As Associate Publisher of No. 1 Industry Mag, it's my job to organize the sales team and drum up new business. We publish about 24 print magazines a year, run about 10 Web sites, own a few e-commerce businesses and have a big trade show. We sell about $10,000,000 worth of stuff a year, and most of it comes in dribs and drabs of under $5,000. We have eight salespeople who try to make that happen. Orders are the lifeblood of our business and, like car accident victims, our only chance of survival is to be constantly transfused with a steady stream of our lifeblood: hard American currency, collected diligently every thirty days.
A good deal of our lifeblood is gathered in large amounts. These are the big sales, ranging from anywhere between $50,000 and $200,000. In other words, they're the sales that need the pretty proposal. We do that better than anyone in the business.
What is the pretty proposal? It's taking the contents of an email proposal and having someone absurdly talented turn that proposal into an ad-quality PDF—complete with logos, pictures, and neatly-set text, preferably in a sans-serif font. It comes in full color, and may or may not be submitted via PowerPoint presentation, which basically says the same thing, but with even more images.
We sell ideas, and those ideas have to look good. It always amazes me that we can spend a couple of dollars on color printer ink, take a few hours to put together some sheets of paper, and then put a price tag of $100,000 on it. Initial investment? Zero. The problems only start when someone actually takes us up on it.
