December 20th, 2006 | |
Posted in Thoughts
How to turn business away:
- Ignore your potential customers.
We recently (8th October 2006) needed to get (for us anyway) a lot of printing done. 1000 business cards and 2000 A5 flyers. As we have our own designers and had the proofs already in PSD format I wanted a company that I could email the proof to, have it printed and then go and pick my order up.
Not complicated…. or so I thought.
As my method of delivery would be email, I got together a list of local(ish) print shops, visited their websites and popped off an email asking if they could work in the way I wanted, and what the price would be for the initial print job.
And then I waited, and waited, and waited some more…..
In November (9th) I received an email from one of the printers, well not really from them… It would appear that the printing company couldn’t answer my query. The concept of emailing a file and giving me a price for a certain amount of printing must have been so difficult that they had to email someone at their parent company (who then emailed someone else, who then emailed me).
So I finally had my answer, ermmm no. They couldn’t give me a price without me telling them how many I wanted printing. Being a naive person, I had foolishly assumed that a printing company would have some sort of price list with example quantities, types of print, etc…..
I replied requesting a price list and giving an example of the quantity I wanted, and waited.
And waited, and waited, and waited some more.
I emailed them today (20th December 2006) to see if I would get a price or not.
Glad I didn’t need those cards urgently.
We actually got the printing done about a week after the initial email by a company that bothered to reply, but as we would need a lot (many many thousands) at a later date I kept persevering.
Update - I got a nice email back this morning (21st Dec) saying:
We do not give quotes over the internet we prefer to discuss this in more detail. It is very difficult to deal with requirements and pricing over an email.
After banging my head against a wall and thinking this over for a bit, I put together the following reply. I’m not going to bother sending it as I feel some companies should just be allowed to grow old gracefully and die out.
Hey, that’s why you need a price list. Maybe even put it on your website then no one would have to bother you.
Imagine the cost saving in time, phone calls and traveling around meeting people who have no idea what your basic charges are.
I build websites for a lot of businesses, large and small. A website can be anything at all from a single page to a full blown application.
I have a price list on my site with examples and FROM xyz on them so potential clients can see whether I am in their price range or not.
When approached to design a site I ask 3 questions:
1. why do you want a website?
2. what do you want to achieve with your site?
3. how is it going to pay for itself?
Your potential answers?
1. I don’t know
2. I want something that show we’ve opened in our new town. For who? People must know you’re already there. Why would they want to confirm it on a website.
3. It’s not.
You have a website and an email address. WHY? Apparently you don’t give quotes over the internet or email. So why have a website and email address?
I have to call, make an appointment for a SALES person to come and see me. who might not know the answer to the questions I’m asking? then what? they go back and call me later? they ring the print operator/designer? they give me a guess quote, which is of absolutely no use whatsoever. How do I know if the SALES person wrote everything down correctly?
Email is the perfect medium for a print business.
I can send designs to you
They can be checked and PDF proofs sent back for me to check.
We can discuss different finishes, colours, paper weight, etc…
and more importantly for both of us - it is all in writing, black and white.
If I think you’ve done something wrong, then it is there - in writing to prove it (or otherwise).
If I had to meet a sales person from every print shop to get a simple quote (let’s say it takes 1 hour of my time), that would take up 5 hours of my day, assuming I had you all queued up. Who is going to pay for MY time to give YOU business?
In 20 minutes I can fire off 6 emails with requests for information. In another 30 minutes I can look at 6 or seven printers websites and view prices (or example prices). With a number I can even upload a print-ready design and get a PDF proof and binding quote back before the end of the day. With a couple I can then press a button, enter my payment details and the order is with me by the end of the week.
Now the questions that spring to mind are:
Why would I give you my business?
How are you different or better than other printers (that would make me run through hoops to have the privilege of YOU print my flyers and cards)?
What are you doing to make MY life easier?
Welcome to the 21st Century. You have to be in it to survive.
technorati tags:printing, warning, business, ignore, customers, avoid
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