June 23, 2004 -- The Mercedes is paid for. There is no MSG in Chinese food. Pedro can go another inning. My sales people will embrace digital printing. Ah, the assumptions we make in life. Recently, at the On Demand Show in New York, I moderated a panel of commercial printers who have successfully implemented digital printing. The discussion was lively and well received, worthy of a summary on WhatTheyThink, which is perfect timing since my Palm Pilot coughed up “Write next WTT column” this morning on my way out to the PIA President's Conference, and the guy sitting next to me is not following the basic rules of personal hygiene, leaving me unable to sleep. The panelists (Tom Boyle, Mike Wesner and Bob Estrada) all contributed to the following advice and comments: Question : I am a commercial printing sales person. I sell enough to make the kind of money I want. How are you going to engage me to sell digital printing? Talk to the rep through his/her wallet; Show them what an application looks like; Teach them the basics; Hold them accountable for bringing in prospects; Bring in another rep to find the applications; Question : There are some who hire sales reps and instruct them to exclusively sell digital. Does it work? We found the reps would go after the quicker, commercial print sale; We have seven commercial print reps who won't sell digital, so we've hired three reps strictly for digital. So far, so good. Question : What about before getting into digital printing? What input do we need from the sales reps to identify the market? They should talk to their customers about digital printing, its benefits and opportunities; More than that, inquire as to the client's data base strengths; Teach the reps to learn the story behind the printed piece. Are we in fact printing the jobs the best way? Question: What else does the commercial printing sales rep need to know besides how to identify applications? Teach them how to speak the language of digital; Show them who to speak to within an account; Improve their overall selling skills by putting them into Print Tec's Get Sales NOW!® program (hey, how'd that get in there?). Question: What help has the vendor been? Xerox has been amazing; Finally, a question was posed that warranted more time than we had: Question: You are hiring a new digital sales person. Three candidates are being considered. One has the Personality you need; one the Technical Savvy; and the third has Sales Experience. However for each sales trait they possess, they lack the other two. Which do you hire? Personality; Sales Experience; Technical Savvy. It figures, doesn't it?