A Voice From the Past

Good advice never gets old. After stumbling upon a 1998 IPG article about that year's Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) conference in Louisville, Ky., we spotted these points made by speaker Keith Nickoloff, then president of PathForward (now president of Pharos Systems International).

Once a frequent presenter at in-plant events, Nickoloff gave a rousing talk in which he stressed the importance of getting to know your customers well, adding that whoever knows the customer best will win. Customers, he said, go where they're treated special, so learn their special needs, satisfy them and create customers that are so pampered no competitor would want them.

Don't stop there, though, Nickoloff continued; it's just as important to go beyond the customer and get to know the receiver, the most important person in the communication process. Hold focus groups to learn what the document receiver wants in a document.

"We've got to know them better than our customers know them," he said.

To help in-plants understand their competitors' viewpoints, Nickoloff told attendees what he often tells quick printers:

• Go where the clicks are: every customer is not equal.
• Be competitively superior: the incumbent wins all ties.
• Exude great attitude: people don't want to deal with jerks.
• Sell benefits, not features: customers don't buy technology, they want to know what it will do for them.
• Get digital: most in-plants aren't. (O.K., so this last point is a little dated, but everything else is just as pertinent now as it was 17 years ago.)