HOW TO STOP PRINT BUYERS CHOOSING ON PRICE

How to STOP
PRINT BUYERS
CHOOSING
ON PRICE
Matthew Parker

How To Stop Print Buyers Choosing On Price
© 2012 Matthew Parker
This book is published by Print & Procurement Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or incorporated
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holder. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts please contact
matthew.parker@printandprocurement.com
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basis, without warranty. Whilst every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this
book, neither the author, Profitable Print Relationships nor Print & Procurement Ltd. shall
have any liability to any person or entity with respect to loss or damage caused or alleged
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book or by any products or services described in it.
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Print & Procurement carries out training and consultancy in all areas covered in this book.
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Layout and design by www.higgs-boson.com

Contents
Foreword 5
Introduction 7
• Why print companies need to change their sales messaging – right now 8
Part 1 Why buyers choose on price 13
• How the print industry regularly encourages buyers to choose on price14
• Why most print sales messages mean that buyers are forced to
choose on price – even if they don’t want to 19
• Why self-promoters fail to connect with print buyers:
three things print sales people should avoid doing 23
• Case studies 28
• Summary29
• Action points 30
Part 2 Why print companies need target audiences 31
• Why focussing on fewer prospects gets you more customers 32
• The power of three: how to choose a profitable target audience
in under five minutes 37
• How to avoid empty presses: why print companies need
multiple target audiences 41
• Case studies 45
• Summary, Action points 47
Part 3 Why pain motivates buyers 49
• Why making your prospects feel pain will make them buy from you
(and how funnelling up makes prospects feel even more pain) 50
• How to get print buyers to talk about pain: three ways to get great
engagement from your prospects 55
• Why the right solutions make your customers buy print – right now59

HOW TO STOP PRINT BUYERS CHOOSING ON PRICE
4 © 2012 Matthew Parker | www.ProfitablePrintRelationships.com
• Case studies 64
Part 4 Why printers need to be different 67
• Why your sales message can help a prospect choose your competitors 68
• Why 98% of printers’ differences don’t make them different
(and make the buyer choose on price) 74
• How to make a print buyer choose you over your competitors
(and even pay more) in three simple steps 80
• Case studies 84
Premium edition
Part 5 New ways to use your sales message 87
• How to get customers to call you, ready to buy straight away
(even if you’ve never spoken to them before) 88
• How to have prospects eagerly await your contact
(and how to alienate them in under five seconds) 94
• How printers lose business by playing hide and seek
with their customers 100
• Case studies 105
Conclusion 109
• Why this book will be useless – unless you think like an athlete 110
Afterword 113
How do you improve your print profits?115

© 2012 Matthew Parker | www.ProfitablePrintRelationships.com5
FOREWORD
Welcome to “How to stop Print Buyers
Choosing On Price”.
I get to talk to a lot of people in the print
industry. Many of those conversations
revolve around one central theme:
everybody is talking about how print
buyers are only interested in price. And how
this is seriously affecting the margins of
print companies.
The situation gets worse for printers when recent research (“The
Challenger Sale”, Dixon and Adamson) shows that only 38% of customers
stay loyal to good service and quality. So even if you win a new customer,
the chances are they’ll be off to another supplier soon.
I have been a print buyer for many years. And I have had sales pitches
from well over 1,400 print companies. So as I started to research this
book, I thought back to my own experiences. And here are some of the
things that I found:
• Print companies were leading conversations with price
• Most of the time, I didn’t feel like a special customer
• No-onemademefeelthatIreallyneededtheservicesofanewcompany
• It was hard to distinguish one sales pitch from another
• Print companies rarely made much effort to stay in touch with me
In other words, print companies were encouraging me to choose on price.

But there were some companies that persuaded me to give them time.
They persuaded me to place work with them at higher prices. And I kept
going back to them. What was it that stopped me from going to the lower
priced competition?
That’s what you’ll find out in this book.
Enjoy it. Be inspired by it. But, most importantly, put it into practice.
Best wishes
Matthew Parker
P.S. If you’re not already signed up, don’t forget to subscribe to my
newsletter. Sign up at http://ProfitablePrintRelationships.com/e-book
and you’ll receive a free e-book “Ten Common Selling Buying Errors and
What To Do About Them”.

INTRODUCTION

Why print companies need to change
their sales messaging – right now
Let’s start with a confession: I used to work as a print buyer.
I bought print for a major publishing company in the UK. It was a prestigious
company name. And we placed a lot of print. At one point I was placing print
for over 100 magazine titles. As well as all the extra print that goes with that.
So you can imagine that nearly every printer in the UK wanted to be printing
for my company. And they all wanted to speak to me. That meant that I received
between ten and twenty approaches from print companies every single week.
You’d think that I’d seen a lot of different sales approaches from printers. But,
in actual fact, this wasn’t the case at all.
98% of the print sales pitches I received were identical
Even when I asked printers what made them different, they all still sounded
the same. And the sad thing was that most of them started their pitch by
encouraging me to talk about price.
So, when I started training and consulting with printers, I knew the number
one problem in the print industry. If the print industry didn’t change the way
it sold, it would be in serious trouble.
And that’s why I wrote this book.
Printers who use this book will find a new way of creating sales messages
These sales messages will help you engage with the customer. You will start
creating customer relationships. And that means that your prospects and
customers will stop seeing you as providing a commodity. They will stop
choosing on price.
You’ll have more control over your sales pipeline. And you’ll achieve the sales
targets that you need. And, more importantly, you’ll achieve your profit targets.

INTRODUCTION
Printers who don’t use the strategies in this book will struggle to make the
profits that they need. And they’ll struggle to make profits even if they fill their
presses. This is because their customers will see them as providing commodity
print. The printers won’t have created good customer relationships. And there’s
a reason for this: these printers will be using traditional sales messaging.
Traditional print sales messaging doesn’t work
Traditional print sales messaging relies on a number of concepts that simply
don’t cut it in today’s business world. We’re not going to talk about them at all
in this book. You won’t be encouraged to use features and benefits. You won’t
be encouraged to carry out objection handling. In fact, you won’t be encouraged
to do any of the things that you probably covered in sales training.
Instead, we’re going to cover just three areas. And these areas are:
• Target markets
• Pain
• Difference
You’ll get a good understanding of how you can use these three areas effectively.
And that means that your print sales results will improve.
There are three reasons for this:
• Customers will see that you understand them and their markets
• Customers will understand why they need to use you. They’ll understand
why this will make their lives easier
• Customers will see and understand that you are different from the
competition
But just three things may not seem very much to dramatically change your
selling technique.
Will these three things really make a difference?
Yes, they will. They are the three key elements to creating a really compelling
sales message.
You’llseehowsalesmessagesbuiltontargetmarket,painanddifferenceworkin

real life. Throughout the book there are five case studies on how actual printers
created compelling sales messages. And they all used these three elements. All
the messages are ones that I have seen in use at printers. And I have worked
with clients to create some of them.
Sales messages which use these three elements will encourage the buyer to
choose you. And to potentially pay you more than the competition would have
charged. Yes, you may be able to charge higher prices.
But print buyers only choose the lowest price
This is because many people in the print industry have encouraged them to
do this. So you will need to create sales messages which encourage buyers to
choose on value, not price. And target audience, pain and difference will help
you to stop print buyers focussing only on price.
Let’s be clear: price will still be an issue. Most buyers are unlikely to choose you
if you charge double what you competitor is charging. But if you charge a fair
market price then you are likely to be chosen. Even if you are not the cheapest.
But to convince you of this, we need to turn to real life. Let’s look at how this
works in practice. We’re going to do this by using you as the buyer. You have
just bought this book. So let me ask you a few questions.
Would you have bought this book if it wasn’t written for printers?
The chances are you wouldn’t have bought it if it was aimed at everybody. It
wouldn’t have been so relevant to you. You probably bought this book because
it was aimed at a target market: the print market. And actually the book is also
aimed at a specific type of printer.
Now let’s look at pain.
Did you buy this book to learn about target market, pain and difference?
Of course you didn’t. You bought the book because you wanted to solve a
problem. You bought this book because you wanted to learn how to stop print
buyers choosing on price.

INTRODUCTION
In other words, you bought this book because you have a problem that you want
to overcome. You bought on pain, not on features and benefits.
But you also bought this book because it was different
You may also have bought this book because it is written by a print buyer. Lots
of books offer help from the sales person. But few offer help from a print buyer.
Especially from a print buyer who has experience over 1,400 sales pitches by
printing companies. And that’s what makes this book different.
And because the book was sold on these three elements, you were happy to
pay a price premium. After all, there are plenty of sales books out there that
are cheaper.
You bought this book because the sales page used target audience, pain and
difference. And, as you read on, you will learn how to use these three elements
effectively.
To use them effectively, you have to do one thing.
Make sure you put your learning into practice
It’s no good simply reading this book. You won’t achieve the results that you
need unless you take action. So don’t forget to study the summaries and the
action points at the end of each part.
And here are three action points to do right now:
• Make sure you make a twenty minute slot in your schedule each week as
a time to put your learning into action
• Make a commitment right now to completing one action point each week
• Ask a colleague to hold you accountable. Ask them to make sure you
achieve that action point every week.
This will make sure that you will put everything into practice. And that you
really will make changes to your sales.
And that means that your prospects and customers will take note of you. You’ll
stand out.

Remember that 98% of printers make identical pitches
You don’t want to be one of those printers, do you? So let’s get going and make
sure that you’re one of the two percent that stand out.
And the first thing that we need to do is to understand why traditional print
sales messaging does not work. We need to understand what mistakes to avoid.
And how to stop leading with price.
So that’s why you need to read the first section, where we look at traditional
print sales in more detail.
Let’s go!

INTRODUCTION
PART 1
Why buyers
choose on price

How the print industry regularly
encourages buyers to choose on price
“Go on Sir, name your price!”
Can you imagine walking into a showroom to buy a new car and being greeted
in this way? Can you imagine the car sales person rushing to meet you? And
hurrying you to sit down with them? And immediately starting the conversation
with price?
That would be a very odd sales strategy
Surely the car sales person would want to talk to you first. They’d want to find
out more about you. They’d want to find out what sort of car you had in mind and
why. And they’d want to talk to you about the car. Maybe you’d have a test drive.
Only then would they want to talk to you about the price.
And yet many printers start their sales conversations with price
It’s not a great strategy. It encourages buyers to choose on price. And yet many,
many printers follow this route. They fail to use sales messages that are not
focussed on price.
Printers who use sales messages that are not focussed on price are more likely
to create customer partnerships. This sort of sales messaging allows printers
to be in control of their sales pipeline. And it allows them to achieve their sales
targets.
Printers who sell on price are always going to struggle to reach their sales
targets. This is because their customers are always going to be searching for
a cheaper price. They won’t value the print supplier that they use. There is no
partnership between client and printer.
In this situation, the client will always be making a transactional purchase. By
this I mean that they will concentrate on buying a single item at one time. And
when the time comes to buy a new item, the purchasing process begins all over

PART 1 WHY BUYERS CHOOSE ON PRICE
again. And that means that they are happy to choose a completely new supplier
this time round. Transactional purchases are single deals. There is no long-term
relationship between buyer and printer.
Printers should be aiming to avoid transactional customers. This isn’t always
easy. To achieve this, printers need to focus on relationship based selling. By
this I mean that the customer looks for a long-term relationship with the printer.
The printer will be the supplier they automatically approach when they need
a new job.
However, it can be difficult for this type of relationship to be established. The
reason for this is that the print industry is busy encouraging customers to buy
on price.
Isn’t it the customer who demands to buy on price?
Most customers are buying on price because print companies are leading them
down this path.
Does that sound harsh? Have a look at this e-mail that was recently sent to me
by a printer:
Hi Michael
I hope you are well.
How are you finding the trade at the moment?
For us it has been very up and down, at the moment we are very busy. But,
as always, we want more work, so if you have anything that is suitable to my
presses, both B1 and B2, then please contact us for a quotation. If we have
already quoted and you know that something is in the pipeline then please let
me know so I can arrange the schedule.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards

I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of similar e-mails in the trade. Maybe you’ve even sent
one like this yourself.
And there appears to be nothing wrong with a message like this. It is simply a
reminder to the buyer about the printer. And a reminder that they should ask
the printer for a quote.
But this message encourages the buyer to choose on price
Messages like this will reduce a printer’s chance of receiving worthwhile work.
There are three reasons why this message makes a print buyer choose on price.
And here’s the first one:
This message focusses solely on quotes
There is no reason why the buyer should engage with the printer on any other
level than price. This e-mail gives me no information about the printer. It makes
no attempt to talk to me as a buyer. It gives me no reason to choose this printer
other than price.
So the only reason that I would send this printer a quote is to see if I could get
a cheaper price. E-mails like this actually encourage buyers to practice price-
based buying.
But there is also another reason why this e-mail encourages the print buyer to
choose on price.
This message makes the printer look desperate
As a keen buyer, I always look at messages and try and find the real reason
behind them. And in this e-mail the message is clear. The printer needs more
work. There are only six sentences in this e-mail. But two of them clearly show
that business is not great at this particular printer.
The first time this comes over is in the first few words of the main paragraph:
“For us it has been very up and down”
I would translate that as “we have a lot of gaps in our production schedule”. But
then the message becomes even more desperate:

“as always, we want more work”
This makes the e-mail look like the printer is begging for more jobs to fill their
presses.
This phrase also creates desperation:
“if you have anything that is suitable to my presses, then please contact us for a
quotation”
The printer is not being fussy about what they want. They want “anything”
that they can print. There is no attempt to tell the buyer the sort of work that
is really suitable for them. And there is no attempt to tell the buyer why they
should engage with this printer.
This printer just appears to need work. And to need it badly.
As a buyer I see clear signs that I can really push them on price if I want to. And
I don’t see any signs as to why I should value them as a supplier.
But it’s not just appearing desperate that encourages me to choose on price.
Here’s another reason:
This message doesn’t value me as a customer
For a start, I am called Matthew, not Michael. So if you want me to engage with
you as a printer, it helps if you get my name right. Otherwise I am made to feel
like a faceless prospect.
But beyond this error, the whole tone of the message is transactional. This
e-mail works on a purely one-deal basis. The buyer sends a quote. The printer
sends a price. It will be chosen if it is the cheapest.
But the printer could have given me other reasons to talk to them. If the e-mail
focussed on matters other than price there would be a better chance to focus
on a relationship. A better chance to focus on a long-term customer and printer
partnership.

Some people may feel that this is not possible from messaging in this way. After
all, this is only an e-mail blast.
There’s nothing wrong with e-mail blasts
They can be a great way to communicate with customers. I would argue that
printed items have a better conversion rate. But e-mails should definitely be
part of the sales strategy these days.
However, e-mails and direct mail should be full of information that will interest
me as a buyer. They may not even mention quotes. They certainly won’t mention
that you’re desperate for work.
But providing the right information is harder than it sounds
There is a lot of sales messaging from printers that doesn’t talk about quotes.
But it still encourages me to choose on price. Most printers will need to change
the way that they think about the way that they talk to buyers.
That is what this book will focus on. Before this, we’re going to explore a couple
of other typical strategies that encourage buyers to choose printers on price.
We’ll discover these in the next two chapters of the book.
But before we go there, I want you do something else first.
Remember these three key points
• Never focus on quotes in your sales messages
• Never sound desperate in your sales messages
• Always value your customers when you talk to them
And there’s one other thing you should do as well.
Remember the car sales person
If you are ever tempted to lead with a price-based sales message, think about
new car sales. The car sales person wouldn’t ask their customer to buy on price.
Make sure that you don’t either.

Why most print sales messages mean
that buyers are forced to choose on
price – even if they don’t want to
Imagine that you need a widget. And imagine that you are faced with three
identical widgets. They all look the same. And they all do the same thing. There
is absolutely no way of telling them apart.
The only difference between them is that they are sold for different prices.
So how do you choose between the widgets? Well, that’s simple. You’d choose
the one with the lowest price. After all, why on earth would you pay more for
something that appeared identical?
But what if the cheapest one wasn’t the best?
What if one of the more expensive widgets had a useful feature. A feature that
had been hidden?
You might have made the wrong choice. But you would have had no way of
making a more considered decision. Because everything appeared identical.
The same situation happens all the time in the print industry
Do you remember my experience at the publishing company? When 98% of the
printers who approached me used identical sales messages? I had no way to tell
them apart from each other. Except, of course, through their prices.
But every now and then a printer would approach me who really sounded
different. They would have something in their sales message that really made
them stand out. And these were the printers that I would be prepared to meet
with. Most printers got a “Thanks but no thanks” response. But the ones with
a sales message that made them different always received thirty minutes of
my time.

Printers who have difference in their sales messages achieve their sales
targets
They are the ones who’ll be noticed by prospects. They are the ones who will
get the meetings. But there’s another advantage too: they will be the ones who
create valuable client partnerships.
This is because their clients will understand the printer offers more than a
cheap price. They offer reasons as to why they should be chosen above their
competitors. So these printers will have better control over their sales and
profits. Because they won’t be chosen on price.
Printers who don’t have difference in their sales message will be chosen on
price. They will fail to achieve valuable client partnerships. So they will fail to
control their sales and profits. And they will struggle to achieve their targets.
Of course, many printers really believe that they show they are different
But most of these printers have a sales message that does not achieve what
they need. Their sales message makes them appear to be just the same as the
competition. And this is shown every time I run face to face sales training with
printers.
When I run these sessions I always start with a test. I ask printers to raise
their hands if their sales message contains certain points. And, 98% of the time
everyone has a hand up at the end of the test. So everyone has a message that
contains elements that are common to nearly all print sales messages.
So what are the elements that make you look the same as everyone else. I have
listed the three key elements. And here’s the first one:
Your sales message is very general
By this I mean that it doesn’t focus on either specific markets or specific
products. Most printers are afraid of putting off potential customers. This
means that their message sounds bland. And it sounds the same as everybody
else. A printer must be able to tell a buyer what they specialise in. If they can’t
do this, the buyer is less likely to choose them.

Of course some printers do focus on specific markets or products. And yet, they
still sound very similar to other printers. Here’s one of the reasons why.
Your sales message is all about your equipment
I hate to tell you this, but most buyers don’t care about your printing presses.
Or your finishing kit. Or your pre-press workflow.
Many printers insist on telling prospects about all these things straight away.
And in great detail. The trouble is that many buyers don’t understand the
differences between presses. They don’t even want to understand.
So any sales message that focusses on an equipment list is incomprehensible to
them. And therefore it sounds exactly the same as the last message that focussed
on an equipment list. Even if the two printers are very different.
Of course some buyers do worry about a printer’s equipment. But even then it
is unlikely to be the first thing that they look at. They would have to be buying
a very specialised product to look at an equipment list before anything else.
Again some printers realise this. They focus on the things that they think set
them apart. But they still end up sounding the same as the competition. This is
because they fall into yet another trap.
Your sales message is all about quality, service and price
These three words are the most over-used in the print sales world. And we can
add the environment as a fourth phrase. Whenever a printer approaches me, I
ask them what makes them different. And, 98% of the time, they will respond
with at least one of these words.
Some printers deliver on their promise of excellent quality, service or price.
Some deliver on their promise of being environmentally friendly. And others
promise a lot but don’t come up with the goods. But they all sound the same
when they are making their sales pitch.
So what happens if your quality or service really do stand out?
We’ll come to this later on in the book. For now, understand that just saying

quality or service is not enough. Let’s look at an example.
I had a discussion with a printer recently. They made a big noise about their
customer service in their publicity. And, speaking with the sales person, I had no
doubt that they believed passionately about customer service. But they couldn’t
tell me what made their customer service stand out.
I asked for specifics three times. And all I received was general phrases like
• “Solutions focus” and
• “Above and beyond service”
At the end of the day their message still sounded the same as other printers.
And that’s not enough to make the sale.
However the printer could have given some really compelling information
about the customer services team. They could have talked about the training
programme that they put their customer service staff through. They could have
talked about the standards that they expected staff to work to. These specifics
would have let the prospect understand why the printer’s customer service
stood out.
The problem was that the printer thought everyone would understand what
they were trying to get across.
There’s a lesson to be learned here
Just because you understand what makes you different, don’t assume others do.
And keep a few other things in mind as well. Don’t have a general sales message.
Don’t make it all about your plant list. And please don’t tell me you have great
quality, service or price.
After all, you wouldn’t want to go through the same selection process as those
“identical” widgets.

Why self-promoters fail to connect
with print buyers: three things print
sales people should avoid doing
Do you go to business networking meetings?
There’s a certain type of person there. I’m sure you’ve met one of them before.
This person will fix you in their sights. They’ll walk over and introduce
themselves to you. And, before you know it, they’ve launched into a long talk,
all about themselves. They never ask any questions about you, or what you do.
They simply want to sell to you.
I call this type of person the self-promoter
I don’t know about you, but I go out of my way to avoid the self-promoter. They
are self-centred. They make no attempt to involve the other person. They have
no interest in them or their business. It is a totally one-sided conversation.
And it’s not a particularly effective conversation either. I’ve met very few people
who have time for the self-promoter. And very few people who have bought from
the self-promoter. The self-promoter is seen as someone who advertises. They
don’t try and engage with the person they are talking to. So the person they talk
to doesn’t want to engage with the self-promoter.
Printers need to avoid being seen as self-promoters
Talking about yourself simply won’t cut it in today’s sales environment.
Customers and prospects aren’t interested in you. They are interested in
themselves. So that’s what you need to focus the conversation on.
Printers should build the conversation around their customers and their
businesses and requirements. They will discover that they find out more about
them. And more about how they can help them. They will find that they get
closer to their customers. And of course that means that they are more likely
to make the sale.
Printers who are self-promoters and talk about themselves will struggle to

make the sale. Their customers and prospects won’t be interested in them. So
the self-promoters are forced to sell on price.
These printers should have spent more time connecting with their prospects
and customers.
But many, many printers fail to do this. They often keep the conversation
focussed away from the customer. They become self-promoters.
Here are the three main ways in which printers become self-promoters. And
the first one should be obvious. But many printers keep doing this.
Self-promoters talk about their companies too much
Many sales people think that they should talk a lot about their companies. After
all, traditional sales strategies focus on features and benefits. And you can’t sell
features and benefits without talking about your company.
But, as we’ll see later in this book, features and benefits may not be the best
way to appeal to a customer. So talking about your company in great detail is
no longer relevant.
And,inanycase,talkingaboutaprintcompanywillnotinterestmanyprospects.
Many print buyers these days are just not interested in the printing process.
They don’t know anything about it. And they don’t want to know anything about
it. They just want the end result.
Yet many printers focus on their machines and their workflow. And it washes
right past many of their prospects. These printers would have been much better
off focussing on their customers.
And there are a number of printers who realise this. And they don’t talk all
about their companies. But they still act like self-promoters. They don’t make
the conversation about the customer. And here’s the reason.
Self-promoters keep the conversation all about print
We have just said that many print buyers are not interested in the printing

process. So talking to them about this in great detail is not going to engage them.
But those printers who avoid talking about their companies often still talk about
print. They talk in detail about the printing process for different products. They
talk about dot gain and screen patterns and special colours and finishing. And
they lose the attention of their customers.
Most customers are more interested in the needs that drive their print buying.
We’ll find out more about this later in the book. For now, printers need to
understand that a technical conversation around print isn’t about the customer.
And many customers will think that such a conversation is all about the printer.
And there’s another way that customers will think that a conversation is all
about the printer. And that they are having a conversation with a self-promoter.
Self-promoters assume the buyer is only interested in price
Even in a transactional relationship, buyers may choose a printer on many
different factors. These reasons include:
• People
• Service
• Quality standards
• Location
• Equipment
• Company culture
• Clients
• Reputation
• Capacity
Price may be another reason, but it is often not the be all and end all of a
customer’s purchasing decision.
But many printers assume that their prospects and clients are only interested
in price. So they don’t really have a conversation about the other factors. And
that means they have a sales conversation that is all about price. It’s not about
the customer’s needs.

Let’s put this another way. It’s a conversation about the printer’s beliefs on how
a sales pitch should go. Talking about price is a self-promoter’s conversation.
It’s not about the customer.
But, at the end of the day, don’t customers choose on price?
Here’s an example of why this is not true. When I worked for the publishing
company we used to run tenders for much of our work. And many printers
assumed that we only chose on price.
But in every tender, there was a section that showed that this was not the case.
We stated that we were open to proposals from printers that helped us reduce
cost. And that we would be happy to consider paying more for such proposals.
And I went further. I had conversations with many printers who took part in
these tenders. I drew their attention to this section. And I spelt it out to them. I
said that I would pay them more if they found ways to reduce my costs.
I was hoping that printers would come up with ways in which we could work
more efficiently. I was hoping that we could reduce our administration costs.
And I was hoping that we could come up with ways to reduce expensive errors.
Unfortunately, printers always ignored this section (despite the conversations
that we had had). They chose to focus on price. They made the conversation all
about the priorities that they thought existed. They didn’t listen to the customer.
They didn’t make the conversation about the customer’s priorities. They acted
as self-promoters.
So, of course, the conversations with them often did focus around price. But
that was because the printers made it about price.
But there is a simple way around this mistake.
Make sure you ask the customer what they want to talk about
It’s a great way to make sure that you are focussing on their priorities. And it’s
a great way to make sure that customers are actively engaged with you. That
one question will stop you from talking about your company. And from talking

too much about print. And from making the conversation all about price.
Instead, the customer will see that you are interested in them. And that you
want to make the conversation about them. And not about you. You’ll have
moved away from being a self-promoter. You’ll be someone that the customer
is interested in talking to.
Let’s go back to the business networking meeting
There are plenty of people I’m interested in talking to at business networking
meetings. But these people are interested in me and my business. And that
means I am interested in them and their business. We achieve a two way
conversation.
But the best people I meet at business networking meetings are those who have
a more advanced way of engaging. They talk to me about my business issues
and challenges. They tell me how they are different from other businesses. And
they talk to me specifically because of the market that I am in.
And we’re going to spend the rest of this book talking about these three topics.
And, in the next stage we’re going to focus on the last one. We’re going to focus
on choosing which people to talk to. And talking to people specifically because
of the markets that they are in. We’re going to learn about target audiences.
But first let’s take some time to:
• Recap what we’ve learned
• Set some action points to get you going
• Introduce you to the case studies which we are going to cover in the rest
of the book

Case studies
Throughout this book we’re going to work with five case studies. This means
that you can see how the principles in this book are put into practice.
All the examples that have been chosen have used this messaging in real life.
Some have worked with me on their messaging. And others have been picked
because they were already using this messaging. These case studies are not
just theory. They have already been put into practice in the print marketplace.
A range of printers that are as different as possible have been picked. So that
meansthatyou’vegotagoodchanceofseeingacasestudythat’snottoodifferent
to your company. And that you have a case study that is really relevant to you.
So here are the five printers:
1. A local printer with small litho and digital presses
2. A high quality commercial litho printer
3. A commercial digital printer
4. A wide format printer
5. A magazine printer, focussing on 16pp A4 sections
There will also be space for you to fill in your strategies to create your own
case study.

Summary
We’re at the end of the stage where we discuss why so many printers
encourage buyers to choose on price. So let’s summarise what we have
learned:
• Many printers lead the sales conversation on price
• Asking for quotes too soon means that you are selling on price
• Selling on price (and asking for quotes too soon) often makes you sound
desperate
• If you appear the same as the competition it is hard for the buyer to see
why you are different. So they choose on price
• Most buyers do not understand the differences between items of print
equipment
• Selling on price, service or quality (and, usually, the environment) makes
you sound the same as other printers. Because that’s what nearly all
printers sell on
• Don’t be a self-promoter – make the conversation about the customer,
not about you
• Remember that most customers won’t engage through a discussion on the
technical details of print
• Never assume that buyers are only interested in price

Action points
To get the results you need from this book, you need to take action. Here are
three things that you can do right away. They will help you make sure that you
are avoiding the trap of selling on price. And they will help you make sure that
you are engaging with your prospects and customers.
• Review all sales mails being sent out. Do they send the right message? Or
do they focus on selling on price?
• Review the messaging that you use on your website, your brochure and
your leaflets. Do you talk about the customer? Or is the message all about
you, you, you?
• Review the messaging that your competitors use. Do you appear different
to competitors’ messaging? Or do you all sound frighteningly similar?
Are there any competitors who have great messaging that makes them
stand out? And are there any that use messaging that you need to make
a note to avoid?

PART 2
Why print
companies
need target
audiences

Why focussing on fewer prospects
gets you more customers
Do you think a law company and an advertising agency have the same company
culture?
People might look at you with raised eyebrows if you answered yes to that
question. If you went to visit a typical law company you’d almost certainly wear
a suit. You’d speak in formal language. And you’d be surprised if you met anyone
wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
And, of course, at the typical ad agency the reverse is true. Informal dress would
be common. And you would expect to be rather more familiar in your approach
with the people you met there.
You certainly wouldn’t expect to treat people at these two companies in the
exactly the same way.
So why do most printers treat all their prospects as if they were the same? Doing
this makes prospects feel as if they are just one in a bunch of faceless people.
They don’t feel as though the printer is really talking to them. Or as though the
printer really cares about them.
That’s why printers need to divide their prospects into target audiences
Printers who use target audiences will connect much more powerfully with
their prospects. Their prospects will feel that the printer understands them.
And that means that prospect and printer are more likely to work together. And
that’s great for achieving sales targets.
Printers who fail to use target audiences will struggle to achieve the same levels
of sales. This is because their prospects won’t connect with them in the same
way. So they’ll be less inclined to work with the printer.
If you want your prospects to connect with you, you must use target audiences.

PART 2 WHY PRINT COMPANIES NEED TARGET AUDIENCES
So what is a target audience?
A target audience is a very tightly defined group of prospects. This group can
be described in a number of ways. These include:
• Market sector
• Size of company
• Culture of company
• Type of contact at company
• Product required at company
These different factors combine to make a detailed picture of the type of
prospect that you are trying to connect with.
Here’s an example of a target audience
Our example is independent schools that have their own prospectuses,
brochures and magazines. The contact is likely to hold a marketing or senior
organisational role. They won’t know much about print. And they will be scared
at the idea of managing a project like this.
Now you have a good idea of whom you are wanting to talk to. You have a fully
defined target audience. But how does creating this target audience help you?
Here are three reasons why you should use target audiences. And the first of
these is to do with how you communicate with the target audience.
Target audiences let you speak to the prospect in their language
You wouldn’t use the same language for speaking to the law company and the
advertising agency. And you wouldn’t use the same language to talk to the school
either.
This means that a bland, generic sales message is forced to use bland, generic
language. And that means it’s difficult to connect with the law company. Or the
advertising agency. Or the independent school.
But if you focus only on the independent school you can talk to them in their
language. You can talk about prospectuses and term times and fund raising.
Things which would be irrelevant to a law company.

And you can talk to the members of school staff in simple print terms. Using
words that they will understand. But which might be looked down upon by an
experienced agency buyer.
So the school staff will relate to your company. But they won’t just do this
because of the language that you use. There’s another reason too.
Target audiences let you offer relevant value added services
What would happen if you offered design as a value added service? Well, if you
offered it to an advertising agency, they would ignore the offer as irrelevant.
In fact, they might even begin to see you as a competitor in their markets. It’s
something that you wouldn’t want to do.
But if you offered those design services to independent schools, you’d have a
different reaction. Many of them would be delighted. They wouldn’t have to
worry about finding their own designer. Or to worry about whether the designer
would work well with the printer. They would see design services as adding
real value to your offer. And, if you didn’t offer them, they might go elsewhere
to someone who did.
So it’s really difficult to put together a message with value added services that
work for a school and an advertising agency. The only way you can get this to
work is to make the message for a specific target audience.
And, in doing so, you create the third advantage of using target audiences.
Target audiences allow you to stand out
Wouldn’t it be great if prospects saw you as a supplier that they needed to speak
to? Well, target audiences allow you to achieve this. How does this happen? Let’s
look at the independent school again.
Firstly, you are using their language. They relate to what you are saying.
Secondly, you are offering them value added services that are useful to them.
But, most importantly, you are also saying that they are the market that you
want to engage with.

Which printer would the independent school choose? A printer that says that it
wants to work with schools? That has some case studies centred on schools just
like them? That talks about term times and prospectuses? That offers design
and project management? Or a printer with a bland, generic sales pitch?
The answer is pretty obvious. The school would engage with the printer that
had the target message.
Of course, your target message needs to be spot on. And some printers may find
it difficult to know what to include in their message to make it engaging. But
there is a simple trick that they can use.
Make sure that you talk to your target audience
The people who know most about what will engage with your prospects are
those prospects themselves. So make sure you speak to them. Hopefully you
have some people in your target audience who are clients already. Most will be
prepared to give you some time. They’ll be prepared to tell you what they are
looking for most from their print suppliers.
But as well as telling you what they want, they will give you some other
important information as well. They will tell you all the words and phrases
that they commonly use. If you record a conversation with them you’ll find out
exactly the right language to use in your marketing messages.
This language won’t work with all prospects. But it will work with your target
audience. It’s the final ingredient that will make a really powerful message. And
this power lies in the idea of using a target audience.
And yet many printers don’t use target audiences. Some just don’t think in this
way. But some have a real objection to using target audiences.
Doesn’t a target audience restrict whom you engage with too much?
This is a very valid concern. After all, the more you define your target audience,
the less people you are likely to appeal too.
Remember that you won’t get better sales results by using one message for as

many prospects as possible. It is far better to use one message to engage with
just a few prospects. We’ll talk about using more than one message later in the
book.
Your message must engage with your target prospects in depth. You’ll need to
understand their marketplace. You’ll need to talk their language. And you’ll
need to understand just what they want.
Interestingly, you’ll find that you appeal to more than just your target audience.
Suppose that you are aiming at the independent schools. You’ll talk about
prospectuses. And you’ll talk about magazines. You’ll talk about these subjects
in detail and with authority. And that means that you will also appeal to other
prospects who are looking for these type of products.
However, you need to look at this as an extra bonus. To start with, you should
just focus on the target audience. And that’s the word you should keep thinking
of.
Focus, focus, focus
Focus on your target audience’s language. Focus on relevant value added
services. And focus on standing out. You should make sure that you stand out
as a supplier that your target audience simply have to speak to.
Always focus on who your target audience are. You don’t want to start mixing
up law firms and advertising agencies in the same sales message.
Of course, when you are creating your sales message you may be wondering
one thing.
How do you choose a target audience?
And that’s what we’re going to look at next.

The power of three: how to choose
a profitable target audience
in under five minutes
I remember the first client that I dealt with when I started my company. They
were a nightmare! And there was a simple reason for this.
I hadn’t thought about the right target audience for my company.
And this is something that printers often don’t consider.
It is vital for printers to choose the right target audience
Printers who choose the right target audiences will find great customers to
deal with. They will find that they enjoy working with these customers. And
that they will build up great relationships with them. They will communicate
well. So the printer will stay in control of the jobs that they are producing for
them. And, even better, they will find that they make more profit from these
customers. This is because the jobs will go through swiftly and efficiently. But
also, the right target customers will have chosen you on issues other than price.
Printers who fail to choose the right target audience will still be selling on price.
They won’t have such good relationships with their customers. So they won’t
be able to control jobs in the same way. And they will find that the work is less
efficient. And less profitable.
So finding the right target audience is really, really important.
But how exactly do you choose the right target audience?
Choosing the right target audience is actually very simple. Below are three ways
to achieve this. In each of these ways you focus on a single customer. Using one
customer may seem too narrow a choice. But you can use this single customer
as a model for your desired target audience. How does this work?
Do you remember that in the last section we discussed how you will appeal to
more than just your target audience? This is exactly why we choose a single

person as the model for the target audience. Because you focus on just that one
person, your message will become very compelling. And therefore it will appeal
to many other prospects who are nearly like your target.
But we still need to choose that first target person. So here is method number
one for picking them.
Choose your customer that makes you the most profit
A profitable customer is a good customer to have. So if you look at your most
profitable customer, it’s a good model on which to base your sales drive.
Of course, you need to understand why the customer makes this profit. There
may be a number of reasons for this. They might include:
• Valuing your services
• Being very efficient
• Paying extra for specific services
• Not being confident buyers
• Not knowing much about print
All of these are valid types of customer to choose.
Butyourtargetmarketwillneedtofocusonmorethanjustthestyleofcustomer.
You’ll also need to focus on their market sector and the type of company they
are. And you’ll find that these three factors will combine to make them a
profitable customer.
Of course there may also be drawbacks to your most profitable customer. It
could be that they are extremely demanding. Or inefficient. Or that you just don’t
like dealing with them. And, in that case, you need to look at this next method
for choosing your target audience.
Pick your favourite customer
Customers that you like working with are also good customers. After all, it
makes for a much more enjoyable business if you can win customers you like.
If you base your target audience on a customer that you like, you will get more

similar customers. Again, you’ll need to understand what makes them great
customers. And you’ll also need to focus on their market sector and type of
company. But you’ll find that, you get a very specific type of customer that you
are going to try and win.
However, this profile must also be able to make the right profit margins for
you. It doesn’t matter how nice they are. They are not a good customer if they
are not profitable.
So it’s often the case that you need to combine these two methods.
Pick your most desired customer
Your most desired customer is usually a profitable customer with whom you like
working. But customers like these don’t come along very often! So sometimes it
is easier to invent your target audience. Just make sure that you take elements
from real customers into the mix.
Now you have an idea of the type of customer you want to engage with. But you
still need to make sure that you have thought of all the specifics. The best way
to achieve this is to set out exactly what your target audience should look like.
Here’s an example of a target audience
To create this example I have gone back to the independent school that we
focussed on in the last section. Here is some more detail about the school. This
detail is designed to make the target profile come alive. You’ll find that you are
thinking about a target business:
• Market sector - private independent school
• Size - turnover of xxx
• Typical contact - marketing manager or head of administration
• Type of person - not knowledgeable about print. Nervous about running
a big, high profile project
• Product requirement - prospectus and newsletter
So you now have a really detailed example of the sort of customer that you are
going to target. And we’re going to add to this profile as we go through the book.

When they look at the profile, some people may have an objection.
Isn’t this profile too specific?
Remember, that the more specific you are the more successful you will be in
appealing to your target audience. And because you are talking to them with
such an in-depth level you will also attract a lot of other customers who nearly
fit the profile.
So, in the case of the independent school, you will also attract other institutions
that require prospectuses. This will include universities and colleges. And you
will attract schools which don’t require a prospectus but do require other types
of print.
They will be attracted because they can see that you are talking directly to
them. Not to some faceless, general customer. But to someone just like them.
To achieve this you need to remember one thing.
Don’t change anything about the profile that you have picked
As soon as you start inventing things about your profile, it will stop sounding
right. And it won’t ring true with the very people with whom you are trying
to engage. Even for your most desired customer you should have picked real
details from a mix of real profiles.
Real profiles give you realistic target audiences.
So remember the power of three
Choose your target audience profile from
• Your most profitable customer
• Your favourite customer
• Your most desired customer
Of course, you’re bound to be wondering one thing.
Will a single target audience bring me enough work?
And that’s exactly what we’re going to deal with next.

How to avoid empty presses:
why print companies need
multiple target audiences
I remember visiting a printer and seeing that everything was wrong.
I went into their press room and it was deathly quiet. The presses weren’t
working. The minders stood idle. The work had dried up.
This was a printing company in trouble.
But the odd thing was that the printer had profitable customers. They made
money from them. The trouble was that they didn’t have enough clients. They
weren’t focussing on enough market sectors.
That’s why printers need multiple target audiences
Printers that deal with multiple target audiences will have a better chance
of achieving the sales they need. They will have a well-planned strategy for
making sure that they have strong leads from different sources. And they’ll
know exactly what those sources are. And why they are focussing on them.
They will stay in control of their sales pipeline.
Printers that don’t adopt this strategy won’t have the same control over their
sales pipeline. They will be scrabbling around for jobs. And they won’t have a
clear picture of how they are going to get the work they need. So they’ll struggle
to achieve their sales targets.
To achieve the sales revenues that you need, you must have a strategy for dealing
with a number of target audiences.
So do multiple audiences mean multiple sales messages?
Absolutely. You must choose and define each target audience. You’ll need to use
the process that we outlined in the last section. And, as you work through this
book, you’ll discover the other elements that you need to create an effective sales
message.Andyou’llneedtocreatetheseelementsforeachofyourtargetaudiences.

You must treat each target audience differently. Otherwise you won’t engage
with them effectively. They each need their own sales message.
Multiple sales messages sounds like hard work
You will need to put work in at the preparation stage. But the alternative
requires an awful lot more effort.
The alternative means that you need to spend a lot more time selling to
prospects. You won’t have the most effective sales message to use with your
prospects. So you’ll have to approach a lot more prospects in order to get the
same amount of conversions.
Here are three ways to manage more than one target audience.
1 - Split your sales team
It’sagreatideatogiveeachmemberofyoursalesteamtheirowntargetaudience
to deal with. This system ensures that you don’t risk either sales people or
customers getting confused by multiple messages.
It also allows the sales person to get really close to their target market. Usually,
sales people have to know a little about all their customer markets. Now that
they are becoming more specialised, they can learn a lot about a few market
sectors.
And that means that customers will react more positively as well. They’ll be
able to tell that sales people really know the customer’s market. And this will
be appreciated.
Does this mean that sales people will need different sets of resources?
Absolutely, and that’s what we’ll talk about next.
2 - Run separate marketing campaigns
Separate audiences need separate messages. We’ll discuss how to create the
right campaign with the right message in the next part of this book. However,
you’ll need to make sure that each of your target audiences has their own
message.

That means you’ll have to have a separate marketing campaign for each
audience. And a separate mailing list.
But you’ll need more than just separate lists. You may want to treat each
audience completely separately.
3 - Have separate web landing pages and brochures
Each target market should have a completely separate brochure produced for it.
The message should be unique to that audience. Some of the other information
may be the same as in other brochures. But much of it will be rewritten in a
language that is aimed at the particular target market.
And you’ll apply the same strategy to your website. You may think that this
seems difficult.
How do you deal with different target audiences on a single website?
The answer is that you don’t. Each target market should have its own website.
This means you can create everything specifically for your target audience. But
it also has one other big advantage.
Each website can have a domain name especially chosen for the target audience.
So if you were targetting the legal market you may use the domain name www.
printforlawyers.com. This was actually available at the time of writing this
book. Domain names like this will give you a huge advantage in the SEO searches
that your prospects will make. They will make sure you get the right traffic to
each website.
The target audience website may also have a link back to a main company
website. However, it is important that your prospects can easily contact you
from the target audience website. And that they can find out all that they need
from this site.
The management of multiple websites is easy these days. Base your website
around WordPress or similar technology. Then it is simple for you to quickly
update the site without specialist help. And it is easy for you to create new sites
as required.

More than one website? More than one brochure? This sounds expensive
This strategy does require more investment in marketing resource. However,
this resource will give you a greater return on investment. Which is preferable?
A cheaper website and brochure that does not really engage your prospects?
Or more investment in these resources which means that your prospects are
more interested in you? And more likely to buy from you?
But for your websites and brochures to work well with your prospects, you
must remember one thing.
Do not sell on features and benefits
Features and benefits are all about you. And we saw in the first stage that this
encourages print buyers to choose on price. We’re going to discover more about
this in the next part of this book.
For now you need to focus on having more than one target market. And you
need to decide how you are going to manage these markets. Consider splitting
responsibilities between sales people. Create separate marketing campaigns.
And make sure you have separate websites and brochures.
And remember the reason for all this activity.
You need to avoid an empty press room
Empty press rooms are no good. And using multiple target audiences avoids
this problem.
So now we need to approach those target audiences with the right message.
And that’s what we’re going to look at next.
But, before we do this, let’s go over what we learned. Let’s set some action
points. And let’s revisit our case studies.

Case studies
Let’s revisit our case studies. Now we’re going to reveal a target audience for
each one. Remember, this may not be their only target audience. However, for the
purposes of this book, we are going to stick with one per printer. This ensures
that you will see the widest range of case studies possible.
So here are the five printers:
• Market sector - local business, within 50 miles or less of printer
• Size - small. Likely to be in the range of 5-10 employees
• Typical contact - Head of business for sales, office controller or head of
administration for day to day work
• Type of person - Focussed on general business matters, not print. Want
to grow the business. Does not want to spend time sorting out details for
flyers etc.
• Product requirement - Leaflets, business stationery, posters and some
direct marketing and point of sale
2. A high quality litho printer
• Market sector - Independent Financial advisors focussing on high wealth
clients
• Size - High turnover. Business likely to have multiple offices or be a
franchise
• Typical contact - Marketing manager
• Type of person - Focussed on return on investment. May not understand
all the details in running projects.
• Product requirement - Business stationery, client newsletters, business
brochures, folders and covers for client proposals. Would also benefit from
direct marketing, but does not yet understand the value of print for this.

• Market sector - Large shipping companies
• Size - Large. Company will have a fleet of large tankers/container ships
• Typical contact - Head of operations
• Type of person - Focussed on smooth operation and value for money
• Product requirement - Signage
• Market sector - Business interior design consultants
• Size - Small. Focussed on businesses with specific high value requirements
• Typical contact - Head of design or head of implementation
• Type of person - Focussed on design and products and on giving the
customer the “wow” factor
• Product requirement - High quality, unusual signage and wraps
• Market sector - Independent publishers
• Size - small - Likely to be five titles or less
• Typical contact - Managing director
• Type of person - a traditional publisher, struggling with the onset of new
publishing channels
• Product requirement - Printing of magazines
Some of these target audiences may seem very specialist. But you’ll see how
they can be turned into great print clients in the next two parts of the book.

Summary
Nowwehavefinishedthetargetaudiencestage.Herearethekeylearnings:
• Don’t treat everyone the same
• Ensure you really connect with smaller audiences
• Be personal in message and service
• Remember the power of one when creating target audiences
• Choose your the customer that makes you the most profit or your nicest,
or your most desired customer
• Don’t change anything about them
• Repeat the process for two or three markets
• Ensure that each audience has its own separate resources - sales,
marketing campaigns, brochures and websites
• To engage your audiences make sure that you avoid selling on features
and benefits
Action points
Remember, it is important that you take action. So here are three things for you
to do right now. These action points will make sure that put the idea of target
audiences into practice straight away.
• Choose your most profitable customer. Choose your nicest customer.
Create your ideal customer.
• Pick one as your target market.
• Fill in more details of their profile (use the examples in the previous pages
as a model).
You now have your first target market. Let’s find out what to do with them next.

STAGE 3 OPENING
PART 3
Why pain
motivates
buyers

Why making your prospects feel pain
will make them buy from you
(and how funnelling up makes
prospects feel even more pain)
Imagine that you are suddenly given a $100 note. How would you feel?
My guess is that you would feel pretty pleased. After all, it’s nice to get an
unexpected surprise like that.
Now imagine that you suddenly lost $100. How would you feel about that?
You’d be annoyed and frustrated. You’d regret putting the $100 dollars in
your pocket from where it could fall out. Things may be tight. You might have
been planning to put the money aside to pay some bills. And now you might be
extremely worried about how you were going to pay those bills.
Which emotion was the stronger? The pleasure of receiving the $100 or the
pain of losing it?
In 99% of cases, pain is the strongest emotion
And that applies when you are selling print as much as when you are losing
money. Pain will always be the strongest emotion for the customer. And
therefore it will be the most compelling reason to buy.
However, few print sales people sell on pain. Most sell on features and benefits.
This is the equivalent of the pleasure of receiving the $100 note.
The print sales person will sell on the pleasure of dealing with their company.
They will sell on the features and benefits. They will sell on their great service.
And their great quality. And, yes, on their excellent prices.
They hope that this will be enough to win the customer.

PART 3 WHY PAIN MOTIVATES BUYERS
But is that enough to make the average buyer change print company?
And the answer to that is no. It will only persuade a buyer who has problems
with their current printer. Or who is tempted by cheaper prices.
To really engage with a print buyer you need to connect with the real business
issues that they face. You need to understand where they are hurting. And what
you can do to solve that pain.
Print companies that sell using pain will create powerful sales messages
They will engage with their prospects very swiftly. And they will have a better
chance of achieving the sale.
Print companies who sell on traditional sales approaches are less likely to make
the sale. Their prospects will see the same old print message being rolled out
again. So they are unlikely to engage with the printer. They’ll just choose on
price.
Print companies need to find their prospects’ pain points.
But where’s the pain in print?
Typically, there is little pain in buying print. There is one exception. And that
is when the print buyer is experiencing difficulties with their current print
supplier. Then a new printer is in an ideal position to solve this pain.
However, these days, most print companies are good at servicing their
customers. So printers need to understand that the pain lies outside the print.
And that’s because most print buyers aren’t buying print
That may seem like a pretty strange statement. But actually, few buyers are
interested in the print that they buy. Instead, they are buying print as the means
to an end.
Let’s look at an example. If I buy a business card, it is not because I want a
rectangle of board with some print on it. It is because I want people to remember
my contact details. And a business card is a very handy way of giving someone
those details.

MypainisthatIwantpeopletohavemeintheiraddressbook.Iftheydon’taddme,
theycan’tcontactme.AndIhaveaproblem.Thebusinesscardsolvesthatproblem.
Aren’t business cards always bought on price?
Actually I didn’t pay the cheapest price for my business card. I paid extra to have
a QR code added to the design. Now people can immediately scan my details
with their smartphone. So they are less likely to put the card to one side and
forget to enter the details.
The QR code lessens my pain. People I meet are more likely to add me to their
address book. And I’m prepared to pay extra for that because it improves my
business results. I’m prepared to pay extra because it reduces my pain.
But print buyers rarely talk to printers about pain
Pain is a very personal issue. The pain for one buyer will be very different to that
of another. And, of course, most print sales messages are trying to connect with
as many people as possible. So they can rarely connect with a print buyer’s pain.
It is much easier for the print sales person to sell on features and benefits.
Because that should apply to everyone.
But while features and benefits may apply to most people, they rarely engage
with anyone. And that’s why print buyers rarely talk about pain.
If you talk about pain, you need to get personal
You need to make sure that your print sales message is firmly focussed on the
customer. And that means that you need to have bought into the strategy of
target audiences. You need to have defined your target audience. And you need
to have researched them thoroughly.
If you understand your target audience, then you will know their pain. You will
understand what they are suffering from. And you’ll be able to engage with
them effectively.
But you will also need to understand that their true pain isn’t always what it
appears to be.

To find true pain you need to funnel up
Funnelling up means taking one detail and asking the customer more about it.
In this way you understand the bigger picture.
When someone talks to you about pain, they often express the symptoms of a
bigger issue. So if I tell you that I am frustrated by a traffic jam, my true pain
may be something completely different.
Funnelling up allows you to find this true pain. It means that you ask why
something is painful. And you can ask it several times.
• So I may be frustrated by the traffic jam because it means I’ll be late for
a sales appointment.
• And I may be worried about being late for the sales appointment because
then I might lose the client.
• If I lose the client I’ll be fed up because I won’t make my sales target this
month.
• And if I don’t make my sales target this month I’ll be really worried
because I won’t get any commission.
• And no commission means I’ll be upset because I won’t be able to pay for
a family holiday this year.
So, if someone can solve the traffic jam for me, it may actually mean that my
family can go on holiday.
Let’s look at this with the business card
• I may need a business card because I am frustrated that not enough people
have me in my address book.
• And if I am not in enough contact lists, I am worried because I don’t get
called enough.
• If I don’t get called enough I’ll be fed up because I need to spend extra
resources on chasing up new work.
• And if I spend these extra resources then I am frustrated because I don’t
make as much money from each job.
• And this means I am upset because my company profits are not enough.

TheaddingofaQRcodewouldmeanthatpeoplecanscanmydetailsimmediately
into my mobile address book. Now more people can call me easily. This may
well solve my pain, and mean that I am one step nearer to achieving the right
company results.
So you can see that pain is actually a very powerful way of persuading people
of the need to take action. In the case of the print sales person, that action is
buying print.
Pain leads to buyer action
So make sure that you focus on pain. Make sure that you use the power of pain.
Make sure that you understand why your target audience really need to buy
their print. And make sure that you funnel up to find the real reasons behind
their thinking.
You want your buyers to be feeling like they’ve lost $100. Or even more.
To get them feeling like this you need to know what their pains are. So next
we’re going to learn some ways of finding out the buyer’s pain.

How to get print buyers to talk
about pain: three ways to get great
engagement from your prospects
Do you remember the last time you talked to a friend about their holiday?
Chances are they told you about the great place that they went to. Chances
are they told you about the beautiful scenery or the great restaurants or the
fantastic weather.
And then the pain crept in
And they told you about how the room wasn’t clean. Or about the noisy bar down
the street. Or delays to their journey.
Chances are they actually spent a fair bit of time talking to you about the
problems and frustrations that they had. In fact, they probably spent more time
talking to you about these than about the good points.
And that’s because people love to talk about pain.
Print sales people can really benefit from talking about pain
Print companies who talk to their clients about pain will create a much more
rewarding relationship with them. The client will open up more to the print
company. And, if the print company is sympathetic and can help the client, a
partnership is created.
But the printer also gains more control over their client. This is because they
understand the true drivers behind the client’s actions. They know how to
motivate the client to buy from them. So they increase their sales with the client.
Print companies who don’t find out the true pain of their clients won’t sell as
much. This is because they won’t be able to motivate their clients to buy.
To motivate a client to buy you need to understand their pain. But how do you
find out what pain they are really suffering? Here are three ways to find out.

And the first one doesn’t require any special effort.
Have a conversation with your client
You’ll generally have the opportunity for lots of conversations with your clients.
They start at the point when you first begin deciding if you might work together.
And you’ll talk to them at regular intervals after this. You’ll talk when they are
placing orders. During the production of jobs. And as you ask them when more
jobs will be ready to be placed.
And every time you have one of these conversations, the client is likely to
mention some pain. Remember, that people like to talk about their problems
and their pains. So remember to listen out for them.
However, not everyone comes out with their pain automatically. Sometimes you
need to be a little more specific when you are speaking to someone.
Ask your client specific pain questions
As you talk to your client you also have the opportunity to lead the conversation.
And you can lead the conversation round to the subject of pain. You just have
to ask the right questions.
So here are some of the questions that you could bring into the conversation:
• What is the biggest business challenge that you face in the coming months?
• What frustrates you most at the moment?
• If there was one thing that you could change about your business right
now, what would it be?
Questions such as these are a great way to get a good conversation going
about pain. But sometimes there are other important things that you need to
discuss. It’s fine to talk about pain for a little bit. But then you have to move on
to whatever it was that you needed to talk about. And that can be frustrating
for you. You had just started to really get somewhere when you have had to
change the subject.
So here’s a way round this problem.

Ask your client for an interview
If you ask your client for some specific time to sit down together, they will
often say yes. And, even if it is only for 20 minutes, it is time well spent. There
is nothing to get in the way of the pain conversation.
Naturally, you don’t want to tell your client that you want to talk about pain.
But many people will respond well if you say that you want to do some market
research. Or that you want to spend some time to understand their business
better. They understand that this time with you may lead to better results on
both sides.
So you can use this time to ask all the specific pain questions that I covered in
the previous paragraphs. And you can do more as well.
Remember to funnel up
Ask why your client suffers from the pain. Ask why they face the challenges that
they do. Ask why they are frustrated.
You’ll get a great insight into the mind and business of your client. And you’ll
also get an insight into their business sector. The answers that they give
you are answers that you can use again and again. You can use them to start
conversations with other prospects. And you can use them in your sales
messaging, on your brochure and in your website.
But this insight can be dangerous as well
The results of these discussions can lead to you constructing a confusing sales
message.
Why is that?
It is simply that you will probably end up with a whole list of pains from clients.
And it is tempting to try and squeeze all of them into your sales message. And
then it’s not clear what you are solving for a client.
So make sure your sales message focusses on one pain
If you can focus on one thing people will find it easier to understand. They will

know exactly what you are talking about. And it will hit them straight away.
Some people may think that focussing on one pain is mis-guided.
Does focussing on only one issue create enough pain?
You need to make sure that you have focussed on the right pain. It is important
to ask your clients what is their most pressing issue. You will have noticed that
the questions we covered earlier all asked the client to focus on one pain only.
You may well be able to talk to your clients about other pains later on. But
using one right now can actually be much more powerful. Prospects are not
going from pain to pain to pain. They are concentrating on one pain only. And
focussing on that one pain will hurt more.
Using one pain also makes it easier for you to create a simple solution. And
that’s what we’re going to cover in the next stage. But a solution only works if
there is a pain to solve.
Talk to your clients about pain
Do it in day to day conversation. And if they don’t talk about it automatically,
ask pain questions. And try to get them to give you an interview.
Whether they are telling you about their holiday or their business, people love
talking about pain. So make the most of their business pain. It means that you
have a problem to solve for them.
So let’s go straight on to creating powerful solutions. Solutions that make the
buyer want to buy from you.

Why the right solutions make your
customers buy print – right now
A few weeks ago, I had a problem with my car. It was taking a few times to get the
engine started in the morning. And I was worried. What if I missed an important
client appointment because I had to call out the repair van?
Rather than risk this happening, I took the car to the garage. And they quickly
found the issue and fixed it.
I was so relieved! My worries had come to an end. In fact, I was so relieved that
I didn’t even look at the repair bill too closely.
And that’s the effect of making someone relieved.
That’s why printers should make their customers feel relief
So how does a printer do this? It’s simple: they need to make their clients feel
pain. And they need to provide a solution to that pain.
Printers who create solutions for their client’s pain will create better
relationships with their customers. Their customers will value them more. This
is because the printer will have removed a worry off the client’s list.
And removing a worry is also a great way to get the customer to press the buy
button. Selling on pain and solutions is a good way to achieve the sales you need.
Printers that don’t sell on solutions and pain won’t achieve the same sales. I’ve
said it before and I’ll say it again: they’ll be stuck on commodity selling. They’ll
be selling print on price.
So how do you create the right solution for your pain? Well the first step has got
nothing to do with solutions.
Choose your pain
Do you remember that in the last section we focussed on choosing one pain?
You will now see the importance of this. If you have one pain, you can choose

one solution. If you have many pains you have to have many solutions. And that
means that the customer gets confused.
So prevent confusion and stick to one pain. When you speak to your target
audience you will often find that there is one issue that is more pressing than
the others. Maybe you have spoken to a number of people from your target
audience. You will tend to find that there is one common pain that many refer to.
So you will generally find that choosing the pain is not a difficult task. However,
it will be more difficult if you have not chosen a very precise target audience for
your message. Let’s use magazine publishers as an example.
The most pressing issue at a small publisher may be how to publish their
magazines in digital formats. Large publishers may not have this issue because
they are well resourced in this area. Their pain may be that they need to increase
subscriber numbers.
You also need to be aware that their pain may not be automatically linked to
print. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t solve the pain. You may be delighted
that the smaller publisher is struggling with creating digital formats of their
magazines. But helping them may not be the crazy sales idea that it sounds. The
publisher has a trusted print production partner. And that partner can help
them with production in other channels too.
Whateverthepainthatyouendupwith,youcannowstartworkingonasolution.
Decide what solves the problem
The first step to this is to look at the problem in more depth. You need to
understand the real reason why the smaller publisher may be struggling to
publish digital editions.
Maybe it’s because they are put off by all the technical jargon of suppliers who
provide digital services. Maybe it’s because they don’t have the resource to
produce their content in loads of different formats. And maybe they just don’t
know here to start. Maybe they find the whole idea scary.

So you have an opportunity to step in and lead the production of their digital
magazines. You could create a workflow where you handle their files and
produce their digital editions for them. Then they wouldn’t have to produce
their content in lots of file formats. And you could provide this service without
them having to understand lots of technical phraseology.
If you could provide this service, do you think it would solve a problem for the
magazine publisher? Do you think they would be more likely to choose you?
And, if they had the option of a service like this, would they choose their print
supplier solely on price?
So know you know what solves the problem. Now you have to take one last step.
Build your solution
It’s at this point that you are able to build a solution that you can offer to your
customers. You need to decide exactly what it is that you can offer. You need to
decide exactly how you will solve your customer’s pain. And then you will be
able to build your sales message around this.
It is at this point you need to decide what is realistic for your company to
provide. Let’s stick with the example of the small publisher. Are you able to
invest in creating your own workflow? Do you have the staff with the right
knowledge? Or can you recruit them?
It may be that you think that this would be a great service to offer your clients.
But it may not be the right time for you to invest in this. But maybe you can
partner with someone instead. You can still find the right solutions by working
with other companies.
Let’s look at another example
Let’s go back to the larger publisher that needed to increase their subscribers.
The simple solution to this would be to increase the number of mailings that
they send out. However, this may not be cost-effective.
But a printer could solve the publisher’s problem in other ways. If you had digital
capabilities, you could increase response rates through personalised mailings.

You could increase response rates by letting the subscriber respond through
personalised urls, SMS or QR codes.
You could measure all these channels for the publisher and let them know
exactly what was working for their audience.
Now you are providing more than print on paper. You are providing a specialised
service. And, again, the buyer will stop choosing their print supplier solely on
price.
But the buyer will stop doing this because you are beginning to offer more than
just commodity print. In both these examples we have created extra services
that run alongside the print.
Do you have to offer extra services to print?
Because print has become so commoditised, print buyers will often only see
value in extra services. In order to move away from selling on price, printers
have to develop their offerings. And that means moving beyond print.
Remember, you don’t have to provide everything in house. Partnering with
other companies is a great route to increase what you offer to your customers.
But whatever you offer, it must be a solution to your customer’s pain. Otherwise
you will start selling on features and benefits. And that does not engage your
prospects. Remember that the pain must be directly relevant to your target
audience. You must speak to them to find this out.
You need to spend time on developing your services
You need to work out your target market. Take time to talk to them and identify
their pains. And take time to create solutions for these pains.
This work will be rewarding. You will begin to find it much easier to attract new
prospects. You will find that they will start having more in depth discussions
with you. You’ll stop being treated as a commodity printer. And you’ll stop being
treated as someone just to provide prices. You’ll be able to start a conversation
that moves away from price.

Think about the relief I felt when I got my car fixed. That’s the same effect that
you can have on your clients if you create the right sales message. That’s how
you can create loyal customers. Who don’t just buy on price.
But there is still a threat to your business
What would happen if someone came and took it all away from you? You need to
stand out from the competition. That’s why you need to understand the concept
of difference.
And that’s what we’re going to cover in the next part of this book.
But first, it’s time to review what we have learnt in the pain section of the
book. It’s time to start putting it into practice. And it’s time to see how our case
studies apply pain.

Case studies
In the last part of this book our case studies chose their target audiences. Now
that they have a target audience, the case studies need pains that are specific
to their target audiences. So here they are:
• Market sector - local business, within 50 miles or less of printer
• Target’s pain: how do I best communicate with my clients?
• Solution: Printer’s design studio is well equipped to understand best
copywriting and visual marketing techniques to engage with clients’
audiences
2. A high quality litho printer
• Market sector - Independent Financial advisors focussing on high wealth
clients
• Target’s pain: how do I get the best return on investment from my
marketing activity?
• Solution: printer has multi-channel marketing expertise
• Market sector - Large shipping companies
• Target’s pain: cost of time for ships in port
• Solution: printer makes sure that ships aren’t due to delayed to health and
safety signage requirements. They keep regularly updated signage packs
and deliver them by company van to the ship’s port
• Market sector - Business interior design consultants
• Target’s pain: how do I justify high costs for clients?
• Solution: printer focusses on researching and creating new effects and
new substrates
• Market sector - Independent publishers

• Target’s pain: how do I manage publishing in multi-channel markets?
• Solution: printer provides web portals, turning page technology, apps etc
6. Your company
• Market sector:
• Target’s pain:
• Solution:

Summary
Here’s an overview of what we learnt in the pain section:
• Pain is the most powerful reason for buying
• You need to understand the customer’s real reason for buying print
• You need to funnel up the client’s pain
• People are happy to discuss pain
• There are three ways to discover a client’s pain: through ordinary
conversation, with specific pain questions or by in-depth interviews
• Choose one pain to focus on
• Buyers need the relief of a solution
• Choose a pain to sell on. Decide what solves this pain. Build a solution
around this pain and solution
• The most effective solutions will involve other services as well as print
Action points
Don’t forget - if you don’t take action, you won’t get results. So schedule these
three action points straight away. Each action point should take no longer than
20 minutes. They will make sure that you are ready to focus on your target
audience’s pain:
• Ask a target audience client why they are buying print jobs from you. Talk
to them about the pain points that cause this
• Focus on one pain
• Create a solution around this pain
And now that you are focussed on pain and solution, it’s time to think about
the most effective way to use them. And that’s by making sure that you also
have difference.

STAGE 4 THE INVESTIGATIVE STAGE
PART 4
Why printers
need to be
different

Why your sales message can help a
prospect choose your competitors
Can you imagine creating a great sales message to engage your customer? It
focusses on a small target audience. It highlights a key pain. And it shows that
you have a fantastic solution to this pain.
Can you imagine seeing the buyer’s eyes light up as you explain this to them. Can
you imagine the buyer exclaiming that this is exactly what they need?
And can you imagine the buyer going to another printer and asking them to
provide your solution?
Wouldn’t you feel disappointed, frustrated and robbed of your rightful job?
This situation happens to print companies all the time
In fact, I know several print companies that are frightened to give good ideas
to their customers. And they are frightened because they know the customer
is likely to take that idea and put it out to tender.
There’s a reason for this.
Most print companies think it is because the buyer is only interested in price.
But if this was the case then the buyer would negotiate with the printer. They
wouldn’t place the job elsewhere.
The real reason is that the buyer doesn’t really understand why they should use
that particular printer. The printer has given the buyer a great solution. But the
buyer feels that they could use any number of suppliers to provide that solution.
They see no reason why they should use that particular printer.
And that’s why printers need difference
Printerswhosellondifferencewillfinditeasiertocreatelongtermrelationships
with their customers. Their customers will have a reason for using that printer,
rather than other printers. So they will be more likely to stay loyal to them. And,

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