The software sales process is a funny thing. The software salesperson’s job is to sell you on the potential value your print business can get out of the software. They will dazzle you with many demonstrations, a long list of features, and a list of reference customers. The one thing that is never mentioned in a print software sale is the amount of work your business, your team, and your leadership has to put forth in order to reap the potential.

The work is the dirty little secret that nobody talks about in the sales process. Those reference customers all put in the work. They invested time, money, and effort into getting the print software fine tuned for their business. You will call them up and ask them about features, about the things you saw on the trade show floor. You want to continue to bask in the potential because from your point of view, once you buy the software all your business challenges will be solved.

The work is the differentiator. The work is the only thing that reaps the potential. No software tool magically delivers a return on investment on its own. No vendor can take commercial software and configure it to perfectly match your business without a lot of your involvement. Your investment in the software doesn’t end when you buy it; on the contrary, that’s when it starts.