In an INC. Magazine article, authors Alsever and Bluestein compiled an entire feature article out of don’t do lists. Here are a few that stood out.

Don’t underestimate your employees.

Don’t underestimate the power of your logo (or the professional process of designing it).

Don’t avoid Twitter or Facebook because you don’t “get” it.

Don’t hide from unhappy customers.

In social media posts, don’t keep patting yourself on the back. You are missing the point (have a conversation, not a “kudos to us” session.

To close a sale, don’t do these three things: Don’t walk into a room and start with “here’s what I am selling.” Don’t drop a lead if at first you don’t succeed (there are real reasons why people don’t buy, including timing and budget). And finally, if your company cannot help, recommend one that can.

Delegating a project? Avoid these five pitfalls: Don’t think people can read your mind. Don’t do a delegation dump (hand off tasks at a pace you can oversee). Don’t give into hesitation (the real benefit of delegation is having a focus on the parts of your job only you can do). Don’t tell people how they should get the job done. Don’t dismiss the learning curve (delegation is harder for some than others…hang in there!).

From a sales perspective, that translates into five key “beliefs:”

• I work for the greatest company in the world
• I offer the greatest products/services in the world
• I am the greatest person in the world
• I can differentiate myself and my company/products from the competition
• I know the customer is better off having purchased from me

When you take personal responsibility, you are saying effectively that win or lose, it’s up to me. It’s not about price, the competition having more advertising dollars, or your boss and his archaic ways of selling. It’s about what you can do each and every day to have more “wins” in 2012.

I’ve always been a morning person, but  great advice from Ace of Sales is to get up 30 minutes earlier every day and invest it in yourself. Coming full circle, in that 30 minutes do something that promotes your “can do” attitude and gives you a jump-start on your day.

Customers are willing to pay a bit more because getting to market fast can be the difference between life and death for a brand. How? Look at the cost of a digital label that can be a penny or two more, but then getting to market weeks ahead of the competition can mean a substantial amount of dollars. If you absolutely need it there tomorrow morning, the up-charge is a huge value.

Value, then, is all about perception—not yours, but the customer’s. That’s a very important distinction.

Yes, being competitively priced is a give-in, but here’s another distinction: this doesn’t mean you need to position your company as having the cheapest price. At the end of the day, if you base your sales message on price, you are driving your customers to make their buying decision on it.

The question then becomes, how do you create the perception of value? The experts at Ace of Sales say that it starts with engaging and provocative questions. Instead of walking in with a pitch, have an idea, and deliver it by first asking questions to find out what matters to that specific customer. (Yes, this means you cannot have a “canned pitch,” there’s no one-size-fits-all.)

A great question? Again from Ace of Sales, why not start with something like, “What one word comes to mind when you hear the word X (insert your industry, what you are selling)?” If I say “digital package printing” and the customer says “expensive,” then I know exactly how to answer that obstacle upfront—by explaining the true value of digital printing.

Once a customer works with CL&D Digital? That one word (or two) becomes fast, easy, quality samples, or exceptional service.

Look at your sales pitch. How can you re-write it, providing value first to your customer? There’s a great example given in an Ace of Sales webinar:  if you’re selling copiers, your point of differentiation cannot be that “this button is square on their machine, ours is round.” But if you can show the decision-maker a stack of copies with the original mixed in, ask which is the original, and they cannot find it, now you’ve shown value. Sold.

Understanding the buyer is the key to being a strong seller.

Jason Fried’s article of this name from the March 2011 INC. magazine explained it another way with his experience selling shoes. He says that once he stopped “slinging technical terms” he sold a boatload of shoes. You see, customers didn’t care about the technology, the features, the special test labs. 1. They consider the look and style. 2. They try on to see if comfortable, and 3. What’s the price?

As easy as 1-2-3.

Translated to digital package printing (and we’re the experts), this means we have to be fast, we have to have full-production run quality, and we have to make CPGs lives easier (can we do this? yes we can, or let us do some research and we’ll come up with a solution).

First, if you still believe social media was a passing trend, take these stats in:

• More than 2/3 of Americans have a Facebook account
• 200+ million tweets are sent every day
• LinkedIn has passed the 100 million users mark

But those are personal users, right? Nothing that influences purchase decisions. Wrong.

A survey cited says 50% of users actively seek purchase decision advice and 50% give advice on social media. You can read all of the other numbers, but basically the message is this: businesses and consumers are engaging in social media—and discussing companies, brands, services, products.

So if you’re not, you don’t have an active voice, which means “silence” sums up your strategy. You have no offense, no defense, no game.

More than half of people using social media expect regular communication from companies they engage. And other than the time used by yourself and/or someone in marketing to engage, social media is free.

Next you’ll say, “I don’t know what I would write about.” I’ll leave you with a few great ideas from the article:

• Answer FAQ (frequently asked questions)
• Announce an interesting project
• Write about new technologies
• Welcome new employees
• Celebrate milestones

Oh and for the record, CL&D Digital is actively engaging in social media—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn—and of course, blogging.

There’s an old saying that real problems will find you, you don’t need to make them up yourself.

How about looking at your customer service today? How is the new employee doing today? How well is that new sales program working for you today? How smoothly did we get that rush digitally printed sample package project out (of course here at CL&D Digital, rush projects are the norm)?

Now, this is not to say you don’t need a business plan for the coming year or that you shouldn’t think about the future. Reading between the lines, I think the article was a friendly little reminder to work smarter, not harder—and of course, don’t let thinking about the future stress you out.

There’s something to be said for taking one day at a time. If you’re doing all the right things today, as the article concludes, tomorrow is just another today.

*Get Real By Jason Fried: Driven to Distraction, Are your business problems making you insane? Take a deep breath and repeat after me: It just doesn’t matter.

Geeks and geezers references baby boomers and generation X and Y “co-mingling” in the workplace right now (due to the economy, boomers are working longer and of course X&Y are looking to move up the ladder while new grads are fighting for entry-level positions). Technology, particularly social media, are causing the great divide, as I call it. Generation X, Y and beyond are mastering it while boomers are more comfortable with old-school ways of communication.

In the book, the author’s offering on how to gain sales, profits, and customer loyalty is to market to people not like you via narrowcasting: Learning about a very targeted market and communicating to them “frequently, richly, and relevantly.” She breaks down generational differences with a snapshot of matures, boomers, and gen X/Y/Z. Think gen Y’s iconic entertainer: Black-Eyed Peas, boomer’s HH income: just under 60K, mature’s defining idea: duty, gen X’s style: entrepreneur—and bringing us full circle—gen Z’s absolute obsession with technology.

In our own marketing, we’ve built onto the recent launch of our social media program with the addition of Facebook and Twitter in what we call “phase 2 SM,” which included beefing up our LinkedIn presence.

Phase 3? We’re not there yet, but if it’s an efficient and effective means to building relationships and consistently send the message that CL&D Digital’s digital packaging printing expertise we’ll be looking into it.

This past March I was chosen among my digital printing peers to speak on the subject of profitable hiring, which was aimed at sales. After watching the presentation with marketing, we determined that we could utilize the lengthy video best by editing it into smaller pieces that provide tips for those looking to hire and job-seekers alike—and the majority of the tips could prove useful to anyone, not just for salespeople.

Over the course of several weeks, we’ve posted the three-minute clips on our Facebook page.  There are eight videos in all, and they’re being posted strategically—in the order that the hiring process should take. One of the most important take-aways from the video series is to take the hiring process s-l-o-w-l-y, which is very hard when you’re used to moving quickly like I am. Good advice, though, in a job market that’s as saturated as it is. The related tips that I give are to meet multiple times and also ensure that the candidate “meshes” well with your best people. After all, your best employees are working—so why not try to hire more people who are like them or “gel” with them?

It got me thinking about how it’s so easy to sit back during the busy holidays and make excuses to work less—physically or mentally—it’s just easier to “check out” earlier, isn’t it? After all, you only have so much time to get your shopping done, decorate, wrap…and it’s also easy to say “I’ll catch up with you after the holiday” at work.

I was watching a webinar from the pro behind Ace of Sales that started off with this gem:

 The way you handle the end of the year is the way you’re going to start 2012.

 He talks about scratching the typical 4Q “fourth quarter mentality” by replacing it with a “Q4” one. Attack with a Q4 strategy, he explains, ask yourself these four questions:

• Where is your pipeline (if you’re not in sales or don’t own a business, how will you be more successful in 2012)?
• What is your work ethic?
• What is your attitude?
• Where is your responsibility (you’ve got to “own” your path to success)?

This advice is similar to those who tell you to get up a half-hour earlier every day. Not only is it quieter, but you get that little jump on the competition.

Now, my colleague and friend wasn’t given a choice to work longer hours and whether or not to keep her holiday vacation days intact. But she can choose to have the right attitude, to make the most of these last two weeks.

Here’s wishing you and yours a very happy holiday. Remember to work hard and jump-start your successful 2012—and that whenever your work day is over, “playing hard” with family and friends is the only true gift of the season.

Of course, the formula didn’t change—just the consumers’ perception of it. Red equals Coke, period. Keep in mind that Coke had no intention of making the move to white permanent. The shift was for a good cause: to raise awareness and funds for the World Wildlife Fund’s threatened polar bear species. (Don’t forget that the polar bear has also been a Coke icon since 1922.)

No matter where you fall in the political spectrum, I think we can all agree that what Coke did right is listen to its customers by ultimately pulling the can. Also, from a Public Relations perspective, the can did get people talking about Coke—and reinforced that while the brand can dabble in slight packaging design changes from time to time, it should stick very, very close to its beloved signature RED can on a long-term basis.