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Sales Resources
On-Demand Courses
Selling to Hospitals: Big Fish Sales in a High-Rules Environment
Hospitals buy a ton of print, signage, and promo—yet they can be notoriously hard to break into because decisions run through committees, compliance, vendor approval, and long budget cycles. This course teaches you how to research healthcare trends, identify revenue-driving opportunities, find the right stakeholders, and frame your offering in the language hospitals care about: safety, outcomes, efficiency, and patient experience.
Selling to Banks: Cracking the Code of Financial Institution Sales
Banks and credit unions buy plenty of print, signage, and promo—but profitable work comes from understanding how they make money, what’s changing in the industry, and what priorities your target institution is pushing right now. This course shows you how to build value-driven pitches, research like a pro, and walk into the conversation sounding like a partner—not another vendor begging to be put on the bid list.
Selling to Colleges: Win the Big Fish Without Becoming Bait
Colleges and universities are a massive, price-sensitive market with scattered buying circles—which means real opportunity… and real complexity. In this 6-lesson course, Bill breaks down what colleges buy, why they buy it, and who’s doing the buying, then shows you how to sell beyond “submit a bid” by tying print, signage, and promo to what schools are trying to accomplish right now.
Sustainable Productivity
Busy isn’t the same as productive. This course gives experienced reps a simple, repeatable system to plan their week, protect their best sales activities, and end every day with tomorrow ready to go. Learn how to stack appointments, manage opportunities, and sell more in less time—without burning out.
Landing the Big Fish
Big accounts don’t get “won.” They get pursued, mapped, and earned—over time, with patience, creativity, and a strategy that goes way beyond “just checking in.” This course gives you the mindset, structure, and contact tactics to break into large organizations, stay relevant during long sales cycles, and build a repeatable Big Fish pipeline.
Taming the Nuisance Customer
Learn how to identify, manage, and—when necessary—fire time-sucking, profit-draining clients. Learn practical strategies for dealing with bullies, slow payers, price-checkers, and chronic complainers so you can protect your time, your team, and your best customers.
Getting to YOUR Next Level
Explore this practical, no-drama framework to figure out where you are, where you want to go, and exactly what has to change in your mindset, skills, and activity to get there. This isn’t motivational fluff. It’s a working blueprint you’ll use to evaluate, review, plan, and execute your way to real growth.
A Sustainable Productivity Plan for New Sales Reps
Build consistency and focus with a repeatable productivity system for sales reps. Learn how to plan smarter, execute better, and stay on track — every day, every week.
Objection Mastery: Turning Resistance into Revenue
Master the art of handling objections. Learn to recognize, reframe, and respond to resistance with strategies that convert hesitation into opportunity.
Effective Sales Presentations
Turn your next meeting into a masterclass in preparation, presentation, and persuasion. In this course, Bill Farquharson walks you through every step of an effective sales presentation — from preparation to delivery to securing the next meeting. You’ll learn how to research your client, structure your message, and communicate with clarity and confidence.
Making Contact with Decision Makers
This course is about mastering one of the hardest parts of selling: gaining access to the person with the power to say “yes.” You’ll learn why diligence beats talent, how to craft powerful conversations, and how to reset your mindset so you stop feeling like a pest and start acting like a trusted advisor.
Marketing is the New Sales
Marketing is the New Sales helps you stand out in a crowded market, generate steady leads, and strengthen client relationships. By the end, you’ll have practical strategies to drive growth and keep your pipeline full—without relying on old-school sales tactics.
Lead Generation for Legacy Sales Reps: Sharpening Your Edge
Sharpen your edge and win better business. This advanced course helps seasoned sales reps refine their Ideal Customer Criteria, apply smarter prospecting strategies, and leverage AI to save time and uncover high-value opportunities. Stop chasing volume and start focusing on the clients who deliver the most profit and loyalty.
Lead Generation for New Sales Reps: Build Your Funnel, Build Your Future
Build your funnel, build your future. This course gives new sales reps the confidence and tools to find their first great customers. Learn how to combine traditional prospecting methods with modern AI strategies so you can keep your pipeline full and your sales career growing strong.
Pre-Call Research
Learn how to uncover what matters most to your prospects before you ever pick up the phone. This course teaches you to research smarter, find the right decision-makers, and transform generic sales calls into meaningful, solution-focused conversations.
The Prospecting Playbook
Turn cold calls into opportunities with a proven prospecting system. This course shows you how to build a pipeline, stay organized, and consistently generate new business.
Diligence
Build consistency, stay motivated, and outwork your competition with Bill Farquharson’s 6-part video course on the sales skill that beats talent every time. Perfect for print, promo, packaging, labels, and signage professionals who want lasting success.
New to Sales in the Graphic Arts?
Build confidence, avoid costly mistakes, and hit the ground running with Bill Farquharson’s 8-part video course for sales newcomers in print, promo, packaging, labels, and signage.
Time Management for Salespeople in the Graphic Arts: Do More, Stress Less, Sell Smarter
Master your day, reduce stress, and sell smarter: This course teaches salespeople in the graphic arts how to prioritize, plan, and build time habits that actually stick.
Workshop Replays
Recap & Replay | Everything You’ve Been Meaning to Do But Haven’t
CRM cleanup, dormant customers, marketing, prospect lists, testimonials — the important work is easy to postpone. Learn how to prioritize, simplify, delegate, and finally get those high-value sales tasks off your list.
Recap & Replay | Becoming the Trusted Advisor
Move beyond simply quoting jobs. Learn how better questions, honest recommendations, expertise, and customer-first thinking can help you become the trusted advisor clients turn to before making important buying decisions.
Recap & Replay | Selling to Marketing, Purchasing, and Everyone in Between
Learn how to identify influencers, gatekeepers, champions, users, and decision-makers—and adapt your sales message to what each stakeholder values most.
Recap & Replay | The Follow-Up Formula: Sales Follow-Up Without Being Annoying
Learn how to follow up consistently, add value with every interaction, and stay top-of-mind without overwhelming or annoying your prospects.
Recap & Replay | Reading the Room in Sales
Sales conversations are not just about what buyers say. They are also about what they reveal through questions, body language, tone, hesitation, and engagement. In this Sales Vault replay, Bill Farquharson and the Vault community discuss how to read the room, recognize buying signals, uncover hidden concerns, and use emotional intelligence to guide stronger, more productive sales conversations.
Recap & Replay | The Art of Asking for Referrals
Referrals do not have to be random. In this Sales Vault replay, Bill Farquharson and the Vault community discuss how to earn referrals, when to ask for them, and how to create more opportunities for introductions without making customers feel pressured. The conversation covers internal referrals, customer appreciation, reviews, relationship timing, referral-worthy service, and practical ways to become the person customers naturally recommend.
Recap & Replay | How to Sell Without Feeling Like a Salesperson
Selling does not have to feel pushy, scripted, or uncomfortable. In this Sales Vault replay, Bill Farquharson and the Vault community discuss how to sell in a more natural, authentic way by listening closely, asking better questions, telling useful stories, and becoming a trusted advisor instead of “just another salesperson.” The conversation also covers how to handle hesitant buyers, avoid sounding salesy, and still confidently ask for the business.
Recap & Replay | What to Do During Slow Sales Periods
When the phone stops ringing, don’t freeze. This Sales Vault replay shows how to turn slow sales periods into productive time for prospecting, follow-up, marketing, and long-term pipeline growth.
Recap & Replay | Selling to Buyers Who Don’t Want to Be Sold To
Today’s buyers are more informed, more independent, and less patient with traditional sales tactics. This Sales Vault replay explores how to build trust, reduce friction, communicate effectively, and sell to buyers who do not want to be sold to.
Recap & Replay | Landing Larger Sales Accounts
Big accounts can transform your sales year, but they require patience, trust-building, and a smarter approach than everyday prospecting. In this Sales Vault replay, Bill Farquharson and the Vault community discuss how to identify larger opportunities, understand buyer risk, navigate long decision cycles, protect your cash flow, and stay relevant with major prospects without making the dreaded “just checking in” call.
Short Attention Span Sales Tips
A Successful Sales Thought
Can you think your way to sales success? Bill Farquharson thinks not. But there is a way to use thought to get you there and Bill shares those thoughts in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
65 and Selling…
Not just one, but three sales tips is Bill Farquharson’s birthday gift to you. Find them all in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
The LinkedIn Handshake
Imagine working hard to get an appointment and then, after “Hello,” you have no idea what to say. That’s what making a LinkedIn connection feels like. If you want a plan for what to do, check out this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
Five Seconds of Negotiation
Silence is one of the most underused tools in sales. Learn how to turn silence into a powerful method of persuasion in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
A Complaint Challenge
How long can you go without complaining? And what does the answer have to do with sales? Find out in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
The Irony of the Sales Meeting
Most sales meetings are dull enough to put even the most caffeinated rep to sleep. And here’s the irony…Find out more in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
Your Bad (Internal) Reputation
Think you are mistreated by the Production team? Maybe you are. Want to know why? Find out in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
Distracted Selling
A defensive driving course teaches young drivers about distractions. This week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip approaches the subject from a different angle.
Differentiation
“Sure, I’ll buy from you. But you have to tell me what’s different about you first?” Multiple answers to that question…are found in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
Your Digital Story
Everyone has a story to tell. But, we also have stories told about us…stories that affect our sales. In this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip, Bill Farquharson challenges you to take charge of your online persona so your customers see you in the best possible light.
Short Attention Span Sales Blog
When a Client Meeting Makes a Statement
As you read these words, Bill Farquharson is headed to a client meeting so important, he is taking the unnecessary step of flying 6 hours in one day when he could have clicked a Zoom link instead. The difference? One makes a statement reserved for Big Fish. Read more in Bill’s blog.
My “Best of” 2025 Memories
While 2025 was a deeply flawed year for the world, Bill Farquharson still has some good thoughts to share in this, his final blog of the year. Here are Bill’s “bests” from a year that seemed a lot longer.
Unhappy Customer? Make it Free!
In Bill Farquharson’s blog this week you’ll hear a message you need to hear every day. In fact, that’s the point (1 min read).
The One Trait That Matters Most Right Now
In Bill Farquharson’s blog this week you’ll hear a message you need to hear every day. In fact, that’s the point (1 min read).
Mindset Is the Message
A client can hear every emotion you are having, so in this week’s blog you’ll find out the most important ones to have (1
What Was Once Optional
It takes more than ever to earn an appointment with a decision-maker. Learn the new “musts” in Bill Farquharson’s blog this week (1 min read).
Good Rep vs. Great Rep – Which One Are You?
Watching a tennis tournament, there’s amazing play in the early rounds and then the top ten show up and take the game to a whole new level. Reach your top level by taking the advice in this week’s blog (1 min read).
Confidence: The Sales Skill That Sells
Ever looked at someone and thought, “That one is special”? What you might be seeing is a wearable trait that can grow your sales. Find out more in Bill Farquharson’s blog.
Sales Is a Sport. Train Like It.
There are the natural-born sales reps and then there are the rest of us. You can beat the schmoozers by following Bill Farquharson’s advice in this week’s blog. (1 min read)
No Idle Hands
Whenever Bill Farquharson and his sister were picked up from school, their mom was busy writing a note, reading a book, or creating a recipe. This taught Bill and his now-retired brother a valuable sales lesson he shares with you in this week’s blog.
Downloadable Tools & Templates
AI Prompts for Presentation Prep
Smart AI prompts to help you use ChatGPT effectively for planning and refining your next sales presentation.
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Tips for Delivering an Effective Presentation
A one-page guide to help you deliver more persuasive, confident, and client-focused sales presentations.
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Effective Sales Presentation: Pre-Call Readiness Checklist
A practical checklist to confirm you’re ready for your next presentation — from prospect research and objective setting to visuals and follow-up planning.
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AI & Time Management Prompts for Sales Professionals
Learn how to use AI to plan your day, track goals, and stay accountable. This downloadable guide includes proven ChatGPT prompts for better time management and sales growth.
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Weekly & Ongoing Tasks for Sales Growth
Want to grow your print, promo, or signage business? This downloadable guide from Bill Farquharson lays out the must-do weekly tasks and strategic questions that drive real sales growth. Perfect for solo reps or sales teams.
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Growth Strategy Worksheet Download
This downloadable worksheet from Bill Farquharson guides Sales Vault members through 40 essential questions to evaluate their current sales performance, uncover new opportunities, and develop a strategic plan for growth. Whether you’re a sales rep or a selling owner in print, signage, or promotional products, this tool will help clarify your vision, sharpen your competitive edge, and move your business forward.
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Own the Stage: Bill Farquharson’s Pro Tips for Knockout Live Presentations
Want to captivate your audience from the first moment you step on stage? These tried-and-true tips from Bill Farquharson will help you own the spotlight—without breaking a sweat.
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Sales and AI Download
Download notes and instructions generated during the January 2024 Sales Vault Workshop entitled “Sales and AI”. Join in on the follow up discussion in February.
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The Right Way to Nag
It is frustrating to continually make attempts to connect with a prospect and get nothing back. Yet, we can all understand that it isn’t easy getting bombarded with unsolicited emails. Let this email be an example of how to follow up on an initial attempt and learn to nag the right way.
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Sales Call Checklist: Download
You finally got that appointment after endless attempts. Congratulations!
But, now what?
This could be your one and only opportunity with this prospect. That means you need to make the most of your face time.
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Learn by Sales Challenge
“How do I stay in touch with a prospect but not overdo it?”
How do you stay top of mind with a prospect without crossing the line into being a nuisance? After multiple outreach attempts with no response, it can be tough to know when to keep pushing and when to step back. The key is delivering valuable, relevant messages that show you’re persistent, not annoying. But how much follow-up is too much? And how do you strike the perfect balance?
“I want new business”
File this one under, “No kidding. Who doesn’t?” Okay, so you want to open some new accounts but you don’t know where to start. You likely fall into one of two categories: “New Reps” or “Legacy Reps”. The Sales Vault has options for both.
“I want to improve my time management”
There is a big difference between busy and productive. Most likely, if you have clicked on this category, you find yourself busy all the time. Equally likely is the fact that the only way you believe you can grow is by working even harder. So, let’s talk ideas for improving your productivity, starting with some lessons on time management.
No one is returning my calls!
Yep, this is definitely an issue. Over the years, various forms of, “No one is returning my calls” has become a top sales challenge. So, first, understand this: You are not alone. Feel better? Probably not. So, let’s dive deeper…
My sales suck. What should I do?
A bad week of sales becomes a bad month. Not only is no one on your new business list responding to your connection attempts, but no reorders are coming in either. Before the pattern repeats and becomes a full-on epidemic of terrible numbers, misery, and depression, let’s talk about actions you can take to reverse the trend and get back to solid sales growth.
Selling to Different Personalities
Overall, understanding different personality types as a salesperson allows you to adapt your communication style, build rapport, identify buying triggers, address objections, and strengthen customer relationships. These skills can significantly enhance your effectiveness in sales and contribute to your overall success in the field.
I’m New to Sales
Looking back to the start of my sales career, I was fortunate to work for a company that invested in training. The fundamentals of sales haven’t changed in the 40+ years since I started. If you’re new to sales, this is where to start.
Selling Digital Printing
Select from this collection of white papers available for download. Each written by Bill Farquharson and Kelly Mallozzi, focused on the nuances of selling digital printing vs. traditional print with actionable strategies.
I feel like I need to follow the job all the way through production…
Are you battling “CSR Disease?” Definition: CSR Disease is the name given to sales people who spend an inordinate amount of time mothering their jobs through the plant. They either can’t or won’t pass the baton to production. Is this you?
Sales Apps You Should Know About
Search “Sales Apps” on Google and the number of responses will rival that of the Gross National Product. There are thousands of apps and many do similar things. Here are just a few that are worth your time, listed by their intended benefit.
Whitepapers
Digital Printing Sales Action Plan
In the following pages we will prepare you with the tools you need to successfully implement your digital print sales action plan. Consider this your do-it-yourself digital printing sales kit.
Selling to Verticals
Learn how to look beyond the printed piece, specs and quantities and shine the spotlight on the industry itself. There you will find some fascinating tidbits of information that will help you achieve the goal of solving problems and earning orders, while creating a repeatable industry sales strategy.
Identifying Digital Print Opportunities
Learn how to rapidly recognize the existence of a digital/inkjet print opportunity from circumstances that might include: A problem a client is trying to solve, A delivery requirement, or even… a need to convey multiple messages to multiple markets. Be able to quickly survey the landscape and identify the best places for digital/inkjet print opportunities.
Digital Printing: Success Through Disruption
Selling inkjet is WAY out of the traditional sales rep’s comfort zone. The inkjet print sale can be highly technical. And when you add the prospect of variable data printing, it becomes exponentially more complicated. But, there are pathways to success!
Back to the Future: The New Old Sales Skills Required to Sell Digital Print
The smart, flexible sales rep understands that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Drawing on lessons from the past, a new approach to sales is necessary – one that includes many of the same selling skills and techniques from a different era.
Want to Sell More Digital Printing?
Take your sales process to a whole new level! Follow Bill’s sales fundamentals tenets and success will follow.
Why Aren’t You Selling More
Download Whitepaper Now, there’s a good question! Learn 4 questions to ask yourself when sales go south…
The Sales Calendar
Download Whitepaper The selling year ebbs and flows. Think of it as 12 hard months and that’s what it will be. Break it up as Bill down in this download and you can make smaller plans which yield bigger results.
How to Make TEN Sales Calls a Day
Download Whitepaper Do you have time to make ten new business calls a day? You might not think so but I’ll change your mind…
Articles
10 Tips and Tricks for Printing Industry Sales Reps Who Are Now Selling From Their Homes
Two weeks after graduating college in 1982, I went to work selling business forms from a one-bedroom apartment in Worcester, Massachusetts. I had a bed, a kitchen table with two chairs, a small TV, and a couch. Without any other space available, my desk sat in the middle of the living room and from there […]
Best Ways for Salespeople to Get Their Point Across When Selling Printing
It is remarkable just how many salespeople I know and work with have ADD. Attention Deficit Disorder is typically a diagnosis associated with middle school-aged kids who, like me, were once called dreamers, class-disrupters, and unfocused. Are those with ADD deficient of paying attention? Yes, we are. Is it a disorder? Not in my experience. […]
Five Tips I Can’t Teach You When It Comes to Selling More Printing
There are fundamental lessons to sales. These are the basics — the building blocks — if you will. Follow them and you will find some level of success in sales. As a sales trainer and coach, I can walk you through them: Make a high-value, well researched sales call to the right target market by […]
Five Odd Pieces of Sales Advice
When I joined the local golf club, it was only the old guys who played in the Saturday morning pickup games. We called them “golf in slow motion.” Now, I’m that guy. When I started in sales in 1982, we scoffed at the legacy reps who lumbered in and out of the office, drove old […]
Sales Challenges: ‘Houston, We’ve Had a Problem’
Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert’s oft-misquoted words informing mission control something had gone very, very badly on their way to the moon, was easily the greatest understatement of the 20th century. Perhaps had he known the full extent of the damage done to the capsule — not to mention the odds he and the rest […]
10 Sales Questions for Summer
Ah, summertime. Lemonade in a hammock. That novel you’ve been meaning to read. And, finally, a chance to pull the proverbial train into the station, exhale, and think things through. We spend most of the year with our heads down; too busy selling to wonder if we are heading in the right direction. Finding answers […]
Cleaning Out the Sales Closet
A dozen Printing Impressions columns. Fifty-one Short Attention Span Sales Tips. Fifty-one blogs. That is the amount of content I generate on an annual basis. Add to that the occasional white paper, training course, and the various material generated for The Sales Vault, and it makes for a busy and hungry literary machine. Scattered around my desk, […]
Hit the COVID Reset Button
I have AFib, a common heart condition that can cause both arrhythmia and a heart rate that can go from 65 bpm to a sustained rate of 165 in, well, a heartbeat. A few years back, I had an ablation in order to deal with those irritating and dangerous symptoms. For the most part, it […]
Print Sales Lessons I Learned From My Job in College
Here in the Northeast, liquor stores are called “Package Stores,” or “Packies” for short. During my tenure at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, I worked at Russell Liquors in the center of town, earning $2.05 an hour, thankyouverymuch. Everybody needs a lousy job like this one in their past. You can’t see it in the moment, […]
Your End-of-the-Week Checklist
Finally, it’s Friday afternoon. Another long week of sales challenges is now behind you. Your task list is a mass of scribbles, arrows, and check marks. Sure, there are some bullet points not completed, but when is that not the case? The only thing between this moment and you heading home is that Sales Challenges […]
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