Yay! Friday night and the weekend lays ahead! Not so fast grasshopper since tomorrow is going to be in the high thirties and raining in the AM. Maybe we'll see a high of 50 degrees.
Typically this time of year is prime for combing the beaches and finding money. Well not really finding money but finding sea glass, jingle shells and hard clam shells that I turn into wampum. For me each piece of sea glass can mean $10 a pop. The shells are worth the effort because I'll also turn them into jewelry. Spending a couple of hours at the beach can net me a few hundred dollars each time.
Walking those beaches and looking for the odd color that stands out, that perfect flat jingle shell or the hard clam shell with the deep purple is a form of prospecting. I'm fortunate that the shells and glass will not tell me to get lost or that we just leased our copiers last week. lol
My favorite beaches are closed in New Jersey. In fact a few weeks ago a guy was arrested by the police for walking below the tide line on a beach. No one around him in sight, someone called the police and he was promptly arrested. I'm not blaming the police because they are doing their job. I do find fault with the person that called the police because one person was enjoying a solo walk on that beach not hurting or endangering anyone.
Apologies I kind of went off track there.
Prospecting, it never ends in sales, those of us that are good at it have learned that it's what pays the bills and feeds the family. It's those times when you walk into a new company and for some reason of fate that account or that person needs exactly what you have to offer. It's those type of days that keeps us going, because we know every now and then we're going to find that special deal.
Today I had three meetings with clients which ranged from one client that closed their office forever and all employees would be remote from here on in. Thus there was no need for the 45ppm A3 color mfp anymore. The problem was that they still had 11 payments left on the lease. I guiding and directed on the processes and what their obligations are. There was no commission check to be made, and no opportunities in the near future, but they were still a client and they needed help. Maybe somewhere down the road they may need content management or something else. The end of the call was the best when the client stated "I really enjoy working with you".
Meeting number two was about educating the client about their maintenance agreement and a recent invoice. Seems they went some 60K over their annual black base and the extra charge was a shock to them. Rather than see them move away from us (22 payments still left on this lease), I took the time to review the initial maintenance doc, review why we selected that type of maintenance agreement more than three years ago. I also took the time to point out the costs associated with the A3 mono mfp if the client decided to cancel that agreement. After all was said and one our client remained a client and understood why we billed what we did.
Call three, was the with the client that I have the $35K proposal with. Although today's meeting was not about the copier but about BDR (backup disaster recovery), by the end of the meeting I was able to get a copy of their BDR agreement. The agreement did not have pricing, alas it was redacted but never the less it was more about seeing if they had the right plan. I sent that copy off to my IT team for review and then had another short meeting with them. The end result right now is that we need to perform an assessment to see how much storage is being used. Well that does count as an opportunity in my book! What I couldn't get today is the order for the $35K which kinda bummed me out. Hoping Monday is the day to bring this home.
Since prospecting was the order of the day after all was said and done I managed about 15 calls and maybe handful of emails. Monday needs to be a super busy day so I'm thinking I need to put a few hours in on the weekend.
Other than all of that a pretty quite Friday, personally I think most people who are working are burnt out by the time Friday rolls around. There was less incoming calls and less emails and this has been a consistent pattern for the last three weeks.
The beach tomorrow? That's a no because our beaches are also closed, thus my time will be spent with "honey do" things around the house.
Everyone be well and stay safe and enjoy what you can.
-=Good Selling=-
PS Never ever stop prospecting!
Comments (0)