Posted by Nick Devine
Aug 3, 2009
Your customers are your competitors’ prospects. Your best customers are the ones they desire most. Here’s why…
We all know the market is shrinking. Your competitors have lots of overhead and hungry iron to feed. They know they need new business. They only way they can get that new business is to steal it from someone else… namely YOU!
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Posted by Nick Devine
Jul 27, 2009
Profit Rules For Printers – Tips 122-132
Congratulations… you made it to the last section. This is where we move from information to implementation. By now you’ve probably realised I love to learn and study business. I gather a tremendous amount of information each month. I go on courses all over the world.
Currently I’m booked on 3 different courses this year. I have 134 books in my Amazon shopping basket. I have 5 large DVD/CD programs I’m working my way through.
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Posted by Nick Devine
Jul 20, 2009
Profit Rules For Printers – Tips 113-121
The greatest investment you can make in your business is in your marketing.When you have great marketing you can improve sales, increase market share, and attract a flood of new customers.
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Posted by Nick Devine
Jul 13, 2009
Profit Rules For Printers – Tips 101-112
I have a question for you. Can you quickly list 5 companies that you’ve ever done business with that WOW’d you with extraordinary customer care? They did such a good job that you told others about that company and some of those people also do business with the same supplier. You have remained a loyal client and are prepared to pay a higher price because of the relationship you have with them. You wouldn’t think of going anywhere else!
Were you able to even think of 3? What about 1?
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Posted by Nick Devine
Jul 6, 2009
Profit Rules For Printers – Tips 90-100
A number of years ago I owned the rights for a franchise for half the UK. Even before we sold our first product I put our prices up around 15%.Within the first year we were named franchisee of the year.We had the best sales results of anyone in the system. Over the last 2 years our printing company grew sales 80% but we also improved our GP% by over 3 points.When I tell people things like this they seem skeptical, which I can understand.
How can all that be possible?
If you’ve been reading this series from the beginning, you already know I’m no natural salesperson. I don’t know what one of those is, but I know for certain I’m not one of them. I’ve had to learn predictable, repeatable systems to produce the results I want. I couldn’t rely on natural talent.
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Posted by Nick Devine
Jun 30, 2009
Profit Rules For Printers – Tips 79-89
I struggled for years with the problems of converting leads into clients. I remember back in the Cairns days the State manager Ralph arranged a visit to my office. I wanted to use it as an opportunity to ‘close’ a number of prospects where I had installed trials of fax machines and photocopiers. I was nervous of what Ralph would say about my appalling sales results but optimistic that with his help we could close some deals. I’d lined up a number of what I thought were closing appointments over the following 2 days.
It didn’t go well.
We didn’t sell a single thing. Some of the prospects had already signed orders with other suppliers and my trial machine was still sitting in their office. Imagine how embarrassing that was.
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Posted by Nick Devine
Jun 23, 2009
Profit Rules For Printers – Tips 68-78
Back in 1984 I was working for Pitney Bowes in Cairns in Far North Queensland. If you’ve never been there, it’s hot. In summer… it’s very hot. My company car was the reject Toyota Hiace from the warehouse with vinyl seats and no air-conditioning. I couldn’t afford a proper car because I was making no commission.
On a typical day I’d drive an hour to an outlying town. First I’d have to change my shirt because the one I was wearing during the drive was now stuck to my back. Then I would spend the next 2 – 4 hours walking up and down each street in the town… cold prospecting. For someone with low selfesteem, this was not fun. I was also not very good at it. After my first 9 months, I was on about 50% of target and barely surviving.
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Posted by Nick Devine
Jun 16, 2009
Profit Rules For Printers – Tips 50-67
When I first became a partner in our printing company a couple of years back our value proposition was this: we produce great quality print at competitive prices, supported with excellent customer service and delivery times.
Here was the problem. Everyone else was saying the same thing. So what we were really saying to our prospects was that we had ‘better sameness’. Even I could see that was not helpful positioning in a commodity marketplace where all our prospects were trying to buy on price.
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Posted by Nick Devine
Jun 9, 2009
Profit Rules For Printers – Tips 32-49
In a recession, the first action that most company owners take is to cut costs. The assumption being that if revenue is reducing… so should costs. This is a necessary – but not sufficient, plan of action.
If you cut costs the wrong way or in the wrong parts of your company, you can make your business terminally ill.
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Posted by Nick Devine
Jun 2, 2009
Profit Rules For Printers – Tips 14-31
How is it that Richard Branson can build 7 different $b (yep… billion) businesses in 7 different sectors and still spend time playing on Nectar Island? How does Warren Buffet run a global conglomerate from a modest office in Omaha? How can Bill Gates ‘retire’ from Microsoft and still have a massively successful business?
One answer always stands head and shoulders about the rest when entrepreneurs talk about what it takes to run a successful business. They all say… you must have a great team.
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