COVID19 Remote Working Day Two Hundred and Fifty-Nine of Selling Copiers
Managed IT, Content and BDR also
Today was the first day for the rest of my year. After pumping in a cool quarter of a million for the Q1 the well has run dry.
My plan for the next 30 day is simple, it's a minimum of 20 prospecting calls and 20 prospecting email each day of the week. However today the goal was to send forty prospecting emails and 40 prospecting emails because I have three appointments tomorrow and then traveling to White Marsh in the afternoon for training Friday morning.
Prospecting Emails & Calls
With the prospecting emails I decided that each email had to be wordsmithed to the previous contact history with each prospect and client. As I got further and further into the contacts I realized this is going to take more time than I thought. With my emails I always want to only ask one question and I always want the question to be the last line of the email. My experience over the years tells me this is the best way to get some type of response.
The good news is that I was able to finish the day with 42 prospecting emails. I was also happy with a 35% reply rate from existing and net new prospects for today. In addition two of those emails turned in two phone calls back to me.
I'll be the first to admit that on many occasions when I work my CRM is that I'll pick and chose who I'm going to email or call when there is a long list. Today was different since I ran down the list of clients one by one. No stone was to be left unturned today or for the rest of the month. Everyone gets touched!
The bad news is that I was only able to manage 24 prospecting calls. The call back rate for the phone calls was low at 15%.
But there is more good news to tell. I was able to book four appointments and created a solid opportunity with an existing client for $40K. I'm hoping to make the other 16 calls sometime tomorrow and have already decided that if I'll make them at 9 or 10PM tomorrow night from the hotel room. Yup, I understand no one will pick up the phone, however just maybe the thought of a voice message coming in that late will mean something to that "C" level exec.
Right now it's all about contacting as many net new and existing clients as possible for the next 30 days. Even with having a lead service I'm taking the approach that I won't have any leads come my way for the next 30 days. It then becomes more about how to make things happen and not waiting for things to happen.
An Email Response From Yesterday
One of my existing clients called me a few weeks ago and stated they finally wanted to replace their oldest copier. That copier was 11 years old and was finally giving up the ghost. The average volume pre-COVID was almost 40K per year. During COVID the volume dropped to 25K per year. Since we could not meet because of COVID everything was via email. I received the email yesterday that the client was just "going to purchase a small MFP for a few hundred dollars". WFT, people just don't understand that most of these couple hundred dollar MFP's have a cost of 5 cents per page. Of course I did the the math for pre-COVID and post-COVID volumes (we need to start speaking about these now). In addition a short and simple spreadsheet was sent showing that even with a lease for the small A4 black device the client will still save $75 per month. Alas it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Not sure why some clients just don't listen. I guess the thought of just spending $300 upfront was to enticing. At this point I hope they spend a couple of hundred a month on those toner cartridges.
Day 2 of Q2 starts in the AM and the prospecting needs to continue...
-=Good Selling=-
Comments (0)