36 email: news@printmonthly.co.uk January / February 2024 - Issue 346 INDUSTRY TIPS / THE ONLINE PRINT COACH UNCOVERING HIDDEN PRINT SALES I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase: "You're only as good as your last print order!”, and it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been dealing with a customer and on most accounts giving them wonderful service but there’s always a competitor hanging around, waiting for you to slip up. Let’s be honest, whilst you’ll have a few you are fairly adamant are not going anywhere else, customers can be a lot less forgiving these days. If you do your job well, you shouldn’t need to worry too much but this is the world of print – things can go wrong! Presses break down, couriers have a habit of losing those time critical jobs. It’s probably happened to each and every one of you and it’s something I came to accept was inevitable years ago, but it’s how we respond to these situations that make us become the best print suppliers. But what happens with the print suppliers that aren’t responding well to these situations? Are you looking out for it? Competition is a fact of business life and in many ways I enjoy it as it keeps us on our toes and always striving to do better. There are four key areas you want to be focused on when analysing your competition: 1. Customer Views For this, you want to be checking out what customers are saying about them. Check out their Google Reviews, Facebook, and Trust Pilot – wherever people are talking about them. Success leaves clues so look for the positives of what people are feeding back on but more importantly, look for the negatives. Is there a trend of people complaining about jobs always being late, boxes being poorly packaged and arriving damaged, and poor communication throughout the process of the job? This is invaluable information. Could your next email marketing campaign flip this on its head and talk to your audience about 95.7% of your jobs being delivered on time throughout the previous month? Could you talk about how your jobs are shrink wrapped and packed in secure double-walled cartons? Could you promote how your customers can track the progress of their job from start to finish on your system? 2. Alternative Solutions Are there any particular print products or services your competitors are offering that you could be missing an opportunity with? Perhaps they are having a lot of success with their new recycled range of stocks? Maybe they’ve introduced embroidered workwear to their offering or started selling large-format? Colin Sinclair McDermott offers his advice and tips on things to focus on when analysing competition and highlights how doing this effectively can help to uncover hidden sale potential Having been in the print industry since the mid-late 90s, Colin Sinclair McDermott entered the world of self-employment in 2004 and over the years that followed, experienced a number of highs and lows running his own print company, learning what does and doesn’t work. In 2022, he trained with The Business Coaching Academy to become a fully certified corporate coach with the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches. Through The Online Print Coach, industry members can access private 1-to-1 coaching with Sinclair McDermott. Sinclair McDermott says: “I didn’t always get it right, I made mistakes along the way and one of the greatest motivators now is being able to give the support I never had to make sure others don’t repeat some of the errors I made. “My clients are seeing great results and it genuinely feels like I’m doing what I was always meant to do and making a difference.” www.theonlineprintcoach.com
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