Hi I'm a newbie and have been looking through the forums. I forget which one but I found this:
"Our sales schleps are so lazy that they don't even call the client to get printing specs anymore... just send the files to prepress and have them preflight it and tell us what's on the disk. Refresh my memory, but what the hell does a sales rep actually do? They don't pick up files anymore, they don't deliver proofs now that their atrophied brains have figured out what a PDF can do, they don't do press checks unless they're right after lunch which is usually when they drag their lazy carcasses into work, and they don't deliver the printing when it's done! Call me crazy, but I think I could do that too!"
I spent 30 years as a Sc*&mbag printing broker, so I've seen this attitude, not stated so honestly, again and again and again. It's the old sales/production thing.
Now that I have a little time, and this forum sounds like real people solving real problems, i think it's time to strike back.
So . . . dear friends in production:
The sales process and the sales and CSR's who manage that process are the only people who bring in money. Everyone else is spending money. Sorry, but that "lazy sales schleps" are paying everyone's salary.
Then us revenue generators
have to listen to sutff like:
"They don't pick up files anymore, they don't deliver proofs now that their atrophied brains have figured out what a PDF can do, they don't do press checks unless they're right after lunch which is usually when they drag their lazy carcasses into work, and they don't deliver the printing when it's done!"
This is a salespersons job? They have to find customers, then develop trust with someone who naturally doesn't trust them, then they have to respond in a heartbeat to some finicky designer or marketing persons ridiculous requests then they have to go back to the shop and take all kinds of guff from PRODUCTION. Then they have to pick up files, deliver files, do press checks and deliver printing?"
Give me a break
In a well run shop, the sales people hunt, the sales people and CSR's manage the relationship and the production people produce.
If we all did our jobs, and stopped the blaming and the whining, it would be a better world all around.
Meanwhile, be very careful what you wish for....
as in
"A state-of-the-art web based quoting, ordering, proofing, job status and customer to company interface that client's ENJOY using, instead of a web site with hours of operation, a phone number and how many years in business. Cut out the sales people and hire a cute college intern with nice legs for the occasional delivery (Salaried position of course. Male intern in San Francisco.) and watch the profits soar!
Or, to cut costs even more, forget the cute intern and just find a chimp with a suit. At least the client's will understand WHY their sales rep doesn't know jack $#@%!"
How many pre press people or production people do you need in this scenerio? How about a totally web based transparent system with bar codes for work processes? and real time information about where in the process the job is and when it will go to the next step and when it will be delivered. And how about real QC that reliably produces what every one is being paid to produce? What about an end to the silly production mistakes that take a profitable relationship that took three years to build, destroyed in a day, becuase somebody didn't do their job?
Not for nothing...I'm just saying.
