Shopping for print software primarily takes place in the weeds. What do I mean by the weeds? I mean at the individual feature level. Listen to any print software sales pitch and it typically is a list of features. Listen to the questions asked by printers and they’re typically about specific features.

We got called into a printer to help with their “workflow.” The printer sent over a spreadsheet in which they were trying to analyze different print software solutions that potentially solved their “workflow” challenges. When I opened the spreadsheet, I was surprised by the list. Do you remember the game that was taught on Sesame Street(“which one of these things doesn’t belong?”)—that is what came to mind looking at the list. There were Print MIS solutions, prepress automation solutions, web-to-print solutions, all on a single list like they were all candidates for solving the “workflow” challenge.

I think one of the things that makes buying print software challenging is the assumptions that are made during the sales process. The print software vendor doesn’t bother to verbalize the primary objective of their software because they assume that because you are reaching out to them, you have the primary challenge that their solution claims to solve. Or the vendor is afraid of defining the primary objective as that could limit the buyer pool for their software. What is a primary objective? I mean, what is the core business challenge that the product is claiming to solve?