High-Tech Meets Human Touch: The Latest Challenge for Print Sales

Today’s consumers can go from thinking “I want to buy X” to actually holding the item in their hand in a matter of hours.

“We live in an Amazon world,” Bill Farquharson, founder of The Sales Vault, says. “Clients look at LinkedIn profiles and websites to determine if they are going to reply to a rep’s attempts to make contact. They want to see five stars. They are doing their homework in the same way they would if they were buying a new refrigerator.”

These new customer practices flip the script for those in print sales — but technology is on their side, too.

Using Technology for Print Sales

As Farquharson notes, customers are looking for more information about a product on their own terms. Even after a sale, the “Amazon world” has another impact: Print buyers may expect their order to arrive quickly and to have access to information about their order at their fingertips, whenever they want it.

“They want things automated, they want on-demand printing, they want fast turns, they want real-time tracking,” Dana Catanese, director of enterprise growth at West Chester, Pennsylvania-based Anro, says.

The company works to meet this demand by creating custom Web-to-print portals for clients that put ordering, inventory, and print management all in one place. The wide array of solutions Anro offers — from promotional products and mailing to digital printing — also serve as a way to offer an increasing on-demand one-stop shop experience. Plus, Anro leverages API integrations to trigger mailings, Catanese notes.

Additionally, the Anro team uses some other technologies to tap into customer desire for immediacy, including real-time data tracking, Catanese says.

Speaking of data, Emily Yepes, vice president of Sandler, adds that leveraging data can help sales reps identify trends — and therefore ask better questions when it comes to having conversations with clients. That means reps can proactively address customer needs rather than respond to requests reactively.

“Let’s say that you’re printing paperboard packaging, and you’ve got five different SKUs that you’re printing for them,” Yepes says. “Well, you can look at the data and say, ‘Interestingly, we’ve noticed over the last couple of years, you seem to pick up during this season and then fall during this season. But lately, you’ve been ordering a whole bunch of this.’ So, using data to look for trends around what your customers are doing, that allow you to ask really good questions, is always a good idea.”

Yepes suggests that print service providers (PSPs) should look at all data associated with each of their accounts on a regular basis, whether it be quarterly, biannually, or some other cadence, to make sure they can anticipate client needs. This elevates them from a service provider to a partner.

Then there’s the elephant in the room: artificial intelligence (AI). This rapidly evolving technology can enable print sales reps to automate some of their more mundane but necessary responsibilities — including researching prospective clients and creating pre-call plans. Yepes says that can help reps do the core responsibilities of their jobs at a higher level.

“I’m doing so much research going in that I have a really good understanding to the point where I can ask informed, thoughtful questions, rather than: ‘Tell me what you do — what do you produce?’” she explains. “… I can get more specific about asking questions that I think might spur a deeper conversation.”

But beyond that, Farquharson doesn’t see AI playing much of a significant role in sales.

“Sales people who are engaging AI correctly use it for lead-gen and customer research,” he says. “Why? Because these are behind-the-scenes actions. Where it is abused and misused is in direct customer communication copied and pasted from an AI response. These days, a customer receives an email and immediately views it in the same way we used to look at a letter: Is it personal and authentic or junk mail?”

Focusing on the Customer

This is where reps need to adopt a customer-centric approach. As Yepes points out, technology can help a sales rep frontload their research on prospective print buyers, but it can’t help on a call.

“Prepare, prepare, prepare, but then when we’re in the moment, we’ve got to connect with the human being that we’ve got there,” Yepes says. “And sometimes that means some of the questions that I prepared, I’m not going to get to. Sometimes that means that I’m picking up on a different direction the person wants to go, or I’m using an opportunity to bond with them about something that’s not about work, because we discover that we have that in common.”

And since reps should be going into customer conversations with their research done, that means they can use the time they have with clients to dive into the intricacies of what they need and how the PSP can address any concerns or requirements.

Despite any benefits the latest technology can offer, Farquharson sees the human connection as the paramount piece of the sales process.

“You can AI me all day long and I will still outsell you,” he says. “I can beat you without a computer. Give me a library, a car, and a phone, and I will prevail. Tenacity rules. Call quality wins. Authenticity rocks. Connecting at a human level creates a bond. Bringing customers new ideas results in loyalty.”

Despite technological advancements, another crucial piece of a salesperson’s toolbox that continues to be vital is trust.

“When I do meet with people, it’s really about me just shaking their hand, taking them out for lunch, showing them our capabilities,” says Catanese, who stresses that building trust is a process — a slow one, at that. So, it’s important not to overwhelm customers with information and questions. Remember, PSPs should position their companies as a partner, not solely a solutions provider, meaning it’s important to focus on creating a strong foundation for the relationship going forward.

Striking a Balance

Is it best to lean on personal connection, or should technology be more integrated into the sales process? As is often the case, a combination of these seemingly opposite strategies may yield better results.

“You need to have that healthy face-to-face … integration with digital,” Catanese says. “You can’t have one without the other.”

Catanese says using digital technology in the sales process gives sales reps more time to truly engage with their customers, whether it’s getting to the heart of how you can support them or building a solid foundation of trust.

“You can build the best APIs in the world, but you still have to show up in person to build the trust,” Catanese says.

Technology can be part of that trust-building process, she says. For instance, in its conversations with prospective clients, Anro’s sales team underscores its HIPAA compliance and SOC 2 Type 2 certification, which can help build customer confidence in the PSP’s ability to protect their data.

Farquharson agrees that blending technology with genuine connection is a winning strategy.“ Clients will reward authenticity if for no other reason than it is different from everything else they are seeing,” he says.
However, the balancing act can be more difficult than it may seem.

For instance, Yepes says she once reviewed a sales call for a client, during which the rep would ask excellent questions, but they didn’t build off of the responses the print buyer was giving them.

“It was very clear they were relying on ‘I came up with this list of questions out of ChatGPT that I wanted to ask,’” she recalls. “And they were all really good questions, but they had lost sight of that opportunity to connect with that person and dig deeper. Instead, it was almost like they got the answer — ‘OK, check, next question that ChatGPT gave me.’ But there was that miss in that real opportunity to connect, to kind of go off script.”

At the end of the day, technology has some major benefits for print sales reps — but sales still center around people.

“A sales rep with excellent interpersonal skills will succeed,” Farquharson says. “Augment with AI done right, and that rep will rule the world.”