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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: Knowing What to Say
Learn how to research prospects before the first call so your outreach feels relevant, confident, and valuable. In this Sales Vault replay, Bill Farquharson shares practical ways to use websites, LinkedIn, trigger events, and AI tools to uncover insights that lead to better conversations and stronger sales results.
Recap & Replay: Finding the Right Prospect
Not all prospects deserve your energy. This session shows how to define “worth it,” uncover better-fit targets through your current customers, and build a repeatable lead-gen system that keeps you out of dead ends.
Recap & Replay: Overcoming Sales Call Fear
Sales call fear is real—and it’s expensive. In this replay, Bill and Sales Vault members name the fears that stall outreach, normalize what’s happening in your head, and share practical ways to start the conversation (even when your stomach says “nope”).
Recap & Replay: The Big Fish Blueprint
Big accounts aren’t scary—they’re risk-averse. Watch this replay to learn the Big Fish Blueprint: what enterprise prospects care about, how to research and target the right accounts, and how to win bigger business without getting intimidated.
Recap & Replay: The Weekly Sales Plan: Think Ahead, Win Ahead
A calmer week starts before the week starts. Build a simple plan, set priorities, block selling time, and use quick daily check-ins to stay on track—even when interruptions hit.
Recap & Replay: What the Groundhog Can Teach Us About Time Management
Stop “catching up” (spoiler: you won’t). Learn Bill’s repeatable time-management routine: plan tomorrow before you end today, set weekly priorities, keep your pipeline healthy, and build real accountability into your week.
Recap & Replay: The Persistence Advantage: Smart Follow-Up That Wins More Deals
Persistence isn’t pestering—it’s proving you’re the pro. This replay shows how to build a repeatable follow-up routine that earns trust, reduces price sensitivity, and helps you win deals others abandon.
Recap & Replay: How to Sell Without Selling: Education-Based Marketing for Warmer Leads
People hate being sold to—but they love learning. In this Sales Vault replay, discover how to shift from pitching to educating, position yourself as the expert, and turn simple teaching content into warmer leads.
Recap & Replay: Selling Value When the Customer Just Wants Price
Customers who only want price will treat you like a quote machine. This replay shows you how to shift the conversation to value with better questions, smarter options, and stronger positioning—so you can win the work at your price.
Recap & Replay: Stop Quoting & Start Selling
Stop sending quotes into the void. In this workshop, Bill shares how to qualify the job and the customer, ask smarter questions, and use speed, communication, and better options to turn quotes into conversations (and revenue).
Short Attention Span Sales Tips
Your August Sales Plan
August is a wonky sales month. Sales opportunities seem to start and stop, due in part to the popularity of vacations. What else is August good for? That is what Bill Farquharson will be talking about in this month’s sales tips.
A Process For Selling Promo
Selling promo is easy…if you follow the in advice in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip by Bill Farquharson.
How to Avoid the Price Objection From Existing Clients
Want that repeat order without being subjected to low ball pricing from a rogue competitor? Follow the advice in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip by Bill Farquharson
Prospecting for Promo
In this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip, Bill Farquharson gives a quick and easy way to start selling promotional products and branded apparel by avoiding this subject at Networking events.
Selling Promotional Products
It’s a simple idea: Sell more to existing accounts. In this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip, Bill Farquharson offers up a no-brainer idea.
Just Do It…Any of It
Do you take an “All or nothing” approach to prospecting? Learn the value of what’s in between those two extremes in Bill Farquharson’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
The Secret to a Productive Day
A productive sales day is not a fluke. It is also not hard to create. Productivity is the result of a simple discipline. It is also the subject of Bill Farquharson’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
Already Have a Vendor? Great News!
“We already have a vendor” cannot be unexpected, but it can be overcome. Check out Bill Farquharson’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip.
How to Sell Without Knowledge
Don’t know anything about print? New to sales? After this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip, you will not see these as barriers to sales success…if you listen to Bill Farquharson’s advice.
Proper Sales Expectations
Does a rush hour traffic jam take you by surprise? How about crazy-high service fees while buying concert tickets? If you have proper expectations for those life-certainties, what Bill Farquharson has to say in this week’s Short Attention Span Sales Tip will come as no surprise either.
Short Attention Span Sales Blog
What New Reps Get Wrong
It’s 5pm and you accomplished very little. No sales, just busy work. What’s missing? The answer is in Bill Farquharson’s blog this week.
Phone Phobia
If you sell print or promotional products and still struggle with cold calling, you’re not afraid of the phone. You’re afraid of what might happen when someone answers. If you want to know how to overcome call reluctance and start booking more qualified sales appointments, read Bill Farquharson’s blog.
How to Sell Print Without Competing on Price
Most print and promotional product reps are still trying to figure out how to overcome price objections — when price isn’t the real problem. The real problem is…what Bill Farquharson writes about in this week’s blog.
Ditch Selling. Cue Curiosity.
On a recent call with a selling owner, the man lamented over a lack of formal sales trainer. Bill Farquharson, a formally trained sales professional told him not to worry, that there was something far more useful. Read about in this week’s blog (1 min read).
Surely, You Can’t Be Serious, Tim
At the ASI show in Orlando, Bill Farquharson sat down with Tim Andrews, ASI President and CEO, for a quick conversation. The chat almost didn’t get past Tim’s first comment, as outlined here in this week’s blog.
The One Sentence Email Challenge
Want to get a client to respond to your email? Try the innovative approach outlined in Bill Farquharson’s blog.
You Screwed Up an Order!
The premise of Bill Farquharson’s blog is bizarre: The goal of the screwed up order is to come away better off than if everything went smoothly.
Sales Lessons From the Mouse That Ate My Car
When a mouse did thousands of dollars of damage to Bill Farquharson’s car, one benefit was a sales lesson. Read more in his blog this week.
The Learning Hour
What if you took an hour a week to get better? By the time you read this week’s blog by Bill Farquharson, he will have done just that for half of January. Find out what he is up to and then come back next month to hear the results.
Stop Lobbing My Groceries
Two recent interactions with entry-level workers serve as the source for Bill Farquharson’s blog this week. Do you remember your first/worst job? You will after this quick read.
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
Get yourself unstuck
Feeling stuck? In this post, Bill has outlined specific Sales Vault resources (Workshop Replays, Video Courses, Sales Tips & Blogs) to help you find the motivation and inspiration you are currently lacking.
Dealing with Voicemail…Solved
You probably don’t put much thought into it, but your outgoing voicemail message is a selling tool in itself. Find Sales Vault resources to sharpen your voicemail message to get that elusive call back, and if the call back never comes; what to do next.
How to Get Your Price…Solved
When you expect the “price” objection, you can prepare for it. Bill has compiled Sales Vault resources in the form of Tips, Blogs, Workshops and more that address this very issue.
Land the Big Fish Accounts…Solved
Top sales people have at least one major account. Most have several. Here are some ideas and tips for landing a big fish of your own and links to Sales Vault Resources that further explore the topic.
Find High-Quality Leads…Solved
Consult these Sales Vault resources Bill has selected to help you find new strategies and ideas for sourcing high quality leads.
Secure More Appointments…Solved
Once upon a time, it was fairly easy to get face time with a client. Today, you’ll be lucky if you get to FaceTime (or Zoom). Here are some ideas for facing these new sales challenges using specific Sales Vault resources Bill has selected for you.
Selling through LinkedIn…Solved
With customer contact more rare and difficult than ever, knowing how to harness the marketing power of online tools like LinkedIn will grease the skids for your selling efforts and get the phone ringing. Find actionable strategies to leverage the power of LinkedIn using these Sales Vault Resources.
Sell More in Less Time…Solved
Time management is a HUGE subject, especially as it relates to sales. I could write on the subject all day, but here I’ve outlined specific Sales Vault resources (Workshop Replays, Video Courses, Sales Tips & Blogs) to get you thinking differently about how you manage your time as it relates to sales success.
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
Sales Challenges: Cross That Line
Want Sales Success? Get in Line!
Sales Challenges: The Tsunami of AI
Everything, everywhere, all at once. A strange, hard to follow Academy Award Best Picture winner (we shut off after the hot dog fingers scene) or the description of AI as it infiltrates our lives? Answer: both. You might have heard the phrase, “Drinking from a fire hose.” This occurs when you are taking in a […]
To Get Ahead, Think Ahead
Sales is a job of do, do, do. It is a task-oriented endeavor, full of checklists, prioritizing, interruptions, procrastinations, have-to’s, want-to’s, could-do’s, should-do’s, and ultimately, results. Oftentimes, a sales rep’s daily agenda is self-generating: arrive in the morning, take on the first task that comes, and don’t stop until dark. They live on a treadmill, […]
Tennis, Sales Management, and Winning Twice
It was the Saturday before Labor Day and that meant the club’s tennis championships. In the men’s doubles event, 17-year-old Jack Rubin was serving. His team was down 5-4 in the first set and 30-40 in the game. Jack’s first serve went long. He tossed the ball into the air and hit his second serve […]
Sales Challenges: When You Know You Can Do Better
It was late in the day and late in the month. My wife and I were enjoying a cocktail by the pool, debriefing each other on our day, discussing numerous child-related issues (with seven kids between us, there were plenty), and looking ahead. Toward that end, Allison asked me, “What are you looking forward to […]
Worst Case Scenarios: Sales Edition
Salespeople are, by nature, optimists. If they weren’t, they would never be able to endure the beatings taken along the way to a successful career. Tomorrow will always be better than today. Your business will grow. Your client base is secure and your customers are happy. Regardless of the economy, someone is always buying. Print […]
What to Do When Your Sales Are …
In an attempt to check in on you, your boss walks past your desk and tosses out a lazy, “How’s business?” You answer, then provide just enough information for her to walk away satisfied. The last thing you need is commentary on your sales efforts. She’ll stay out of your hair for a while and […]
6 Printing Industry Sales Tips to Create an Experience
The email read, “Thank you for your proposal and presentation to become the print vendor of choice at Whatsamatta U. We were impressed with your equipment list and capabilities. The samples you showed displayed some excellent quality. There is no doubt you do great work for your clients. However, at this time we have chosen […]
Raise Prices the Right Way and Clients Will Love It!
Price increases are inevitable. Over the course of a career in this (or any other) industry, you will no doubt be faced with the challenge of delivering bad news to a customer: We are going to be charging you more for the same goods and services. The event itself cannot be avoided but the customer […]
10 Reasons Why Sales Are Down
Your email inbox is empty. You have no voicemails. Your phone is quiet. Looking at the sales leaderboard, your name is last on the list. To say business is off is an understatement. Having gone through all the usual “It’s not my fault” excuses to explain your situation — no one is buying right now, […]
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