12 Mistakes Not to Make When Selling Web to Print

It may not be easy making your presales and post sales pitch perfect but understanding the pitfalls could help you prevail. Selling any software solution can be a challenge. And selling a solution like Web to print, no matter how many benefits you can rattle off at breakneck speed, can potentially be chock full of challenges. Fortunately, most of those challenges are easily avoidable.

With that in mind, let's look at some mistakes to avoid when selling Web to print. Admittedly, most of these mistakes are common sense, but when you realize that common sense isn't always common, you'll understand why it's helpful to point out these missteps.   

1. Not listening to the customer. Like it or not, the customer often knows best, so listen to them. By listening, you'll be better positioned to discuss how your solution and company can address their challenges. More importantly, by listening, you can determine from the start if the customer is a candidate for Web to print, and if they are, that's when you can talk about the product and what your company can do for them.
2. Failure to understand the customer and the customer's customers. The best way to keep or win a new customer is understanding exactly what they want. If you don't understand the customer's or prospect's needs and challenges, and more importantly, their expectations, how can you provide them with the right solution?  Get to know the customer, learn about their business, who their customers are, their expectations of a Web to print solution, and then make your pitch.
3. Thinking that selling a software solution such as Web to print will lengthen the hardware sales cycle. If that's your attitude, you're bound to fail because your heart and your sales pitch isn't going to be in it. Dismiss any thoughts that this will slow down the sale, and instead focus on how a solution like Web to print will make you "sticky" with the customer, while also acknowledging that software often yields more attractive margins and has a faster ROI than hardware.
4. Not taking a consultative approach. If you don't understand how print is used within the customer's organization and not acting as a consultant to the customer by providing solutions-based advice on how to effectively produce printed materials, you are not adding value to the sale.
5. Expecting to sell your Web to Print Solutions based on features alone. Instead, focus on the customer's expectations and what their needs are for the solution. That could be increasing customer satisfaction, reducing costs, or increasing efficiency. Here's where a discussion of benefits is helpful. Think enabling the shop to do more without adding staff, faster order processing, and reordering, as well as fewer printing errors.  
6. Spending too much time talking about how Web to print increases efficiency. This is a pitch the customer may have heard repeatedly. You can't avoid mentioning the efficiencies that Web to print brings, but everything in moderation. Emphasize how you can support the products and software that you're selling to ensure that the Web to print solution delivers as promised.  
7. Focusing too much on service and quality. Yes, those are super benefits of Web to print, but also think about serving up examples of how Web to print can help your customers increase print volumes. If you have other customers who are using Web to print and have increased printed materials because of it, reference them. Concrete examples rule!
8. Talking too technically. Remember, many of the people you'll be dealing with aren't engineers and tossing out technical terminology like candy isn't going to sweeten the deal for them. Keep it simple, otherwise you may confuse them. Focus on their needs and the benefits of using Web to print, not the technical details of the technology.  
9. Not offering a demo. Seeing is believing, or at the very least offers an up close and personal look at how Web to print works and can facilitate print jobs. If your organization has a demo room that can provide customers and prospects with an opportunity to see your Web to print solution in action, that demo will go a long way towards creating credibility for it. If you don't have a demo room, work with a provider like RSA to set up an online demo tailored to the customer's needs.
10. Not thinking about user training. Consider how you're going to communicate to the customer and all critical employees at that customer location everything they need to know about the product, its features, how it works, product limitations, and issues that may arise when using the software. The more knowledgeable the users, the more likely you'll have a successful implementation and future references for that next sale.
11. Not including users in the discussion after the sale. This is different than training. You can't count on the primary purchasing decision maker at the customer to effectively get users as excited as they are about a Web to print solution. After the sale, encourage them to schedule a meeting with your sales rep and key users to discuss ease of use, efficiencies, and other benefits of Web to print. This is also an excellent opportunity to talk about the challenges those individuals and the customer's customers might have that your organization and its products and services such as Web to print can help solve.
12. Not showing the customer how to market their Web to print service. The last thing you want after providing a customer with a Web to print solution is for the site to sit there unused because the customer hasn't thought about how to market it to their customers. Advise them on how to inform customers about this service, products and services offered, and encourage them to use it. While you're at it, help them formulate a plan for informing customers when new products and services are added to the site.