MFP Copier Blog

The Week in Copiers Ten Years Ago

First Week of June 2006

Here in the United States when you think about Direct Branch operations it was all about Xerox, Konica Minolta and Ricoh.  Those three were the heavy hitters. With Ricoh selling of a lot of direct operations a couple of years ago. In addition with the recent sell of some of the Konica Minolta direct branches the question becomes will we see movement now from Toshiba? It would only be a guess, but I'm thinking we'll see some movement before the end of 2021.

Enjoy These great copier threads from ten years ago this week!

The Week in Copiers Fifteen Years Ago

First Week of June 2006

Just eight business days before I end the halfway point for fiscal 2021.  So far June is a struggle for me with many clients either stalled or ghosting.  I realize the only way to over come the stalled ans ghosted opportunities is to go out and find more opportunities.

Enjoy these awesome copier threads from 15 years ago this week!

About a week ago I posted a thread in our forums about an appointment I had with a net new account here in New Jersey. 

I met with the client on Thursday or Friday of that week, went through the discovery process and got the feeling that this opportunity would have a decision sooner rather than later.  The reason for that assumption is because the client just completed building out a new space and the supply chain issues our entire industry is experiencing.  It's interesting how no one bats an eye when you tell them 5-10 days but when it 4-8 weeks things seem to heat up quite quickly.

By Monday of the next week the client had their quote (via email), we were still in a moderate lock down then.  The client also told me that they are required to get at least two additional quotes.  I thought, let the **** show begin. 

In my early selling days I was one of those that was taught the tactics of high pressures sales that came along with those closing questions.  I used them but really never liked them.  Yes, at times they worked but I always wanted to sell the way I wanted to be sold.  Meaning give me all of the information that I need in order to make an educated decision on what's best for my company or me. Which led me to being patient with existing and net new clients. 

It was about 10 days later when I followed up with the client and they told me they had still not received the other quotes. Once I heard that I asked if we can schedule the second meeting to review the proposal and that meeting was granted.  A few days later we had our virtual meeting for the review. 

At the end of the meeting I was told that they are not interesting in getting the additional quotes and they will put my quote in for approval. Yay!  Today I received the approval from the client and not a bad opportunity since it was net new and had two color MFP devices (A3 & A4).

All of this brings me back to the other proposals, the client did reach out to two other companies and both of those companies failed!  One of my first guesses would have been if the company can't follow up on lead how good can they be at service?   I'm astonished that neither of the reps followed up with a phone call or email.  Is this the way it's going to be in a post covid19 world? If so I'm going to really like the new normal .

The best part about this opportunity is that I lost when they were in market five years ago for MFPs.  At times I do consider myself to be like a dog with a bone with a lead.  Not gonna give it up, will place it off to the side and when it's time I'm going to be back on the bone. Consistent and not nagging follow up calls produced this decent opportunity and I'm happy that I lose from time to time because that increases my chancing of winning next time. We like to win.

-=Good Selling=-

A few years ago, I began suggesting that the new business world and much of life’s activities would occur in what I described as “The intersection between the physical and digital worlds.” It is so imperative for all to embrace the realities of that intersection.

It is now mandatory that all leaders understand how to lead from behind the glass in that intersection between the digital and physical worlds. Leaders must stop searching for a utopia where the old way takes power over creating the new way.

The last 14 months have awakened the status quo to the realities of a changing workplace that has been modifying drastically for over a decade. Unfortunately, the advances in technology have outpaced the baby boomer’s obsession to continue managing the workforce as if the clock stopped at the end of 1999.

We hear so many talking about the new hybrid workplace. A place balanced between the office location and working anywhere anytime. Unfortunately, when reality hits the status quo, the status quo begins a hybrid path to what others already figured out.

Is it possible that the word hybrid is describing procrastination? It seems as technologies gain momentum, the lagers who continue fighting technology advances eventually give in and start a hybrid path to an eventual new reality. But, unfortunately, this hybrid path often comes too late or attempts to replace the innovation, which caused the birth of the hybrid path. Those who already modified or created the innovated modification are provided a great head start in this delay. 

Think of the many industries still living in a hybrid world looking to keep and find new customers. All while the innovators who created the replacement to the old way gain momentum, taking away the great relationships of the hybrid folks.

Here’s a few examples of innovation and the old way still attempting a hybrid approach.

Rideshare innovative way – Taxi industry with a half-ass hybrid app whose customers continue flocking to Uber and Lyft

Airbnb Innovative way – Hotel industry, again with clumsy hybrid app technology, still causing the guest to spend too much time in the physical world.

Electric vehicles innovative way: Some auto manufacturers continue building hybrid electric cars with combustible motors. During the non acceptance of an all electric vehicle, the all-electric auto manufacturers are growing and perfecting their product, taking away the old way’s great relationship through a better experience.

As the old way searches for some perceived consensus in building a hybrid approach or fighting for buy-in. The new way continues in creating the new relevance—a relevance made by teams and customers who don’t care at all about the old way or pacifying the old way's insecurities.     

So today, as I listen to leaders discussing how the pandemic has somehow created the realities of the modern workforce. It reminds me of how the status quo’s perceived comfort distracts them from getting on the path to continuous relevance. 

With today’s innovation, leaders must embrace with full appreciation what is an uncontrollable course towards progress; progress brought forward through unprecedented technologies.

There is no need to create a hybrid business model for remote workforces. Instead, focus on the needed technologies that already exist, allowing your workforce to flourish while remote.

Organizations have been allowing workers remote capabilities for well over a decade. However, the global pandemic just forced all those ignoring the remote worker movement to finally recognize how technologies made remote work possible and brought a new awareness to all workers once held captive in the office.

The technologies are readily available, and the modern worker has been successfully navigating nearly all aspects of their life with digital tools. Moreover, the global pandemic just increased the speed of the remote working movement.

“Leaders who focus on what they know will never outperform leaders who focus on what they need to learn.” 

In closing, remember this, if your industry or organization is threatened by remote work. Ensure your prejudices to maintain the status quo’s comfort are not influencing your ambitions to adapt quickly.

Please don’t fool yourself as the taxi industry, the hospitality industry, and now the auto industry continues fooling themselves - in the tenure of the status quo.

Because we all know this – “Status Quo is the killer of all that will be invented.”   

Ray Stasieczko

CEO/Founder TEASRA,The Innovation Channel and Host of The End of The Day With Ray! https://www.endofthedaywithray.com/

Late March 2^nd (Monday), 2020 my wife and I arrived in Newark Airport from my Presidents Club trip to Aruba. It truly was a great week although we were peppered every day with news headlines with COVID19.  I asked my wife “is this something we should worry about?”

Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week back continued to be the normal selling days that I’ve been accustomed to for the last forty years.  It was Thursday of that week when the North East USA when the news was stating to shelter in place.  Calls to offices were going unanswered, emails not being return and by Monday the 9^th of March our entire office and sales staff was told that we are working remote now.  That was 13 months ago and I’m still remote here in New Jersey.

March/April 2020

I’m now 100% remote from my home office and I was one of the fortunate ones I guess because years ago I set up a home office for the Print4Pay Hotel.  Thus I had everything I needed with PC, printer/scanner/copier, desk and a not so comfortable chair. I’m guessing I had more than most with the immediate optioning to remote working.

Those early days were spent making the phone calls and after a day or so I realized that there was no one in the office to pick up calls.  I thought what’s going to be the best way to stay in touch with my clients and that answer was email.

Since no one was in the office I accepted the thought that no one is going to be buying copiers.  The only thing I could do is to keep in touch with all of my existing clients and tell them about the IT services that they might need for all of their remote workers.  In addition,  I asked how they were coping with the new normal and how they were doing business.  With every email I sent I made sure that I asked at least one question (hoping for a response) and positioned the question as the last sentence of the email.

Inserting those questions helped big time because I was able to learn more about what my clients were experiencing and allowed me to continue to ask additional questions.  Almost more like texting but in an email format.

Those types of emails persisted for more than a month. March and April were definite months I want to forget. I believe I sent every existing an account an email in that time frame and I believe that helped me in the coming months.

All of my existing prospects fell of the table except for one account, we had a rather unique email chain going and during April we were able to schedule a couple of MS Teams meeting. I give credit to Stratix for quickly adopting the MS Teams platform to help us stay engaged.

May/June

I asked my-self early on what is the biggest driver for my clients now since many of them was in the same boat on the same creek with me.  If there’s no revenue coming in what is going to make clients listen and buy.  I went through this type of scenario one other time in my career and that was the great recession of 2008-2010.  The lesson I learned from that is all clients will listen if you can reduce their costs.

It was also during that time that I was still out and about helping my wife with food shopping since that was another unique experience.  While I was out and about I took notice that there was still activity with construction projects. Commercial and residential business was still happening and that told me that the AEC (Architects, Engineers and Construction) market was still active.  It was then that I set my sights on all of my AEC accounts.  I reviewed every account that had copiers and wide format, did the cost analysis in advance of email or speaking with them.  When I had the final numbers of what I could save each account I then made the emails and calls and presented the savings.  When most clients are presented with the unknown of future revenues they will hunker down and cut costs because they don’t want to go out of business.

With help of a net new client who purchased a production MIRC printer.  May turned out to be my best month ever in the industry and I was able to sell $200K of gear and seventy-five percent of that was wide format device.

By the end of the quarter, I believe I was over $300K in revenue.

July/August/September

The theme of concentrating with the AEC market and reducing costs was still the name of the game for these three months.  I’ll admit that I also had a stroke of luck with that net new client that bought the production printer because they bought another one from me.  Each one of those was a $60K hit.  In fact before the end of the year they purchased another which made a total of three.

All through out these months there’s once thing I didn’t do and that was to give up and say I can’t take this or I can’t do this. I looked at this event as to why can’t I do this, and why can’t I excel at this.  Thus every week when we had our weekly sales meeting I wrote down a sales quote on my small white board that I was using to give me that mental edge to keep pushing forward. I was not enamored with oh why did this happen to me but rather why not happen to me.  I can do this.

Another key for me is that I was able to have Zoom meetings with my peers in the industry about every two weeks.  On those calls we would discuss what’s working and what’s not working and learned from others what they were seeing and doing.

When it comes right down to it, I worked by butt of so I could be assured that I would not fail.

October/November/December

After I had run my course with most of my AEC accounts I turned towards my commercial accounts.  With summer COVID19 numbers being down across the summer more accounts were adopting a hybrid work schedule.  Prints were down BIG time, but I kept with the theme of saving them money and most of that was with analyzing there pre-COVID19 print volumes with the existing print volumes. Pretty much right sizing the volume while still keeping the same style/speed MFP and that’s because at some point in the time we’ll be back to work and print volumes will migrate upward.

In addition, I partnered with a lead company to supply me with leads.  I did this out of my own pocket because you need to spend money to make money.  The lead service was so so at best but gave me additional net new prospects to keep me busy.

I would also say that a key to my success is that I never stopped prospecting whether it was with emails, phone calls, text messages and my monthly email campaign to net new clients.  I never stopped believing that I could excel in this type of new normal

At the end of the year, I had my best revenue and commissions in 40 years. I’m also a firm believer that the harder you work the luckier you get.

-=Good Selling=-