advice

I've been in the printing industry now for over 10 years and there is a new breed of office employee taking over companies. This new breed no longer takes 2 hour lunches filled with alcoholic consumption, blowing off the rest of the work day nor is there a good-ol' boy network to compete with anymore. Dem good-ol' boys are dyin' out and more importantly, print buyers are becoming smarter and younger.

Print Sales employees can no longer rely on the "wine and dine" technique and must have real time knowledge of their customer's projects. This is a must. I am a part of this new breed. We are hardly "sales people" but more of solutions experts. We dedicate ourselve to making sure our clients our taken care of and that doesn't include buying them season tickets or expensive wine, but giving them the confidence that their projects are taken care of and will look professional and deliver on time.

The new breed is here to stay and the legacy print sales people will have to learn how to adapt or move on. It's kind of like the new breed of poker players but I'll save that for another post. . .