Industrial + Specialty Printing

Everyone has to outmaneuver to survive

By Mike Young

How do customers decide to select your offer of a finished industrial printed product (IPP) if there are no obvious differences between your results and those of other printers? As a manufacturer of IPPs, you may give all the reasons in the world as to why your product is superior over others, but your competition can say the same thing about their offerings too. This does not make life any easier for the buyer. What about using the technique of better posturing, which is largely outwitting the competition? Out thinking is a way to outsmart others so that your product will be selected, mostly on your terms.

Everyone has to outmaneuver to survive, including institutions such as the government, free-enterprise business, education, medical, financial, military, and more. Legislatures outmaneuver their colleagues continuously to win support for impending bills. A company must successfully practice posturing to make a profitable living.

University/college admissions must also adopt the posturing approach by promoting their faculties, courses, and attractive campus lifestyle. Hospitals/clinics/doctors do so with their surgery skills or care specialties. Banks sell money by endlessly outmaneuvering their competitors down the street. Restaurants would quickly close their doors if menus were not as delectable as those from across town. The Pentagon employs a team of senior officers whose sole job is to outmaneuver foreign military suppliers by one-upsmanship demonstrations. Everyone practices the role of outmaneuvering—some more than others—to survive in the workplace.

Outside the box
Outmaneuvering the competition is not about out-pricing, ridiculing, or using questionable tactics. It has more to do with adopting indirect selling strategies, the ones that help to break down barriers against what may appear to be formidable odds while maintaining a profitable bottom-line. Unless your company offers something unique, customers often initially assume that offers of IPPs from all sources are alike, because they should all meet required specs.

One obvious difference in the eye of the buyer may be a lower bottom-line price—falsely leading the supplier’s sales and marketing department into believing this is precisely what separates one offer from the others. On paper, quoted offers may appear to be the same. What actually sets these products (actually offers at this stage) apart so the decision-making process can be made in your favor?