This article appeared in the March 2025 issue of Australian Printer, authored by David Fellman & Associates’ Dave Fellman
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on everybody’s minds these days. One of the top applications for AI in the printing industry is sales automation. The idea is intriguing, but also, in my experience, it’s highly misunderstood.
If you’ve been hoping for a sales robot to bring you new business every day, that isn’t going to happen (well, not soon enough to help you in 2025 anyway).
There are elements of sales automation that can help you right now, though, once you understand a fundamental point.
The whole goal of sales automation is to create more time for salespeople to sell; defined as time spent convincing prospects to become customers and customers to become maximised customers. It does that by automating some of the critical yet time consuming activities that take up so much of a typical salesperson’s day.
For example, sales automation can pull data from various platforms into one place – accounting software, estimating software, production management software, CRM software, even pulling contact data from prospects’ social media platforms into a CRM.
I frequently hear salespeople complain about how much time they have to spend pulling data from various sources.
Today’s sales automation programs can reduce that time significantly.
Routine contact
They can also manage some of the “routine” customer contact that helps to maintain relationships. In the old days, many printers did that through a “monthly mailing”. Using a full-featured CRM, a salesperson could automate a wide range of contact plans. A small, occasional customer might get a lightly personalised email version of that monthly mailing. A small customer with large potential could get something more highly personalised.
The AI being built into modern sales automation software could identify which products a customer is currently buying from you and send them monthly emails about other products. A salesperson could design a “marketing plan” for just about any situation ranging from early-stage prospecting to customer maximisation.
Sales automation will not, however, close the sale. Sure, sometimes it will, just like SEO brings people to your website and they end up getting a quote and placing an order without much human intervention. That’s not making you rich, though, is it?
Those tend to be small orders, and small customers. The big fish tend to require a salesperson’s involvement, to overcome obstacles, handle objections, build a relationship and close the sale.
So, here’s a closing thought on sales automation. It can help a star become a superstar. But it probably won’t help a poorly trained, poorly managed underachiever to be anything more than one of those with more time to goof off. Don’t expect miracles!
Other observations
On a related subject, print salespeople have been complaining to me for years that the “new” generations in the workforce are very difficult to connect with.
I’ve heard numerous variations on the theme that “they only want to text or email, they won’t agree to face-to-face meetings”.
Further research suggests that this is a “prospect” problem more than a “customer” issue. On one hand, it has been proven that you can have very satisfactory relationships with active customers without a great deal of face-to-face. Text, email and telephone have proven to be perfectly adequate for “project management” communications. Also, in my experience, active customers are generally willing to have an occasional face-to-face with valued suppliers.
The “prospect” problem is real, but there’s more to it than “generational” differences. A colleague said this to me recently:
“I don’t have time for anything I don’t have time for”.
We on the sales side have to recognise that the people on the other side are pressed for time. We should never ask them for something that doesn’t represent a good investment of their time.
Which means that, in the prospecting scenario, the first sale a salesperson must make is the value of a face-to-face meeting. Don’t just ask for an appointment. Be prepared to sell the appointment, to justify the value of the meeting.
My experience with buyers of all generations is that they’ll give you what you want if you make a good enough case for it. That ends with giving you the order, becoming a customer. It starts with selling the value of simply engaging with you.
And please, have more to say than, “I may be able to save you money on your printing”. Here’s a final observation. The buyers who make the best customers are more moved by the prospect of better results than by lower prices.
Comment below to have your say on this story.
If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.
Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter
