The Phone is Dead. Long Live the Phone!

This post was contributed by Kelly Quinn Mallozzi, RainMaker, Success.In.Print and speaker at the 2015 Print Leadership Summit, May 18-19 in Minneapolis, MN.

It’s hard to believe that 21 short years ago, when I got my start in sales for a small digital print shop, my sales tools were a desk, a landline, a pager, and my resourceful brain. No cell phone. Certainly no smart phone. And a shared computer that only had access to the company’s database of accounts wasn’t in the picture. I called companies that I thought might have a need for printing, and if they did, I would get an appointment, go see them, talk to them, show them samples, and a good lot of the time, they would become customers. 

And that worked for me, for kind of a long time.  

And gradually times changed. I got my first cell phone a couple of years later. The company got access to the internet and that made it easier on me when a client was looking for some particular item for a project and I had no idea where to go. No longer did I have to grab the yellow pages and start dialing looking for lengths of nickel chain or a particular kind of laminate that was dry-erasable. I adapted my skills and ability to access resources based on the tools available to me at the time.

Adaptation is scary and exciting and cool, and it’s often the way through challenging times. It allows people who are willing to adapt to soar to new heights. And it often leaves those who are unwilling to adapt feeling left behind and lost—as if they are missing out on something.

And they are missing out on something. Today when it comes to communication—both one-on-one and to a mass audience—there are so many new tools available to us. I know you know what many of them are: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. 

At the 2015 Leadership Summit I’ll be talking about 11 different ways to engage with your customers that go beyond the phone. You’ll still use the phone. It will never die. But there are some great new ways to get your message heard. So join me on Tuesday, May 19^th and get ready to celebrate the new life of new communication!

For more on the 2015 Print Leadership Summit, May 18-19, 2015, in Minneapolis, MN, visit www.printing.org/pls.