You Can Have All Three!

Most people who spend any part of their lives involved in sales are familiar with the belief that there are three parts to a sale, Cost, Quality and Speed - but you can only choose two! Whatever two are chosen, the third is automatically excluded.

But with a minor edit to a single word you can give your client all three. Simply trade Value for Cost and like magic objections disappear. 

Certainly your client may have a specific requirement (any one of the three) but now does not need to give anything up or pay more.

Once the normal preorder tasks of product selection, message, individual delivery, quantity, colors and any other variables are settled, attention can turn to cost, quality and speed. Asking a client “If I can provide the product selected, within your timeframe using only top quality product and imprinting and within your budget bringing you the best value, can we write up this order?” is an amazingly strong way to ask for the business. 

Getting to the point of asking for the business is getting harder with each passing day however. The hard fact is that the total gross sales in the promotional products media industry have increased by only 3% in the past 20 years (see Marketing Matters article March 2023). When inflation is considered it shows that the market for promotion is a finite one. For your sales to increase it generally is because another has lost that business. 

Add the proliferation of online options clients have and a new approach has to be adopted to give you a fighting chance. If your sales are up, keeping them up is the challenge. It appears that the most important part of the sales cycle for clients is convenience. One website has customers checking off 29 different boxes just to place a minimum order of pens! Not all that convenient! The art has to be uploaded and obviously created, message developed and all without any input from a professional (you) to be sure the promotion is appropriate.

So how do you become or stay the most convenient option for your client? Don’t be a retailer - be a service! Retail in general is not a healthy marketplace. 2011-2021 saw more than 60,000 fewer retailers. Promotional products media will always involve investing in physical goods as delivery tools, but providing the highly effective targeted message delivery is what your client really wants. It is up to you to tell them!

Nothing is more convenient for a client than giving you the project and not needing to be involved except to OK and move forward. If your client gives you a budget, number of contacts they want to make, when they want to do the promo and a description of the target audience, you can do all the rest. No website can provide that service. 

Be alert to situations where your client’s lead on the project is in their first real job out of university and believe that sitting through ‘marketing 101’ beats your 15 years experience! Assure that you will be adhering to the specifications they laid out and you are looking forward to their review and approval when you have everything ready.

I have been mentoring an individual that has had very good results from utilizing this strategy. She completed three projects since the beginning of the year and the client’s marketing manager is happy to be getting repeated pats on the back from his senior execs.