Not much has changed from yesterday. I had one appointment early this AM with an existing client for wide format. I arrived back at my home office about 11AM or so. My afternoon saw two additional appointments with one of them a net new prospect.
The net new prospect was interesting to say the least. Let's say that the company that quoted them on a certain print device was way off the mark. Over spec'd was definitely the case. I'm guessing the rep did not listen to the clients needs. It was a good conversation and my recommendation was for a color A3 print device that would do the job nicely. Wish I could go into depth however this a working prospect and I can't give anymore details.
Listening to the client is so critical. We need to let them talk and pay close attention to their needs. Many times clients will beat around the bush, it's not intentional it's just more about the way they communicate. We need to pick up on words, phrases or body language that will help us communicate on their level. In any event I feel good about my recommendation and did everything I could to put our best foot forward.
My third appointment of the day was with an existing account that has a decent fleet of devices from me. In this case there are three older MFP's that should be upgraded due to the age of the device. One of stumbling point for moving this account closer to ordering has been forms. Not that they are printing forms, however they would like to feed two part NCR forms through the document feeder. One of my devices will make it happen and one won't and that's been the hold up. We finally agreed on one of the A4's and docs went out, for the other MFP I still need to do some testing since one of those older devices can also scan the forms. It never ends does it?
To end day I had an email from one of my net new accounts with additional questions concerned the content deal I'm working on. Since the email came in late in the day. I made sure I involved my team with follow up emails before the end of the day. Will hear more on this tomorrow.
It's been four hours later since I wrote everything you've just read. Is it me or is everyone else experiencing these same issues. Lately it seems that almost every engagement/opportunity presents it's own set of hurdles that we need to navigate. Lately it seems that nothing is clean or easy anymore. Is this because of COVID or could it be just the stress that buyers and sellers are going through these days?
It was about 7PM when I read a thread from Andrew Kimbrough on Linkedin. Andrew is also a Print4Pay Hotel member. His thread from today puts everything into perspective with what's going on with the buyer and seller. Thus I wanted share with everyone.
Just a reminder that our site posts leads every day for copiers and IT services. I recently ran across a huge lead for copiers. I posted that on our site last Friday. Today I had to put a call into one of my fellow P4P members and I asked if he had seen the lead. He stated he didn't. I then said "wtf, it's in your back yard". Sure enough he logged on there it was. He told me that was a BIG deal and needs to jump on it ASAP. I was glad I could help, and he was glad that he's got an additional opportunity to work.
To get right down to it "don't wait for opportunities, create them".
-=Good Selling=-
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