Good will to all (sales)men

Written by Colin Gillman | 13 December 2011

When I started in the print trade as a skinny young lad I was fascinated by the sheer number of sales reps that would call in on our firm. There seemed to be no end of them, all calling in every two weeks or so to ‘pick up an order’.

Ours was a very small firm (which meant I got promoted much faster than would usually be expected), and my boss began to tire from having so many reps calling on him so he commenced the process of ‘showing me the ropes’, whereupon the arduous task of ‘placing the orders’ was handed down to a malnourished, scruffy looking teenager with nothing more than a twitch in his bell bottoms and bum fluff on his chin.

I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Marvellous!  Getting to place the orders meant long boozy lunchtimes spent eating and drinking in the pub with these reps and all I had to do was dish out the odd order here and there. I had it made in the shade. This was better than the sex I wasn’t having.

Our firm specialised in wide format photographic printing, or reprographics as it was called it back then. We were ‘industrial photographers’ and haughtily considered ourselves ‘technicians’ and a cut above the average ink jockey, and there speaks the sheer folly of callow youth, but that’s another story. The thing about industrial photography as it was back then was there were hundreds of different applications for all manner of processes, and for every application there was an expensive product.

The concept of a one stop shop hadn’t yet been thought of, therefore when I wanted to order hand developing solution I ordered it from one company; acetic acid for the stop bath from another; fixer from somebody else; ammonia from Fred down the road; roll film from half a dozen firms who probably are no longer with us today; same with bromide paper; negs came from somebody else; electrostatic paper from anybody knocking it out cheap; microfilm from the firm next door – I could go on. The list was seemingly endless, and there was always a long line of firms queuing up to service our account. And service us they did, and hand on heart, we never had problems with products that weren’t immediately resolved. Happy days.

When I realised I could earn half as much more money in litho than I was making as a swab jockey, I came across almost the exact same thing with the suppliers in this sector too. What I liked was these reps also knew their onions in addition to their products. These guys had all worked in the trade before going into sales, and even better they knew what was going on in and around their area and were a font of knowledge and information on who was printing what, where, and when.

The reason I liked dealing with such a diverse bunch of suppliers was because it not only broadened my horizons, but it provided security for if and when a product might fail. If it did there was always a ‘specialist’, often the owner of the business who could be relied upon to pop in and sort out the majority of any problems we had. And for as long as I kept buying from all of these small independent suppliers, I hardly recall ever having that many problems.

The years have passed and we have since witnessed the rise of the one stop shop supplier, the decline of many small local dealers, and we have said goodbye, more than once, to some of the biggest names and players in our industry. But, as those of us of a certain age will testify, these things have a tendency to be cyclical, therefore I am predicting the rise of the smaller dealers once more in our sector, notably as the gap between litho, cut sheet digital and wide format and hi speed inkjet continues to close and convergence, yes that old chestnut, gains momentum. 

Right now the wide format sector is alive with all kinds of different dealers around the country servicing the arse out of their customers. And these dealers know their onions too. They know their market; their products; their customers; and importantly, they are happy to get to know you, maybe have a beer with you and get to know more about the needs of your business too.

I have known plenty of printers in my time who have little or no time for sales people, mostly fobbing them off onto a junior member of staff who can no longer be seen to be sloping off down the pub with them as I once did, to further my education.

I’m not one to throw eggs but, seeing as it’s nearly Christmas, and in the spirit of goodwill to all men, ask yourself this: Do you give sales reps much of your time? And if so do you know what else they might offer that could be beneficial to your business? And do you make the time to have a cup of tea with them and talk about what is happening around the trade? And who is printing what for whom?

I am not suggesting for a minute that you start hugging sales reps, but maybe the next time a new one comes knocking it might be prudent to stop, listen for a bit and maybe give them a little bit longer than usual because, you never know, there might just be a slim chance that they know something that you don’t.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Colin Gillman
colin@graphicdisplayworld.com