from The Art & Science of PRINTING SALES
by Séan McArdle

There is an art and science to creating new customers. You can learn it. You can use it. And, you can profit from it. In large part, the decision to be a customer-creating salesperson amounts to learning the nuances of the art and the system that unlocks the secrets to the science of sales. When you put this kind of knowledge to work for you, you can call on ten times as many customers as your competition and close the real prospects in half the time it takes you now. Before you start, make a decision to have fun with the project of learning these new skills and putting them into practice.

I played golf recently in the opening day tournament at my club. I noticed that some players were walking while most were riding in carts. This was a departure from previous years when everyone took a cart. When I asked one of the walkers why they chose to walk, they replied, "I love to walk. It's good for me and even better for my golf game." I was impressed with his words. He used the words "love" and "good" and "even better". With powerful words like those attached to his decision to walk, riding was definitely out of the question.

It seems to me that deciding to create new customers is a similar set of circumstances. Some salespeople do it when it is convenient. Others do it because it is good for them and they love it. They understand that customer creation is even better for their income. Which kind of salesperson are you?

Making the conscious decision to consistently create new customers may actually be a matter of the words you use when you describe the process of turning prospects into selling relationships. For some, selling new customers is thought to be hard work. For those who love the challenge of turning a stranger into a customer, it is fun and creates powerful new earning opportunities. If you want to be a top-earner in sales, you must have fun with the process. You must have a system for creating a steady flow of new opportunity for you and your company.

In my tape series, The Art & Science of PRINTING SALES, I talk to you for twenty-four hours unlocking the mysteries of the printing sales process for you. In order to use it, you must have the desire to learn it. After you learn it, you must use it for ninety days until it becomes a habit. After that, you can begin to enjoy the fruits of your own desire to sell more. What a blast!

Here's how it works:

Get a database of businesses that you can read on your desktop computer. The simplest database comes in the form of a CD-ROM that contains the contents of the US Yellow Pages. This should cost about thirty dollars at your local software store. The more sophisticated databases can cost seven hundred dollars and require a charge per name accessed. I use iMarket. They are a spin-off of the Dun & Bradstreet organization, and I like it because it gives you tons of information about the companies in it.

Make a list of the five largest kinds of customers you have and the printed products they purchase from your company. Find out their SIC code and develop a list of companies from the database with the same SIC codes in your geographic area. Download a list of twelve hundred business names. That gives you twenty people to call every working day for ninety days. It usually takes twenty dials to get five buyers on the phone.

Download your twelve hundred names into contact software. I like ACT! 2000 but if you have another one, no problem. They all allow you to download from a database. Each morning, get on the phone and call as many companies as necessary to get five buyers who will agree to review an information package from you. (Most will agree just to get you off the phone.)

Send the five prospects a brochure on your company with a brief note explaining the unique benefits and features your company holds for them. In the note, tell them that you will call them in seven days to set up an appointment to clarify questions and to get to know each other better. Make sure to include any testimonial letters you may have from customers in the same industry as they are in. Call them seven days later! If they say they haven't read the material yet, have a brief thirty-second commercial prepared to get them up-to-speed on your company and then ask for the appointment. At least one of the five people you are following up with, will give you an appointment. That is one new appointment a day.

So far, you have called them, written them and followed up with them. That is three positive contacts, and you are still going. My research tells me it will take about ten positive contacts with a new prospect to develop a new buying belief in their subconscious mind. The next seven contacts should be planned and executed on purpose, not by accident. Plan to write them a thank you note after the first appointment. Estimate any job they buy that looks like it fits you. It doesn't make any difference whether it is a real job or not. Reviewing your numbers with them gives you a chance to do some reconnaissance before the job comes up next time.

Give them a tour of your shop. Take them to lunch or a sporting event and be prepared to ask meaningful questions about how you can do business with them. Have your boss call them to tell them how interested your company is in creating a new relationship with them. Drop off a reminder of your company. A calendar is great or a scratch pad or whatever else your company uses to promote itself. Make sure that you ask for an order any time it is appropriate. Keep track of your contacts until you have given them at least ten positive, informative situations that teach them about you and your company and the value of doing business with both. Then, and only then, are you qualified to make the decision about whether there is profit in continuing to work with them or cut them from your schedule.

Using this system, you will eventually close one of your five new appointments each week. If you carry out this process for two years, you will be the top salesperson in your company. What would that be worth to you? Why not be the best? Why not become a practitioner of The Art & Science of PRINTING SALES? There is plenty of room at the top and the view is spectacular.

Séan McArdle is the $100 Million Dollar Salesman. He sold more than $100 million in printing each of his last three years in the industry. Today he is the CEO of LifeAnswers, Inc. He speaks to thousands of printers each year and consults some of America's largest printing firms in the areas of Sales, Negotiation and Customer Service. He can be reached at 800-347-9193 or via e-mail at sean.mcardle@lifeanswers.com.