Years ago, a print company in Vancouver bought one of the first black-and-white digital print pieces of equipment. It was a big deal. The equipment manufacturer made a lot of noise about the purchase. There was an open house, complete with balloons and confetti and wine and cheese, and all new marketing materials were sent out to announce the availability of this new technology.

The excitement lasted about as long as it took for you to read that last paragraph. For soon after the dust settled, it quickly became apparent that there was no market for digital print in Vancouver. And how did the print company find out? Why, their salesforce told them as much.

It must be true, then, right?
 

Meanwhile, in the middle of the country, an Ottawa-based printer was adding to their already impressive cachet of digital print devices with yet another piece of equipment, this one identical to the one at the Vancouver printer. Business was booming locally, but they had found a new and untapped market in the most unlikely of places: Vancouver. That's odd, you might think, because didn't we just find out the exact opposite? How could this be?

Selling digital/inkjet printing is a rather radical departure for salespeople. It moves them way, way out of their comfort zone. In fact, many reps have no interest in selling it at all. Why? Imagine listening in on that first sales meeting at the Vancouver printer after the digital device purchase was announced:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve got some exciting news. Today, we take our first step into the future with the purchase of a brand-new digital print device. For the company, this is a major investment. For you, the sales team, this changes everything. Now, you will need to move away from the print buyer, your sales sweet spot since the dawn of time, and seek out someone new, the requisitioner. He/she might be in Marketing, Production, or Human Resources. Then, you will need to learn the language of digital. This is not going to be easy. You might feel, well, kind of stupid at times. And then there's the order quantity. You are all used to tens of thousands and up but the new order quantities are going to be a fraction of the size. That means that there will be more orders to write up and more frequently. As you can imagine, this will take more time. And then there's the commission dollars. Small orders mean small revenue for you, too. So, just to recap, you're going to be calling on a new group, talking a new talk, for smaller sales volume and less income. Oh, and did I mention that the selling cycle is considerably longer for digital?"

It's little wonder the Vancouver-based print sales team had no success. As it turns out, the company owner learned later that his team simply went to the buyers and said something along the lines of, "You don't need any digital printing, do you?" When the answers came back in the negative, it was easy for them to report an overall lack of interest amongst current clients and current contacts.
 

Up until the advent of digital printing, the path to a sale went through the Buyer. Seeking out the originator/requisitioner of the document to create a print solution was optional back then. One could survive and even thrive in a world that consisted of Print Buyers and the price-service-quality triangle.

No more.

Now, for the first time, print salespeople must look beyond the traditional and seek out a new source to begin their sales process. Identifying applications for digital/inkjet printing includes not only determining which industries and one-off opportunities (e.g. a Trade Show) but also branching out and away from Purchasing in order to find the source of the document and educate him/her on the benefits of this new technology.

The other option is to do what the Vancouver-based salespeople did and keep your head in the sand, ignoring completely any new print option. If this is the path you choose, you had best be close to retirement age as not only is this new print world evolving, sales skills that were once optional are now mandatory.

Ready to learn more? Register to participate in one of three thINK Virtual Sales Workshops.

Bill Farquharson and Kelly Mallozzi have sold digital print themselves and create a lot of content around the subject.  Their book, Who’s Making Money at Digital/Inkjet Printing is available on Amazon.