The humble business card (there’s more to this store than meets the eye)

Let me first begin by telling you there is nothing humble about your, mine or anyone else’s business card,
It is who we are and what we do after all but that is not what this story is about…  Oh no!

The Day our Sales Culture changed forever….
Being a Printing Company we live for doing all kinds of print jobs from a small run of 250 business cards for $39
to a large booklet run of 100,000 Saddle-stitched Booklets and it is true that the more experienced Guys in my Sales Team
tended to take care of their biggest clients, for the most part as they provide them with the Sales.

One day however, we had a lovely lady call to our reception enquiring about business card printing. This was met with the usual groans
from the veterans of our Sales Team who were accustomed to servicing bigger clients and selling commercial printing deals worth
Ten’s of thousands of dollars.

We just had a new Sales recruit (his name is Michael) come on board. He was very keen to make an impression but did not have a lot commercial printing knowledge and he was ‘sent to reception’ to deal with the lady and provide her a simple Sales Solution.

Off he went to discuss her business card request.

After 10 minutes he came back in again and presented his notes to the Sales Director…
The lady, (her name was Maria) wanted Business Cards which were Full Colour 2 Sides, Matt Laminated 2 Sides and she wanted a Price for a Qty of 250 only.

The sales director quickly wrote up a quote for our young Sales Recruit and he took it back out to Maria.  Suitably impressed, Maria enquired if the business cards
could be ready by the end of the day. She was told no problem at all.

The dialogue then got really interesting between Maria and Michael.  What She actually needed was 200 Sets of different business cards.
Maria was actually the Marketing Manager for a large overseas distribution company who had entered the Australian market just 3 years earlier.

They had just finalized a new re-brand and were bringing all their employees together a for a weekend conference to discuss the year ahead and of course introduce their new brand equity.
She needed the 200 Sets of Business Cards delivered in 24 hours or she would have to go somewhere else.  Michael just said yes, we can do it.
He took what was a $65, cheap Business cards deal and turned it into a deals worth $13,000.

Yes the business cards were delivered next day as required.  We printed and Trimmed all through the night.

Michael was in his 5th day of employment with us and it is fair to say he went home that day feeling pretty good about himself.
The next week Maria called again to Thank Michael for his quick turnaround of the
Printing of their business cards and also to ask him if he would be interested in taking care of all the commercial printing requirements for this business.

Needless to say she got a resounding yes and so began a long standing and sustainable business relationship which is going strong, even to this day.
Michael, who had no printing experience before joining us, is credited with being the first Salesperson to meet his Target in the first month of his employment with us.

That was 5 years ago.

It is fair to say that when we have clients who call to our reception looking for some printing, well, all of the Team are quick to respond.
The lesson Michael provided that day was enough to uncover a stark realization in each of the Sales Team, there is opportunity in every dialogue, if you are prepared to be open and curious.

JP O’Neill
[email protected]

General Manager at Discount Printing