Today was round II of our scavenger hunt aka day of knocking on doors for net new clients.
Early on it was going to be one of the more interesting days because the diner that I instructed my partner to meet me at was closed. Not just closed for the day, but closed forever. Yes, I was surprised because we were to only two cars in the lot.
I made another plan and in ten minutes we were having breakfast and the Marina in Atlantic Highlands. It was three eggs over easy, rye toast, bacon and home fires for each of us and I'm sure that would give us enough energy for a GREAT day.
At 8:30AM we logged into our Teams and we received the instructions for the net new scavenger hunt and what was needed to win to some cash prizes. By 9AM we were on our way and I felt confident that we would be able to complete the task and have some opportunities for both cash and leads.
First Call
Our first call was right across the street from the Marina, and within 45 minutes we were able to complete three net new cold calls. Seems we were on the way to get my 15 visits completed.
My next stop was to visit the furthest call in my territory which was about 50 or so miles down the road. My plan was to cold call two type of accounts and they were production and wide format. Might as well go big and scavenging for production and wide format should bring some awesome returns and rewards.
The Hunt
Here's where I cut to chase and make mention of the best call of the day. I visited a client that I once had as an account 25 years ago, because in recent months they had surfaced on Linkedin an we were able share some comments on their threads. When we arrived the DM was in a meeting and the receptionist stated that our DM stated they would see us soon. It was 30 minutes of waiting and we were told again and again our DM was coming to see us. I think it was at the 35 minute mark where I asked Dean to set a timer on his phone for 5 minutes, if our DM doesn't show we'll move on the next stop on this list. At the 5 minute mark our DM greeted us with open arms (two of them) one for each one of us. 
It was great see my DM again and we started with some small talk about how business is and what their existing relationship was like with their three vendors. Yup, three of them. Since this was a production print we spotted at least a dozen printers on the floor and probably more in the others areas that we could not see.
Our DM them told me that he remember on of the best devices I ever sold him. He made mention of the old thermal poster printer (picture on top of page) that I sold in back in the mid nineties that used blue and yellow thermal paper. Yes, that brought back the memories and our DM stated he always enjoyed how I stayed on top of technology and offered great ideas for him. Remember back, this one of my first accounts that bought a digital duplicator from me also. Time really does fly......
Things happen, things change and for years we ended up going out of touch for various reasons. As my wife says, everything happens for a reason. While chatting I made mention of embellishment. In most cases when I mention embellishment it's not a term that many are familiar with, however in this case my DM was extremely interested in learning more and the possibility of adding embellishment to their portfolio (that usually means adding a 5th station print device). When we finally left we had spent 90 minutes at the clients location and knocked out an on-site appointment with a potential net new client and opened them as a suspect for now.
Before we left we agreed on a few follow up points and then to offer up a demo for embellishment. Not a bad day eh?
I got no where close to the visits that I wanted for the day, however the ability to re-kindle and old relationship was the icing on the cake. I can also state that if we didn't have the hunt I would not have stopped in for many dumb reasons.
All of this takes me back to "The Harder You Work, The Luckier You Get"
-=Good Selling=-
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