By Dave Fellman
Three things I’ve heard or read recently:
- We are a sales-driven company.
- We are a customer-driven organization.
- We are a market-driven enterprise.
What’s it all mean? And what should be driving your business?
Market vs. Customer
Let’s start with the difference between market-driven and customer-driven. The entire printing industry is a prime example of a market-driven enterprise. Over the last 25-30 years, we’ve moved heavily into digital printing, initially to satisfy a market for shorter runs and affordable color, and later into a wide range of large format products.
Customer-driven is different, even though it’s true that customers ultimately make up the market. On a macro level, being customer-driven in all about putting the customer at the center of the entire business strategy – in other words, focusing everything on providing a great customer experience. On a micro level, it’s more about exploring the needs and wants of each individual customer. In the case of prospects, what do they want now that they’re not getting from their current supplier? In the case of current customers, what are they going to want/need next?
Sales vs. Cost
Sales-driven companies share a key strategic element with customer-driven organizations. It’s one specific part of the customer experience. But it’s not customer satisfaction, which happens on the back end. It’s ease-of-doing business, which is very much about the front end. Sales-driven companies focus on two things, making it easy for their salespeople to sell, and easy for their customers to buy.
The opposite of sales-driven tends to be cost-driven, and in the printing industry, there’s a specific type of cost-driven that’s especially prevalent. Let’s call that production-driven, in other words, major decisions get made on the basis of making it easy for the company to produce its product, rather than making it easy for salespeople to sell or customers to buy.
Now, cost is important, there’s no question about that. So is production efficiency. But we’ve never had a printing company go out of business because it had too much sales. We’ve lost plenty because they didn’t turn a profit! And I am not suggesting that you make it easy for your salespeople to sell by offering crazy-low prices. What I am saying is that there has to be a balance.
The Missing Driver
Brian Adam runs a large format, specialty printing company in Milwaukee called Olympus Group. I wrote a book with him last year, called Rules Of Engagement. (Yes, this is a plug for the book. More on that in a moment.)
I first met Brian when we both spoke at the SGIA Expo a few years ago. I heard him talk about what drives his business, and has from the start. “I went into this thinking,” he said, “that if I build the kind of company that the best people will want to work for, we’ll all be successful.” In other words, Olympus Group is worker-driven, fueled by his and his management team’s efforts to engage with them on every level.
Here’s the point. There is no single driver for a successful business. It always requires a balance. But balance is easiest on a strong foundation, and the best foundation is good people. In my experience, most printers don’t put enough emphasis on the quality of their human resources. Rather than cultivating high performance, they tolerate poor performers. That is not a recipe for success!
If you’re interested in learning more about Rules Of Engagement, please visit www.ROEthebook.com.
Dave Fellman is the president of David Fellman & Associates, Cary, NC, a sales and marketing consulting firm serving numerous segments of the graphic arts industry. Contact Dave by phone at 919-363-4068 or by e-mail at dmf@davefellman.com. Visit his website at www.davefellman.com.