Tonight I caught a award show on TV titled "Golden Gods Awards 2014". On the screen was one of my favorite singers from the eighties.
OMG, it was Joan Jett! At 58 years old, Joan Marie Larkin was still rocking out. Just hearing the lyrics for "Bad Reputation" brought back memories from the eighties.
Pac Man, Space Invaders and Donkey Kong were cool and everyone had to wear Raybans, Nike Sneakers and Members Only jackets.
In 1982 I sold my first copier, I started in the industry as a technician. I was fantastic at taking developer units apart to perform PM’s. My only problem was I could never put them back together correctly. Thus my career in selling copiers started.
Looking back I believe the first copier I ever sold was a Minolta EP310, moving platen, 1-99 copies, one paper tray (letter & legal) and an exit tray! I can also remember selling a few used Minolta 101’s early on (liquid plain paper). The EP 310 system copied at 10 copies a minute and if I remember correctly we were selling them for $3,000!
A typical day was to get into the office early, wait I forgot one of the pre-requisites of selling copiers, you had to own a station wagon or a hatchback in order to delivery and demo the copiers. Yep, I was the delivery guy, the pick up guy, the loaner guy and even brought copiers out for demonstrations!
I worked at a very small Minolta dealership, I always arrived early and by 9:30AM I would start calling potential clients to setup demonstrations for copiers, typically you would call for appointments in the AM and try to do the demo in the after noon.
When telemarketing, we always had our fair share of “I’m not interested” and they would hang up on you. Being young and foolish, I called those people back and told them how polite they were and then hung up on them!! What a time it was, I would never ever even think of doing that today.
In the eighties, we had no computers, and no database to call from from. Our database was a huge stack of Phone Books (Yellow Pages) for every county in the state! Every now and then we'd be able to sneak way a stack of service cards so that we could make calls to existing customers. Those were 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 index cards that had all of the customer contact info, along with the make, model and all of the service calls that were logged.
There were days when you were sick and tired of making the phone calls, you could pack a demo machine in the car and then knock on doors all day long. Just looking for the right opportunity to wheel the copier in for a quick demo. There were no emails to answer, no advanced training, heck we had two or three models and all they did was make copies! What a wonderful life! I must admit the thrill of knocking on doors, speaking to the right person and then being able to give a demonstration all in the same day was copier nirvana! The only thing that could top that was bring back a check and leaving the copier at their office! Yup, the eighties was a great time to sell copiers.
Looking back there were some funky brands of copiers such as Apeco, Royfax, Yorktown, Rex Rotary (this one hung on a wall) 3M VQC’s , SCM and of course Xerox. The Japanese were just starting to make inroads in the copier business then. I can remember a customer telling me once and stating that he was looking at a Ricoh. Back then Ricoh was a joke and we always responded with “What’s a Ricoh”? My how times have changed.
Let’s see, over the years I have been kicked out of offices, had a customer drop off a machine and smashed it on the ground at my office (bet you the leasing company liked that), had the hatchback open on the car while I was driving, the copier and the gurney went onto the highway and then into a patch of sticker bushes, dropped a machine and cart in downtown Princeton (not a good day), and then walked in on a lady who was nude sunbathing in her back yard (I had the wrong address for the demo). Yes, those were the days!
Back in the eighties we had time to sell, nowadays our time is spent answering emails, trying to keep up on 30 different models of copier, untold models of laser printers, fax machines, wide format, production, third party solutions software, and manufacturers solution software But let's not forget about these favorites of mine, the forecast sheets, delivery forms, Return Goods Forms, co-coordinating delivery, installations, and emphasizing with customers. Not to be outdone with the numerous calls that I'm out of supplies, and my copier is not working!
Technology stinks bring back The Eighties!!!
-=Good Selling=-
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