COVID19 Remote Working Day Two Hundred and Forty-Six of Selling Copiers
Hard to believe it's been a week since my last blog. It's mostly been a week of sheer frustration for me since it's been nine days since I've turned in an order. I knew going into to March that the no orders part would be the theme for the early going. However it's always tough when you're not getting the orders because anything and everything comes to the top of your mind. From pricing to presentations and follow ups you're always asking if you've done as much as you could for each client to swing the order in your favor. It's these times that I hate the most about my job.
But there are some beacons of light in the next two weeks. I was able to pad my funnel with an extra $60K or so in the past week. One of my opportunities color production opportunities that went in the weeds in January has reappeared and we have a meeting set for Monday at 9AM. That's a nice $35K opportunity. Of course you can't count anything until the order is signed and then the equipment is delivered.
Stock
Delivering has been a major source of headaches this week and it's just not me. I placed a handful of calls to other reps and dealer owners and we are all struggling with trying to get inventory. Starting this week I moved to quoting 15-45 days depending on what the client is ordering. Thus it's the tale of telling clients you should order now because I have no clue if the situation will will be cleared up in a matter of weeks. From what I'm reading it could be a matter of months. Thus we need to go back to offering what we have in stock for those that need copiers ASAP.
Ports of LA & Long Beach
A recent article that was emailed to me states there are thirty two container ships at anchorage in LA. Thus they are all waiting to get to a berth to be unloaded. There's an additional 25 container ships at berth. A record was hit on Feb 1st with total of 40 ships at anchorage. The article I'm reading is from mid February and it seems nothing has changed since then.
Anything and everything coming in from the Far East is all jammed up. In addition there is not much relief in site.
Who could have predicted this? For now this seems to be the new normal for getting goods in from the Far East. I've heard that some companies are going to start going to different ports such as Vancouver, New Orleans and Savannah. To put this into perspective the ports of LA and Long Beach rank 1 & 2 in the nation for container traffic.
As far as I'm concerned maybe it's time top spend the extra dough and start moving those ships to other ports.
March
With 12 selling days left in the month (it's the 5th of March) I pretty confident I can eek out a month of meeting revenue quota. The funnel and opportunities are there and now it's more about bringing them home.
The plan for next week is continued prospecting and cleaning up my CRM which is in dreadful shape. I was able to knock out a few calls and emails today. Monday I'm booked solid with an early appointment, delivering a loaner, and training. Guessing Tuesday will be day to out a dent in the CRM
Traditional March marks the end of most copier manufacturers fiscal year. for dealers it wasn't about what they ordered in March from the manufacturers but more about what was delivered to meet their quota's. I'm just wondering if there may be a change to that policy this time around.
-=Good Selling=-
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