COVID19 Remote Working Day Two Hundred and Ninety Days of Selling Copiers, Managed IT & Content
Just now I realized that it's been seven business days since I last blogged with this blog series. I believe that's the longest stint I've logged without blogging since the pandemic started.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this in previous blogs but I've been able to survive the entire pandemic without the use of home office printer/scanner. At first it was rather cumbersome since my entire order workflow in the past was based printing and scanning order entry docs and forms. The first couple of months was an absolute pain in my ass with not having a printer/scanner. However I persevered and found ways to develop a digital workflow for unsigned order docs, signed order docs and all of those pain the butt forms we all use. In addition I found shortcuts with my pdf software that would allow me to add and redact text on forms quicker than before the pandemic.
Today was the day that I had to print a document and my first document of the pandemic. Thus today was the first day in months that I made a plan to work from the office in Edison, NJ. Traffic was somewhat heavier than what I've grown accustom to in the past few months. Arriving at our industrial park I also noticed that there's definitely an increase in amount of parked cars.
I believe I may be getting to the end of the road with this blog series.
NJ
Over the past three weeks infections are way down. Amount of New Jerseyans that are fully vaccinated is over three million now. Our Governor has relaxed a little and has opened bars (with six feet of distancing still) and if you're not eating or drinking you still need to wear a mask (wtf). In addition outdoor gathering time lines have moved up and he is allowing larger groups. I heard from someone that he will not relax the mask mandates, the social distancing and Health Emergency Order until the seventy percent of the NJ population is vaccinated. May 17th is the timeline for the next extension.
You can now get a walk up vaccinated however the fever of peeps getting vaccinated has slowed. Slowed so much that our Governor instituted a beer & shot spiff for everyone that shows a full vaccination card at participating establishments. Has the entire world gone mad?
Last Seven Days
It's no secret that I'm in somewhat of a sales slump for the past six weeks. However this week seems to be a breakout since I'll have 13 or so appointments with most of them being on-site. I think it was Tuesday when I added three opportunities in the span of a couple hours. Two were for A3 color devices and one was for a wide format toner based color MFP. Having that happen in the span of a couple of hours can really give you some pop for the rest of the day.
Up until yesterday I had lost more opportunities than sales. I lost two and one was with a net new (I think they just went cheap and I wasn't giving anything away), the other was an existing client that stated it was not me nor my company but just thought they had an offer they could not refuse. Thus I posed the question (via email because that's how I was informed), "understood so if everything was so perfect why not give us a chance to come close or match?". They say silence is golden, however in this case the silence told me that maybe there was a falsehood? In any event that thought of a price they couldn't refuse usually blows up on them somewhere down the road.
As of today I made those two losses go away with two signed orders. Yesterday I had a verbal for a $25K deal, however I'm still waiting to see if we get the approval. You just can't count deals as sold unless you have the docs and sometimes until the deal is delivered.
I've also got a handful of accounts that are at the end of their leases and I can't seem to make them move. Sometimes it's more about their timeline than mine. In addition I still have the $64K opportunity with an existing client that's gone in the weeds for a few weeks now.
With 12 selling days left in the month there is some light peeking threw the tunnel but it's going to take it's time.
Tomorrow
Get this an appointment with an account that I lost to five years ago! Keeping in touch with accounts that you did not sell is just as important as all of the other accounts. What comes around goes around. Later in the day I have an appointment with an existing client to upgrade an A3 MFP which I hope I can at least get the verbal tomorrow. That would be an $11K pop.
The struggle still remains for many us in states that are not fully open. I can only hope that all of this ends soon and the economy goes on the rebound for a Roaring Twenties. What goes around comes around.
-=Good Selling=-
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