COVID19 Remote Working Day One Hundred and Eighty-Seven of Selling Copiers
It took me ten months but I was finally able to complete my first in office demo. It was one of those most interesting days in quite sometime. I received notice last night that I needed to get to the office early in order to have our wide format ready for a demonstration. COVID19 had reared it's ugly head an one of my team members is quarantined and I was able to pick up the slack.
Initially my plans were to arrive at the office by 8AM, however a severe accident stopped traffic and my arrival was more like 9AM. My demo was scheduled for 12PM-12:30PM however there was much to do and much to prep for. By 11AM I was finished and ready for my clients. As it worked out my clients had heavy traffic getting to my office and by the time they arrived it was after 1PM.
The demo went well and not so well. When a client is coming from one brand to another there are always a few features that one tends to get use to. In my case it was two key features that my Ricoh device could not replicate, however there were three features that Ricoh offered over his existing brand that he did like. When it came down to the end I presented the pros and cons and of course there were a few additional action items that I could not act on immediately. Thus the client had to leave and an order was not signed. I've already followed up on those action item and I will be calling tomorrow. This opportunity is $24K.
I felt rusty during the demo, it had been sometime since I've demo'd an MFP and there were times when I felt like I was fishing for the right buttons to push when those questions came up. Yet I did admit that it's been 10 months since I did a demo on this device and apologized for not remembering all of the steps. All in all it seemed to go over well as anything does in the time of COVID.
One thing I did notice is that I couldn't see an expression on their faces since we all had masks on. I felt like that was an dis-advantage for me and an advantage for the client. Never the less we got through it.
I'm now down the last 8 selling days of the year. I received the one signed PO yesterday for $8.4. I still have five opportunities in the weeds that total another $70K. In addition I believe another $30K that will happen in the next eight days. The reason for counting these is because with one account I have a meeting for next week.
The other reason is because I performed a test with another client. I emailed the order docs late Monday , and they have lease trigger date for this month. With the meeting we had on Monday I went over the logistics of the install, received the verbal but was told that the docs have to be signed off by another person. The test was to schedule an short appointment with the client to go on-site and gather the network report from the existing MFP. Once that was appointment was approved it told me there's a good shot that this opportunity will happen. Had they told me no then that would have raised a red flag as to "why not"?
Yesterday also had me with a larger net new client that needs to make a content change rather ASAP. Our first meeting took place yesterday and is scheduled for tomorrow. I believe as long as we can develop the SOW and pricing by next week that this opportunity has a shot also. I have not clue as to the revenue yet but have an idea that it could be rather substantial.
All is all while some opps are still in the weeds, and with 37% of the month left. I'm still optimistic that I can make this happen. There's no place to go but up!
-=Good Selling=-
Comments (1)