When preparing your business to sell, having a successful sales program will catch the eye of prospective buyers and lure them to look closer. A solid sales program won’t clinch the sale of your business, but it’s part of the criteria that buyers like to see in a company with growth potential.

In my work with privately-owned label converters and specialty graphic arts companies, 99.9% of owners say their sales department could be doing a better job. When asked what they’re doing to remedy the situation, 99.9% say, “We’re working on it.”  When asked months and years later how the program is coming, 99.9% say, “We still have work to do.”

Look, when it’s time to sell, your asking price must be substantiated with data and facts. To maximize what you can get for your company when you exit, you need four things: (1) A thorough and unbiased valuation with a narrative describing your gaps; (2) An achievable sales plan for an uptrend in topline growth and bottom-line profits; (3) Personnel to achieve those goals; (4) Data gathering so you can increase and document your sales success.

For sales growth, you need: Overarching sales strategy; an annual plan, a six-month schedule of activities, and quarterly reviews; a motivated sales team with dead weight removed; realistic objectives and “stretch” goals; training in 21st-century consultative selling, sales journey shepherding, and objections handling; accountability; a modern CRM that is kept updated and used for insight and opportunities; a follow-up cadence; sales support people, if possible; a seat at your monthly all-hands sales meeting for your customer service reps, shipping manager, operations manager, and anyone else who is involved in the flow of jobs; modern communication methods (email, sales department newsletter, phone, text, social media, apps); high-quality, up-to-date marketing materials; a place where leads are warmed up; performance incentives that are meaningful to your team members; and regular activities focused on customer retention and recapture.

While building the program, we must ensure that salespeople have everything they need to succeed. I recommend you survey salespeople quarterly to understand their view of your job quality, turnaround, promises to customers that were broken, issues with customer service, safe and accurate online ordering, and correct billing. Use an app for the survey so you can compare results and chart your progress.

Customers may love their salesperson and the projects they’re ordering, but they’ll leave you in a heartbeat if the buying process is stressful, inaccurate, or unpleasant. Be sure to look at your complete process from order to payment to delivery from the customer’s point of view. Sales is a company-wide effort!

If, after all this, you’re not generating more opportunities and more sales, you may have other issues. A common problem is morale, which can impact all areas of the company – especially the sales department.

That’s why morale needs to be assessed and improved as you build your sales program. It’s tough for salespeople to be enthusiastic about a company, an owner, or a sales manager they don’t believe in. It used to be that we pointed the finger at owners and managers for poor morale. There are more issues than ever affecting morale in the workplace, and your managers and human resources manager should be trained in identifying and addressing these. But the reality is that, most of the time, poor morale has its roots in things the owner can control: scheduling, overwork, compensation, employee misbehavior, family dynamics, workplace and equipment safety, lighting and noise, cleanliness, and (a biggie) the quality of your management team.

If you want your salespeople to do their best and achieve the objectives set out in your sales program, you must have a company worth selling for. I call this “building from the inside,” and it’s a vital part of improving sales results. If you’ve read the book The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, you know it’s a parable about enhancing product throughput. Each time you “fix” something in your business or remove an obstacle, a new constriction or blockage will become apparent – requiring more changes.

Being in a state of continuous change and improvement has its own stress associated with it, but it’s far better to be moving forward and experiencing that stress than to be stuck, stalled, or moving backward.

Today’s label converters and specialty graphic arts companies have such promise and opportunity. We’re well-positioned in a world that needs our products and services. We must protect ourselves from other printing and manufacturing sectors that want to encroach on us. We can protect what we have by being excellent in sales. And, if your goal is to sell your company in the next 5-10 years, increasing sales is a major component of exit planning and growth. Take the first step to improving your sales program today, and I’ll wager you’ll see better numbers by Q1 of next year. Yes, it works that fast.

Try it!

How bad sales management almost ruined this company
I was brought in to evaluate the sales department for a specialty print and finishing company. Sales were dropping at the rate of $5 million per year. Because the owner was planning to sell the business in a few years, this downward trend would hurt his ability to command the asking price he wanted. With each year of sales failure, the business was losing value. He had to stem the tide and turn things around.

There were major red flags in the sales department: Poor sales leadership; morale issues and high turnover in the selling team; and ridiculously high sales expenses. To begin with, the company’s primary selling method – expensive tradeshows – did not bring in the quantity or quality of leads needed. The sales manager had not instituted a reliable sales process to make sure the investment in exhibiting would result in sales. There was no appointment setting for meetings during the shows; no follow-up with people who visited the booth; no program for developing warm leads or nurturing contacts before, during, or after the show; no protocol for assigning sales territories or managing leads obtained at the show. There was a free-for-all when leads came in, with the sales manager claiming the lucrative accounts.

On the day-to-day side of sales, no one was plucking the low-hanging fruit. There was no program for selling more to existing customers; no use of LinkedIn and social selling; no training on how to use intriguing voice and text messages; and no outreach to other connections in the customer’s organization. 

In addition, other than his plum accounts, the sales manager was filling press time with low-profit work and “okay-we’ll-try-you-out” orders. There was an over-reliance on brokers and wholesale resellers; an over-reliance on bidding sites; an over-reliance on outside telemarketers for appointment setting; an over-reliance on “drop bys” and gathering business cards from nearby businesses; and an over-reliance on sales “harassment” consisting of (as the manager put it) “18 to 20 phone calls after meeting the prospect.” Not good!

The company was operating in a hot market of growth and opportunities, yet it was missing out on annual sales contracts and recurring work! Change needed to happen – fast. I recommended a six-month coaching program for the sales manager to work on leadership, budget, planning, and proper sales management. The owner approved my plan. We ran a six-month intensive program that got sales moving in a positive direction and helped the sales manager become a team leader. To pave the path to profit, start with the basics of sales growth. Build a strong, organized program with excellent leadership and current sales methods. Before you know it, you’ll have a sales team that wins more business than you can handle. What a great problem to have!


Sandy Hubbard is a chief marketing advisor who helps position businesses strategically and powerfully. She advises specialty print manufacturers, converters, and finishers – helping them improve, grow, and position powerfully in a world of rising competition.  Her tenure in the industry has fostered business growth and success, allowing clients to make a difference in the world.