �em In Your Business” is now available in Kindle and Audio versions, has become a much used desk item for serious-minded business owners and managers who seek order, lean and sustainable management, and continuous improvement in their operations. His mission is to help other owners and managers bring their businesses to sustainable order, to reach their maximum potential through lean and error-free systemization.

His Friday morning presentation on Mechanics: Getting the Process Rightis one of the important keynote sessions for NPOA’s New Orleans Conference focused on Mechanics, Message and Mardi Gras! Join fellow Print Owners in the Big Easy for information packed workshops, valuable networking among peers and N’awlins fun February 2-4, 2017.


Kindle and Audio versions, has become a much used desk

Mechanics: Getting the Process Right


New OrleansNew OrleansNew OrleansNew OrleansNew OrleansNew OrleansNew OrleansNew OrleansNew OrleansJoin Us in



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