It was a late night last night, I finally got to sleep around 2AM or maybe 2:30AM. The election had me riveted to the TV for hours and hours of counting votes, percentages and listening to commentary.
Rather than give you my journal for the day, I thought I would share an email that I just sent to a net new account that I had an appointment with today. The end of the appointment was somewhat humorous. The client had back to back appointments, my was first and then the competition followed. As I was getting meter reads from an A4 color device (client did not know how to do this, nor where they aware of their color volume), I noticed a one of the two reps give me a stare down as I was working my magic with the A4 color device. I thought, geesh they need to bring in two people? Means of them is a rookie and the other is the most likely the sales manager.
I had offered up a couple of closes, however with the other appointment waiting, the client also needed to met with them. I did find out that we are close in price, in addition I knew the what the competition was offering from the brand but not the model number. When I arrived back at my office, I placed a call and received additional information about the appointment with the competition. Below is the email that I just finished up a few minutes ago.
I hate to lose, especially to those that low ball service and supplies, because we all know what is going to happen on the back end. Not sure where this deal is going, but I can tell you that I'm one tenacious rep that is not going to go down with out covering all of the bases. Would love to hear some comments, even if it is from the two dudes that followed me!
Dear ...........
I've attached a document for you that list some of the advanced features of the Ricoh device compared to the Samsung device. I put this together with my knowledge of our Ricoh and data that I found on Samsung.
The side by side that you sent me was great. However those highlighted areas showing where the Samsung and Canon have "superior" specs is nothing more than an old sales gimmick. Yes, the Samsung print engine is rated 5 pages more a minute, but the modeling is done with a controlled test document, with an optimized network.
Real print times should be measured when a document is printed from MS Word, MS Excel or .pdf documents. It's not about the speed of the engine but more about how the engine can process (rip) files from different MS applications. The same holds true for scanning.
Samsung is a relative newcomer to the multifunctional copier industry. Samsung Imaging Division (printers and copiers) is owned by HP. It's business as usual right now, but what happens when XYZ company decides to part with Samsung because they don't like the HP business model, or what happens if HP does not want XYZ company as a business partner. In both of those cases there will be pain for your company.
We would like to offer you a demonstration/trial of the Ricoh product. We will install one in your location, connect for print, scan and fax and then give you a product demonstration. You get to try it before you buy it. There are no strings attached, if you like it you can buy it, if you don't like it we'll remove it. All of this is done at our cost, no cost to you.
We can't match the .039 per color page that XYZ company is offering. It's my opinion that they will have an increase after the first year or the first quarter. We've seen increases as high as 25%, that low price tactic is used to lure clients in, hope they don't read the fine print and then increase the heck out of the price to bring them to the normal color cost per page.
Based on your color volume of 2,500 pages per month. Our excellent service and support would cost $25 more month for the color pages. Over 36 months that's only $900. In addition, I have provided you with our cost increases in writing.
What I can tell you is that Stratix is a professional corporation that does not rely on low price tactics nor old sales gimmicks to lure you in. We believe that our service and support is far better than any other vendor in our market.
Please let me know if you are interested in the demonstration at your location, and also please feel free to call me if you have an additional questions in reference to our proposal.
Art
Note from me: I feel that the only change I have is to get the demonstrator in there. If I can do that I know I can demonstrate the heck out of the advanced features compared to my competition.
Amount Sold Today = $0K
Total Revenue to Date = $62K
New Opportunities Created Today= $10K
Total New Opportunities Created = $219K
Revenue Required $138K
Comments are always welcome
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