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Tips for Presentations and Sales Calls
Presentations are hard. And so are sales calls. As a public speaker by trade and inspired by many so-so speakers and their less than engaging performances, Bill has compiled a list of what it takes to deliver a good presentation. The same rules apply when it comes to making a good sales call.
Managing the Sales Process: From Getting Organized to Keeping Track
One of Bill’s mantras as a sales trainer is to never leave today without having tomorrow planned. You get to leave for home and leave work behind. Tomorrow is all planned. Go be present to your family. In the morning, you will walk in the door and already have your day planned out. Here are a few strategies to get organized.
Getting to the Next Level
You get to a plateau and you stay there, seemingly unable to break through to the next level. You want to end up with a plan but in order to get there, you are going to need to evaluate several aspects of your business. Bill has outlined a few tips and actionable resources in the form of Sales Vault content that will help you see a path to the next level.
Too Busy to Sell: “My Hair Is On Fire Daily”
This is a classic example of someone who’s not in charge of their own calendar. Everything seems urgent. The day is already already out of control, and it hasn’t even started yet. These tips and resources Bill has outline will help you lay some ground rules to regain control and bring the raging fire down to embers.
Selling when you’re an introvert…
The goal is not to change your personality. With a new mindset and a few strategies, you can become more comfortable in the sales role. Bill has selected some specific Sales Vault resources to help break down some sales barriers.
When you’ve never had to sell before but now you need to grow your business
When business stops growing organically, and event starts to recede, there is a way out. It’s time to start selling. Here you’ll find Sales Vault resources to get you focused on the fundamentals to recharge your sales engine.
Hiring the “right” sales rep and nurturing success
One of the big mistakes people make in hiring is they think this is a short term task. Not only is it ongoing, it doesn’t stop when you hire someone. You need to stay engaged in the onboarding, training, and early activities of a sales rep despite your other job duties.
Preparing to add a new sales rep
Do you need one? Absolutely! The only way to avoid hiring a sales rep is if you, the owner, are the sales rep and in that role 100%. Otherwise, your growth has a ceiling. But there are ways to set yourself (and them) up for success or failure. Here’s what Bill has to say on the topic and Sales Vault resources to consult for a deeper dive.
I hate selling….but I need to grow
Yeah. This is a tough one. Whether its laziness or procrastination or fear or something else, if you are not actively selling, you will—at best—maintain your existing sales level and—at worst—see a slow decline. Use these resources to inspire that desired growth.
Limiting the chaos when you’re crazy busy
“Crazy busy” is a temporary problem. If for some reason this feeling doesn’t go away, chances are you are suffering from some bad time management. In this post, Bill has outlined specific Sales Vault resources (Workshop Replays, Video Courses, Sales Tips & Blogs) to help you get from chaos to control.
Workshop Replays
Recap and Replay: “Seasonal Selling Mastery: Maximizing Impact Year-Round” Marketing Workshop
Ready to maximize your marketing success all year long?Watch this workshop replay to master seasonal selling strategies. Discover actionable tips to plan ahead, create timely promotions, and align your marketing with high-impact seasonal events.
Recap and Replay: “Storytelling That Sells: Creating Case Studies That Convert ” Marketing Workshop
Transform your sales strategy with storytelling. In this workshop replay, we discuss how to create case studies that engage, build trust, and drive conversions. From gathering client testimonials to showcasing measurable success, this session provides all the tools you need to harness the power of social proof. Watch now!
Recap and Replay: “AI & Time Management: The Ideal Sales Day”
In this replay of our January 28 “AI and Time Management” workshop, learn how a solid plan, combined with AI-driven support, can transform your day. From leveraging ChatGPT prompts to trying out the all-in-one productivity platform ClickUp, you’ll walk away with strategies and tools to focus on your highest-value work and get more done—without feeling overwhelmed.
Recap and Replay: “Sell 50% More, Work 50% Less” January 2025 Time Management Workshop
Master the art of doing less, better! Discover Bill Farquharson’s proven strategies to amp up sales by focusing on high-impact tasks and freeing up your precious time.
Recap and Replay: “Know Thy Client” Marketing Workshop
Deepen your client relationships by understanding their goals, challenges, and future direction. Learn effective research techniques to uncover what drives your clients and how to align your approach with their needs. This session empowers you to sell smarter and build lasting partnerships.
Recap and Replay: “Evolve Your Customer Base” Marketing Workshop
In this interactive session, the group tackled the challenge of knowing when—and how—to evolve your customer base. The conversation focused on analyzing existing client relationships, identifying high-potential vs. unprofitable customers, and strategically using face-to-face meetings, trade shows, and even AI tools to refine your portfolio. Attendees shared their personal experiences and practical tips for phasing […]
Networking with Purpose—Transform Conversations into Clients
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New to Sales Replay: The Key to Sales Success? Master the Ultimate Skill
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Kick Off 2025 Strong: Build Your Q1 Sales Plan – Workshop Replay
Learn how to kick off 2025 with a winning sales plan! In this workshop replay, Bill Farquharson shares essential strategies, tips, and action steps to create a Q1 sales plan that positions you for a strong start to the year. Don’t miss out on this valuable session!
The Marketing Workshop: Boost Customer Loyalty and Embrace AI
Discover practical marketing strategies to build customer loyalty and streamline your workflow with AI. Learn proven follow-up techniques, onboarding tips, and how to create AI avatars for your business. Watch now and take your marketing to the next level!
Short Attention Span Sales Tips
Better Than 5 Stars
You’ve done a great job and received yet another 5 star review. On one hand, that’s great for business. But on another, it’s next to useless. Bill Farquharson’s 5 star Short Attention Span Sales Tip tells you more.
Ten 2025 Sales Predictions
Don’t you wish you had a crystal ball and could see the future? Good news! Bill Farquharson does and in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip, he shares ten sales predictions with you.
The Best of 2024
Before we turn the page to 2025, here’s a look back at Bill’s favorite parts of 2024. Enjoy this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
The Holy Grail of Time Management
You can sell more but you’ll likely have to work more. If you want to work less, you will likely sell less. But is there a way to sell more AND work less? Yes, according to Bill Farquharson and the exercise he leaves you in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
Three Time Management Lessons
At age 38, Bill Farquharson learned about ADD and how his thinking was not, well, normal. Since then, he’s come up with a LOT of work-arounds. In this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip, he shares his three top time management lessons.
Three Words for December
Will you thrive or merely survive in ’25? The answer to that question starts in December of 2024. That’s Bill Farquharson’s message for you in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
Prospecting Bias
Email, voicemail, phone calls, texts, visits, LinkedIn connections…we all have our personal preference when it comes to how we like to be contacted. But with preference comes a dangerous component. In this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip, Bill Farquharson issues a warning on what to watch out for.
Three Sales Mistakes
Do bad things happen in threes? Sometimes, yes. So, wouldn’t you think people would make a hard stop after the second mistake and double check? In this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip, Bill Farquharson wonders that, too.
Selling by Example
There is a big difference in motivation between an army whose general is in the front line and one who is sitting comfortably on a hill, watching the battle. Think about that and the advice from Bill Farquharson’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip the next time you bark out a new sales push.
The 8-second Sale
In the time it takes to read this Short Attention Span teaser, the average attention span has been eclipsed. That makes it incumbent on Bill Farquharson to write something interesting. How’d he do? Find out more by taking in the full tip.
Short Attention Span Sales Blog
A Scientific Approach to AI
Like most of us, blogger Bill Farquharson has been curious about AI and, in particular, if it can be trusted. A few months ago, a scientist came along and pushed him in front of an AI train. In this week’s blog, he asks a question about AI and integrity.
Pilates and Marketing
Pilates is the best exercise you can get, but no one gets ripped. The benefits are present but not visible. There is something else exactly like this that helps your sales and is absolutely mandatory. It’s…the subject of Bill Farquharson’s blog this week
Do You See What I See?
A website is a window to the soul of the company. But what exactly does your website say, and is it even accurate? Bill Farquharson found a clever and entertaining way to find out and shares the intel in this week’s blog.
How to Sell Trust
You tell a prospect you can be trusted but they won’t believe you because they have no evidence. Trust is at the center of every sale and every relationship. In this week’s blog, Bill Farquharson, the man you know and trust writes about how to prove yourself to be trustworthy.
Genuine Sales
Most sales people never reach the deeper level of success achievable when you understand the simple point in Bill Farquharson’s blog this week.
Your Biggest Sales Mistake
The start-to-finish sales process has one key flaw and Buyers notice when you skip it. Learn more in Bill Farquharson’s blog this week.
The Sales Challenge You Won’t Admit to Having
No one answers your calls. You are not sure who to call on. Your prices are too high. All of these are common answers to the question, “Why aren’t you selling more?” But there is one core issue no one is talking about but it permeates every aspect of sales. Read more in Bill Farquharson’s blog this week.
What I Wrote vs. What I Said
An email comes in from angry client. You respond in kind. Your phone rings and the customer says, “Yikes, I was joking!” If you read into a message incorrectly, your response can cause a lot of damage. And before you misinterpret this teaser, you’d should probably read Bill’s blog.
Get it write.
Bill Farquharson is used to seeing his name butchered on mailing pieces and name badges. It’s to the point where getting it right is the anomaly. In this week’s blog, he talks about one instance where a mistake led to a crazy-high response rate of a direct mail piece.
I need my help.
You are probably an expert in the customer service experience of a half dozen companies you buy from. But what about your own? After battling for 90 minutes just to update a credit card, a snarky Bill Farquharson gives you an earful on what might be the speck in your own eye.
On-Demand Courses
Basic Time Management: The Fundamentals
This is the first of two video-based modules setting the stage for you to improve your time management skills. Learn the not so secret secrets to good time management: preparation and planning is key.
Diligence: Engage the Plan
Now’s the time to apply that prospecting process with diligence: How many calls should you make? How much is too much? Get the answers to these questions and learn how to find a sales activity goal that is reasonable and achievable.
How to Create a Prospecting Process Course
Learn why you need an effective prospecting process and find tools to create one that works for you.
Pre-Call Research
When you research a prospect ahead of time, your sales pitch becomes so powerful, doors open appointments are welcome. Let’s explore how to accomplish this.
Where to Look for Leads
As the first of a four-part of the Sales Fundamentals Series, this video-based course focuses on some innovative ways to find quality leads.
Downloadable Tools & Templates
Download 6 Prospecting Letter Templates
Here are some prospecting Letters to emulate or flat-out steal from, courtesy of The Sales Vault and yours truly. A good business letter has three components: • In the first paragraph, say what you are going to say.• In the second paragraph, say it.• In the third paragraph, say what you said. Oh, and one […]
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The Best (and funniest) Prospecting Letter Ever!
What would you want out of a good prospecting letter? An appointment, perhaps, but can you really expect to get that from just one single letter? Download Letter [pdf] An Insider Exclusive! Steve Block did it with this letter I’m about to talk about… Steve was one-of-a-kind. A Business Development Manager (think: Inside Sales and […]
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Whitepapers
Articles
Sales Challenges: Do This Before Lowering Your Price
Pop quiz: What would you do in this situation? An existing account is challenging a repeat order. For years, this has been a no-bid customer whose annual sales volume is steady and above-average profitability (read: they’re not being gouged). Strong relationships. A Norm-enters-Cheers greeting every time you are there. You know the type. But one […]
Five Sales Actions Printers Should Take Before 2024
Click your heels together, say “Keifer Sutherland” three times, and poof, just like that 2024 is upon us (see what I did there?). Soon, you will be reading about, making, and quickly breaking New Year’s Resolutions — all intended to drive sales and, especially, new business. But before you go through that disappointing promise-and-fail cycle […]
Sales Challenges: How to Become ‘Vendor of the Year’
All print sales reps should strive to be their clients’ Vendor of the Year, and Bill Farquharson has the steps to help you get there.
Sales Challenges: How to Become Vendor of the Year
I have a secret to share. It’s something I have never told anyone, and I thought hard before confessing it in Printing Impressions. I mean, if I tell you and it happens, does that mean it wouldn’t have had I kept my mouth shut? Or, maybe I’m jinxing myself. But, in the end, only because it’s […]
Sales Challenges: How to Make Prospecting Easier
Every other Thursday, I take guitar lessons. In between, I am assigned homework: Play the pentatonic scales. Learn the fretboard. Do some soloing. I know what to do and I know it will help. And yet, I struggle to find/make the time. It just seems like a big and daunting task: Find a quiet place […]
Do the Majority of Printing Industry Salespeople Have ADD? If So, It May Prove to Be an Advantage
After 30-plus years as a sales coach, it is my educated guess that 50% of all salespeople in the graphic arts have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Of those, I would further estimate that 90% have never had it formally diagnosed. What’s going on inside their head is their “normal,” and why would you ever question […]
Tips on Managing the Stressors of Up and Down Periods Typically Found With Printing Sales
We’ve all heard this before: Sell hard in the first quarter and you will have a good second quarter. The three most important selling months of the year are September, October, and November. What you do (or don’t do) in this time period will determine how your 2023 ends and how your 2024 begins. Want […]
Sales Challenges: Getting to Your Next Sales Level
When the 2022 golf season kicked off, my handicap was 23.8. For those of you who aren’t smart enough to know better than to throw untold amounts of time, money, and energy at this frustratingly wonderful sport, that’s not great. My goal was to end the year at a number that rhymes with “green” (as […]
Sales Challenges: The Four-Step Prospecting Plan
Nine out of 10 people reading this column do not follow a prospecting process. Ninety percent of you follow no formal step-by-step, week-by-week system of customer contact. Imagine if advertisers thought like you did. Companies like Coca-Cola, BMW, and Geico would buy print or airtime only when business slumped for a month. Even Verizon would […]
Managers: Don’t Expect Your Sales Reps to Try to Make 25 Sales Calls Per Day
I received an email from a reader and, by the time I got done with my response, a column had written itself … Dear Bill: In your October Printing Impressions article, “How to Improve Your Productivity,” you mention making 10 or more calls per day and that very few people have the time or patience […]
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