Six Chat Questions with Jon Langdon with DocuWare about DocuWare 6.10

Just a little bit of background for everyone. Jon Langdon is Vice President for Product Strategy & Quality for DocuWare. In December 2015, we had the chance to chat with Jon about Dealer Value with DocuWare version 6.8, DocuWare Forms, Mobility & SMB adoption.  

Thus, I thought it would be a good time to check back in with Jon and chat about the latest version DocuWare 6.10.

Art: Hey Jon, did I see that you received a recent promotion?

Jon: That is correct Art, and I’m very excited for my new role. For the last couple of years I’ve been a Vice President of Product Management – and I’ve been responsible for the teams which define our roadmap and design the features in our product portfolio. In my new role as VP Product Strategy and Quality, I’ll continue to have a focus on our product portfolio and in addition I am responsible for a new strategic effort around ease of use and user excitement in our products. I now oversee our global Quality Assurance operations and will be building a new team which is focused on quality in all our software development lifecycle activities – from ideation to design to technical specification to release. Our goal is to bring our users to the next level of excitement when working with DocuWare. We want to surprise and delight them with the things we add to our products, and we want to make sure we execute with the highest level of quality.

Art:   A recent Xerox International research effort reveals that nearly half (46%) of SMB’s will turn to office equipment resellers for help with paper free solutions. In addition, 25% will look to their IT provider and 37% to the product manufacturer.  

How can DocuWare help office equipment dealers capture a portion of that document lifecycle business?

Jon: Document management increases hardware contract/lease retention because a secure document repository is strategic to the customer. While hardware suppliers may have to compete on price alone, document management is so tightly integrated with other business systems customers rarely switch document management systems.

Selling software gives sales representatives something else to talk about with prospects who are leasing hardware from another vendor.  They don’t have to wait for a competitor’s product lease to expire to start the conversation. They can sell a document management solution now, and increase their odds at getting a hardware lease when it comes up for renewal. The competition may sell hardware at a lower price but equipment dealers who include document management in their portfolio increase their chances of selling.

Selling document management provides an additional revenue stream. Software tends to have a higher value-add and higher margins. It provides an on-going annual service and support revenue opportunity and helps protect the fleet of hardware customers and retain leases.

Art:   I heard there was a new version released in September — DocuWare 6.10 —what’s new and what's the added value for DocuWare resellers?

Jon:   DocuWare 6.10 is a huge release for us, with well over 50 new features. DocuWare’s focus is on creating a great user experience, so we are equally focused on usability and new functionality. For our resellers, I think there is a lot of benefit to this approach– we want to add to their toolbox new solutions and approaches for solving the problems their customers are facing every day. For the customers, we want to make that problem disappear and delight them with an intuitive and easy to use product. I want to quickly highlight four of the new features that we released in 6.10:

Folders – We’ve always had great ways to store and retrieve documents in DocuWare – simple and intuitive and just a few clicks to get to the information you are trying to find. In 6.10, we extended this to a dynamic folder structure. Users can create their own views of documents stored in DocuWare in a folder structure based on the index data of those documents. For example, let’s say I am working in HR and I store employee records. Each document is indexed with the employee’s name, their location, and their department. I could create my own view which showed all employee records in a folder structure by location or by department, or a combination of fields like Location\Department\Last Name. Because so many people are used to working with folders, I think this concept is a very natural way to work, and for our resellers I think it makes it easy to convince people that working with DocuWare is going to be easy.

Super Simple One-Off Workflows – Our resellers that have been with us for a while know that DocuWare has one of the most powerful workflow engines in the industry. While our workflow designer is pretty easy to learn and has a nice graphical workflow designer, it’s overkill for the very simple one-off processes that people encounter every day. Have you ever been working on a document that you want a few people to review before you present it at the company meeting? Need a quick yes/no decision from a group of managers? Want confirmation that everyone has read the new policy we are putting in place? These are the types of workflows that we are enabling. From any document in DocuWare, you can now select a group of people to send a document to (all at once, or in an order you define) and ask them to make a decision on that document (Yes/No, Approve/Reject, Thumbs Up/Down – whatever you want). The documents get routed to them automatically, they get a notification via email, and once they’ve made their decision, the originator is updated automatically to let them know what was decided.

Local Data Connector – These next two features are around our Cloud offering – which, by the way, continues to be a really fast growing part of our business – over 25% of our new systems last year were Cloud system. This new feature, the “Local Data Connector”, is a great piece of technology – what it allows our Cloud customers to do is leverage data that is stored within their own servers with their DocuWare Cloud system. For instance, a customer might have a large database of vendors in their ERP system – the customer wants to be able to put a select list of vendors in an indexing screen in DocuWare Cloud. The Local Data Connector is a thin application that is installed in the customer’s network – it does all of the communication with the customer’s databases, and then sends that information real-time (in a totally secured & encrypted way) to DocuWare Cloud. It means that customers who want the benefit of a cloud system, but the flexibility and integration capabilities previously only available to on-premise solutions, no longer have to compromise.

Hybrid Cloud –We at DocuWare are real cloud believers. We think that not just the ECM industry, but the software industry as a whole, will continue to shift to Cloud where almost everything that businesses do will be driven through cloud solutions. We have had a front row seat over the last couple of years watching this shift, and we are certain the shift is still in progress. For some companies, there is a distinct need for the benefits of cloud but at the same time a need for some data to remain in their own server rooms. With DocuWare 6.10, we introduced a new File Syncing mechanism that allows an on-premise DocuWare system and a DocuWare Cloud system to sync selected data from one system to another, continuously and in real-time. This Hybrid cloud solution gives companies the opportunity to have the availability, scalability, redundancy, and ease of access to a cloud system while keeping complete data control, or keeping sensitive information in-house.

Art: What is Intelligent Indexing, and what is the advantage and value to an end user?

Jon:  Intelligent Indexing is one of my favorite features. In one line: It’s magic automatic indexing of documents – I upload a document to DocuWare and it figures out all of the index information based on the content of the document. DocuWare developed this patent-pending technology a few years back, and it’s pretty amazing. It works by a user uploading a handful (about 3-5) documents to DocuWare. The user shows DocuWare what data it wants to extract from the document and what index field to put it into. After doing this 3-5 times, DocuWare figures out its own rules of how to find that data on the documents and then does it automatically from then on. It lets you know how confident it feels about its indexing, and you can check or retrain it at any time.

Art:   What are the Web forms and what are the benefits to the end user?

Jon: DocuWare Forms is a newer feature of ours, and it’s become very popular last year. DocuWare forms allow businesses to take paper-based forms and replace them with web-based forms. For example, let’s think about when a new employee starts at one of our customer’s companies. On their first day, they fill out a lot of forms – Direct Deposit, Emergency Contact, I9, W4, etc. All of those forms ask for some of the same information – Name, Date of Birth, Social Security Number, and on-and-on. Now rather than having an employee fill out those 10 forms by hand, and then have another employee take those forms, make photo copies, manually enter the data into the payroll processing system, send email copies to hiring managers, etc – the employee can fill out just a single web-based form. That web form takes that data and automatically creates all of the same forms that use to be on paper (you can even use the original paper form as a template), puts those document in DocuWare, and then sends them through electronic workflows automatically. The time savings is significant, there is no duplicate data entry, and nothing gets lost.

Internally at DocuWare, we’ve completely streamlined our purchase order process, and replaced excel sheets and emails with DocuWare Forms, and it’s been fantastic. As a requestor, it takes me about half the time it use to when putting in a purchase order request; as a manager and approver, it takes me about 1/10^th of the time to approve POs now and the process as a whole probably takes 30% of the time it used to. Those are real efficiency gains and savings.

Art:   One more question for you.  In reference to the SMB market, what is the current percentage of Document Management Software Adoption? 

Jon:   We define the SMB space to be companies between 50-500 employees. In the USA, there are approximately 290,000 companies this size. We believe that 70% of these companies do not have a Document Management solution, so that’s only a 30% adoption rate. For our partners, we see a lot of greenfield opportunity.

Art:   Thanks for the time today, I’m this sure this will be an awesome read for our members.

Jon: No problem Art, thank you for checking in with us

Need to know more about DocuWare?  Give them a click here

Hall of Fame and National Football League head coach Bill Parcells. When asked if his mediocre team were “winners or losers” Parcells responded...

"You are what your record says you are"

Bill Parcells

The Copier Sales Rep Test...

If it looks like a copier sales rep, acts like a copier sales rep, and speaks like a copier sales rep, then it probably is a copier sales rep.

The truth my friends, quit hiding behind your business cards while dressing yourself up with fancy shmancy titles such as; Solutions Consultant, Document Management Consultant or better yet, Senior Solutions Architect.

The old saying, "A picture speaks a thousand words."

Mirror mirror on the wall, what do copier sales reps LinkedIn profiles reveal about them all?

YOU GET ONLY ONE DIGITAL FIRST IMPRESSION

Whether you like it or not, your digital presence is out there and people can find your copier toner footprints.

Unless you’ve been living in some remote rain forest for the last 20 years, the stark reality is we have all moved into the digital age and have accepted the internet as a way of life for communication.

Information now travels instantaneously, network connections are made every day and first impressions are made without our knowledge.

If you can't do the little things right, how can you do the big things right?

TOP CONCERNS EXPRESSED BY COPIER SALES REPS

• Nonexistent net new sales opportunities
• Difficulties cracking the C-Suite
• Hard time creating unique differentiation
• Effectively opening up new conversations

When a potential client lands on your LinkedIn profile, their opinion about you will be made at that very moment. Whether you believe it or not, if you fail to make a good impression you may have lost them forever.

I don't care how great of a sales rep you are! It is not about you!

After all, there are plenty of other well qualified, subject matter experts out there worth finding out about, connecting with and forming a relationship.

THIS IS WHY YOU ARE WHAT YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE SAYS YOU ARE - A COPIER REP

With nearly every business transaction in the United States today starting out as an online search or visit to a website, how much business are you potentially missing out on because your LinkedIn profile positions you as a copier sales rep? When referring to “nearly every transaction,” that’s because "89% of B2B transactions begin online", according to Google research.

Look at your LinkedIn profile... Pretend you’re a potential client and ask yourself...

Would I buy from myself based on what I currently see on my LinkedIn profile?

YOUR HEADLINE SCREAMS SALES REP

Copier sales reps are enamored with their titles. How many C-level business executives are chomping at the bit to meet with you based upon your title?

The opening act to your professional story and your LinkedIn headline screams, "Hello all, I am a sales rep." Albeit, you are a sales rep but what makes you any different than all the others?

Done well, your LinkedIn headline can be used to promote your brand statement, your most enticing expertise or your all-around problem solving skills. The value you provide must be conveyed through this message.

YOUR SUMMARY SCREAMS ABOUT ME

Hey, look over here, look how great I am. With a quick 10 second glance, Mr. or Mrs. C-level executive spots your summary... BAM!

"Our branch finished the year as the highest grossing sales team in the company. Personal sales totaled over 1 million and I finished as the number 1 rep in the company. Goals are to continue trending upward in both sales volume and sales reps. I want to triple the size of my sales team by the end of the year and move into a larger office. Please contact me if you are interested."

"Top-producing Sales Leader with extensive experience driving strategic sales planning & execution, enterprise account management and business development. To date, I have been recognized with 13 President’s Clubs Awards, 4 Regional Top Sales Awards, and multiple Leadership Awards."

What value are you bringing to the businesses you work with? How are you addressing the challenges businesses face in today's marketplace? What problems do you solve?

You must differentiate yourself from the copier wolf pack and get the right people engaged with you. Provide them a sense of confidence in your abilities as you share your unique promise of value.

YOUR EXPERIENCE SCREAMS ALL ABOUT MY COMPANY

Most copier sales reps will copy and paste bullet points from their resumes into the experience section. Better yet, I have worked at this dealership from this date to this date. How original!

Here is some ingenious creativity at its finest...

"We specialize in the complete lines of Canon and Konica Minolta document imaging systems, multi-functional devices as well as print management solutions, document storage and retrieval systems."

"When you work with us, you work with a team of business solutions specialists who take pride in their work and reputation. Our Senior Management team has an average of 20 years of industry experience. Our tremendous growth and success is attributed to the shared goal of every team member to take care of the customer, first and foremost. It is our straightforward and honest approach to simplifying document workflows that has earned us national awards for service, support and customer retention."

Think of removing doubt and eliminating risk for your potential new client. What do you do for your clients? Why does it matter? Why does it work so well?

What value are you providing to your clients?

BONUS TIP - YOU POST PICTURES OF SHINY COPIERS

You have difficulties creating differentiation, you have difficulties opening up new conversations, you are having a hard time cracking the C-Suite, your profile positions you as a copier rep and the best one yet; you feel compelled to post pictures of bright shiny copiers. Let's be honest here for a moment, what C-level executive who happens to be cruising through their newsfeed is going to stop and say to themselves, "I can't wait to have a conversation about this nice shiny copier." Stop it!

GET THE LITTLE THINGS RIGHT

From generating new conversations, opening up new business opportunities or from a brand development point of view, how much passing traffic can you afford to lose because of the way you look?

We all know how much prospecting you are doing!

Gaining trust and loyalty from your networks and connections is the goal of every copier sales rep. You may not like the fact you are being judged, but it's a reality that has to be accepted in today's business world.

Your online strategy drives your digital first impression. Your digital first impression is hopefully one that can secure you a meeting with a potential client or get more familiar with a current client.

In the real world you rarely get a second chance to make a good impression and it’s highly likely as well in the world of social media, you probably won’t either.

After reading my post, look back at your LinkedIn profile and think of Bill Parcells then recite to yourself...

I am what my LinkedIn profile says I am - A Copier Sales Rep

I understand where you all are coming from. I have walked a day in a life of your shoes.

I am fully committed to helping your sales team integrate social selling into your current sales process to grow net-new business. I want you to get results. This is why I am passionate about doing this the right way.

"I believe Larry to be the best kept secret in the copier/MFP industry. Larry has ideas that will make your stomach turn if you are an old school copier rep and stuck in the 90's. He is bold, he is smart and his training is invaluable. If you want to keep up with the next generation of sales people then I recommend you hire Larry and do it NOW, or else you will get left in the dust. My sales have increased and the quality of my relationships has gone through the roof by utilizing social media and Larry's teachings. So, for a good time, call Larry!" Dale Dupree, North American Office Solutions

In 2016, Larry was recognized by ENX Magazine, “The Difference Maker” as someone who is making a difference inside the copier channel. Larry is passionate about helping sales reps succeed in creating their online brand image

You can find more blog posts inside the Social Sales Academy website.

I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my LinkedIn stories. Integrating the use of LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive copier world. With great pride I transform, coach and inspire B2B Office Technology Sales Professionals to grow net new business by helping them tell their story and communicate on LinkedIn. My commitment is to help office technology dealers thrive in a changing marketplace. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, as well as at the Social Sales Academy

Back in eighties, before PC's were on every copier sales persons desk, copier sales people would turn to Copier Buyers Guides.  Those guides were as good as gold, and we scrambled for them when the new editions arrived.  Those guides listed every current and discontinued copier spec on the market. Those guides were our Bibles!

Many of us stuffed them in our briefcases (remember when we had those), while others left them at the office.  The really good copier salespeople always had his copier Bible handy.  On many occasions a DM would state that so and so sales person stated that their copier could do this or that, and if we didn't have our copier guide there was no way we could argue the point.

Cut & Pasted Copies

We would highlight certain specs, models from those Bibles.  In many cases we copied one page of specs for one model, then copied another page for the competitive model. We then placed the two pages on a copier and copied both pages on to one page.  Presto, change, we had a side by side copier comparison that we could show the client to prove our copier was the best!!

Then one year, all of the guides were gone and we had to purchase software subscriptions in order to generate those side by sides.  Now, everything is web based, click a few models and you have your sided by side.

So Many Specs & Too Many Features

Today, you can bore yourself to tears with all of the spec, features, and accessories that are available on our current models. In many cases, I've found that many of these software generated PC's have mistakes. Thus, when I see a mistake for a spec, feature or accessory, I'm distraught because there might be additional mistakes that I may not be aware. How can I show that to a client when there are mistakes?

Keep in mind that I know my system inside and out, however I don't know the competitors system that well. I believe that those that put the data either just had a moment or they don't check with experts to make sure their data is correct. 

I enjoy creating my own side by side copier comparisons. Here's why, I know that my data for my device is correct, and if I do the research on the competitors device, I know that data will be correct also.  However, there are times when you browse a brochure or a spec sheet and you can't match up a certain feature or spec between the two devices.  I hate that!

I turned to our community of Print4Pay Hotel members (2,300 plus) and asked for help, along with having them valid the data that I have.  As always, we had some awesome members step up and help.  Just tonight, I finished up my second side by copier comparison.

Xerox WorkCentre 5955 vs Ricoh MP 5045SP

Oce Colorwave 500 vs Ricoh MP CW2201SP

Yes, I still sell Ricoh products, and yes I customize these documents so that they show the good and the bad.  Tomorrow, I'm using the one for Xerox vs Ricoh to show to a net new account. Will I get the deal, not sure, but what I can tell you, is that my data and knowledge will shine.

Oh, one more item. Print4Pay Hotel Premium/VIP members get these for FREE, if not a Print4Pay Hotel member and would like to purchase a Premium/VIP membership, shoot me an email apost@p4photel.com

-=Good Selling=-

If you've been in the copier industry as long as I have, then you'll remember that Xerox and Kodak manufactured copiers in United States. In later years Kodak removed themselves from the SMB market for copiers and Xerox finally succumbed to outsourcing their copier manufacturing to Fuji-Xerox.

In a recent press release HP stated they wanted to reinvent the $55 billion dollar copier industry.  Since, I'm looking for numbers, I figured the evaluation of the entire copier industry was a good place to start. I did some research for the latest numbers for US imports, however the only document I could find was from 2008 from USITC.  In 2008 the US imported 33% of the MFP's that were manufactured.  Thus, if the US market is still at 33% (which I doubt) and HP's numbers are correct that would out the US import market at $18.15 billion dollars.  That's a pretty big number.

Now, I don't have exact numbers, but thinking a pretty large percentage of those devices are manufactured in China. 

In recent days, I've heard much news about the Trump trade doctrine  and the unfair trade practices of China.  Peter Navaro went on to state the likes of currency manipulation, illegal export subsidies and the theft of intellectual property in a recent interview with Paul Solman.

In a nutshell Trump wants to stop China from cheating and negotiate new trade deals. My takeaway from the article is that if Trump can't bring China around he'll slap a 45% tariff on Chinese goods. Not sure if that's good or bad for the copier industry.

Recent rumors have Foxconn (they recently purchased Sharp) is mulling a $7 billion joint investment with Apple to set establish a display manufacturing plant here in the US.

All of this got me to the point where maybe it is time to start manufacturing copiers aka multi-functional products in the US again.  Corporate taxes are going to be slashed,  and I believe their is a tremendous market for copiers made in the USA. 

Why can't Foxconn manufacture their Sharp copiers here in the United States? If they can do it with display manufacturing plant, then they can do it with copiers.

Back in 2002 I was lucky enough to be able to visit a couple of Ricoh's manufacturing plants.  One was for high volume A3 devices (50-75ppm devices).  There's no rocket science involved to assembling copiers.  From what I saw, most of the parts were not manufactured by Ricoh.  Ricoh engineers and designs the products/parts, and then relies on sub contractors to produce those parts.  Those parts are then sent to the Ricoh facility and that's where the assembly takes place.  Easy, peasy, that can be done here in the US.  In addition the likes of Ricoh, Canon, and Xerox all have consumable factories here in the US. I'm thinking we might as well make it a party and have everything made here in the USA.

Thus, with all of the talk about bringing back manufacturing jobs, possible tariffs for Chinese goods. I'm one who thinks that some copier manufacturing can come back to the US, and I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that US businesses would pay a premium for copiers made in the US. 

What do you think?

-=Good Selling=-

According to the industry association AIIM, in the past 20 years, we’ve been through 3 distinct eras in the evolution of digital documents and the content management “sweet space” – the intersection of People, Processes, and Technology. 

As we think about these eras in the long-term goal of digitizing document processes, it is important to keep in mind three major points: 

1. These eras are coming faster and faster.

2. Technologies exist in beta long before large companies put them into practice.

3. Successive eras don’t replace what came before – they are stacked on top of what came previously.

So what is next on the horizon?  How will the ECM space continue to evolve in 2017? Click here to find out.

Intelligent Document Solution Provides Visibility for Delivery Operation

The direct sales company, Marketing Personal, has optimized its process of delivering orders using DocuWare, Summan DataVar, ABBYY Flexicapture, and Splunk. This integrated solution provides control over the entire logistics operation within a single data center, improving the quality of servicefor the sales team and their customers, providing timely information about delivered orders and monitoring new ones.

Marketing Personal (MP) is a Latin American multinational company with a presence in Colombia and Panama, offering direct salesby catalog for clothing, footwear, cosmetics, and homewares. It focuses on fashion and innovation, offering a new catalog every 21 days (with more than a thousand products) to more than 100,000 Image Advisors who run their own businesses by selling Marketing Personal’s products.

In the last two years, Marketing Personalhas more than doubled its sales income; in 2013 it achieved a sales income of over US $100 million, in 2014 US $190 million, and in 2015 over US $300 million.

Requirements

The ordersand rewards are shippedfrom Marketing Personal to various destinationsthroughout Colombia, through a network of carriers who are responsible for transport and door-to-door delivery of the products.

The operations team administers new orders, as well as managing issues relating to package deliveries and responding toinquiries and claims made by Advisors regarding their orders. Tracking the logistics process was very complex, and the shipping costs invoiced to Marketing Personalby the delivery carriers did not reflect effective monitoring of deliveries and inquiries to customers.

The Marketing Personal’s Customer Service Department did not have clear and timely information aboutthe various phases of delivery so they could not give suitable responses to delivery inquiries. They had to rely on projected delivery information and paper documents from the operations team.

The documents generated during the transport operation must be stored for several years as they may be required as proof of delivery for payments and may be needed for potential future legal processes. There are risks associated with processing transport documents where they are exposed to potential damage or loss due to physical handling and their return from various regions of the country.

Solution

Currently, each transport document is generated by the Summan DataVar print service and contains a survey for recipients to complete upon delivery. This transport document is physically printed and sent with the orders and rewards. A digital version of the documents is stored in DocuWare, the document management software, for subsequent consultation and checking.

Once the orders have been delivered and the transport surveys completed by the customers, they are scanned by the carriers and the images are sent to a server in Medellin. There the intelligent data capture software, ABBYY FlexiCapture, reads each document delivering the data captured from the survey to the operational intelligence software, Splunk, and stores the processed documents in a pre-defined directory on the server. DocuWare monitors the pre-defined directory and automatically sends any files stored there to the corresponding file cabinet, cross-checking the data in the document against the transport documents already in the system. The operational intelligence software, Splunk, creates a graphic representation of the data delivered by the intelligent data capture software, ABBYY FlexiCapture, and the images stored in DocuWare, allowing new orders to be checked, including those pending for delivery.

Benefits

Thecustomer service staff now have real-time information about each order and can see the various documents involved in each transaction, allowing the staff to immediately respond to customer requestsor to other departments.

The operations team has better control over the various stages of the order and reward delivery documents, so they can better monitor deliveries and track new orders.

The integrated solution generates accurate measurementsof delivery times by each carrier/region of the country. Today, Marketing Personal improved the quality of service for its sales team and customers with timely information about the orders delivered and monitoring of new orders.

The solution also allows the workflow of each of the different carriers to be planned, depending on the services provided. It improves the output and efficiency of the various functions of Marketing Personal, generating benefits and optimizing resources.

Conclusion

Luis Alejandro Múnera Santos, Director of External Logistics at Marketing Personal S.A., said: "The transport process at Marketing Personal is characterized by a wide network of independent carriers with different kinds of structures and levels of development as providers. We need good information and control systems to administer this diversity. In addition, the growth in the level of sales and orders has generated the need for powerful, versatile, and efficient tools to manage the logistics cycle as a whole. Marketing Personal has a significant advantage in its transport and distribution network. The assets we have developed over a number of years are now being strengthened with the use of integrated solutions such as DataVar, DocuWare, ABBYY FlexiCapture, and Splunk. The next step is to continue developing this transport network and improving the service efficiency and satisfaction of our end users."

--------------------------------------Bullet points-----------------

Tasks

• Gain theability to track items sent and gain access to delivery documents in real time
• Develop secure, long-term document storage
• Improve customer service and response times

Benefits

• Timely information allows better customer service
• Each carrier and delivery zone is measured by a performance and service evaluation
• The company has saved time and money with effective control of the order delivery process
• Secure transport documents eliminate the risk of loss or damage

DocuWare Corporation | 4 Crotty Lane, Suite 200 | New Windsor, NY 12553         

+1 (888) 565-5907 | www.docuware.com

There's a great thread about a P4P'er asking where they could find some information about selling to the Print4Pay Industry.  Shaja makes mention of three web sites and I chimed in with a few points of my own. You can check out that thread here.

Xerox Quarterly Net Falls, But Sales Rise

Member

Wallingford

A proactive sales rep is the kind of individual who's always looking into the future in order to be prepared for anything. A successful sales rep exerts self-discipline to be proactive on behalf of their prospecting efforts. This is in complete contrast to the reactive sales rep, who's constantly chasing opportunities; as their sales funnel walls come crumbling down around them as they bitch because marketing or business developers aren't providing them enough leads.

Successful sales reps learn to keep prospecting at the forefront and schedule the time to make it happen. This is part of your job as a sales rep.

"If you are waiting for someone to help you, you may end up waiting a long time; take charge and be proactive, take charge of each day"

Adrian Michael

Developing a proactive sales strategy is absolutely essential if you are going to gain net new business or cross sell solutions into existing clients. To just make do with existing resources with no proactive developmental sales strategy is a recipe for disaster.

In today’s crazy busy business environment, prospects have less time to meet with you and they are much more skeptical resulting in anxiety, stress and disgruntled behaviors with sales reps. All of this leads to a reactive mindset instead of a proactive mindset.

A sales rep's mindset is powerful as this has a direct impact on self-esteem, levels of expectations which ultimately leads to underperforming, call reluctance and an attitude of complacency. Opportunities are missed and so is their relationship equity with many clients and future clients.

ATTITUDE CHECK FOR SALES REPS AND SALES MANAGEMENT

As a sales manager, you hear the whining and childlike behavior suspecting your sales team has become reactive instead of proactive regarding the current sales strategy. I encourage you to self-reflect and ask yourself these questions...

• Does prospecting meet with reluctance on the part of your sales team?
• Is your sales team simply reacting to incoming inquiries instead of proactively generating new opportunities by uncovering the customer’s pain and offering solutions?
• Does your sales team spend most of their time calling on the same unqualified pipeline hopefuls without any results?
• Does your sales team feel prospecting is a waste of time because they have been coached to the same old prospecting methods?

5 PROACTIVE PATHS NEX GEN SALES REPS USE TO GROW THEIR SALES REVENUE

Successful sales reps integrate nex gen methodologies when it comes to business development. They develop a change creator's mindset looking to perpetually propel themselves forward with their sales development. The proactive business development recipe is quite simple... phone, email, referrals, social selling, community networking events and quarterly business reviews.

CRUSHING IT AS A SALES REP MEANS INTEGRATING A MODERN APPROACH TO PROSPECTING

Let’s get real for a moment... Buying behavior has changed so much that the traditional sales playbook, developed years and years ago inside your organization, simply doesn’t work as efficiently as it used to, correct? The reality is the buyer is dictating the sales process.

Nex gen sales reps acknowledge this shift by changing their mindset while developing additional skill sets around top of sales funnel activities. Enter in research, follow, connect, nurture and meet.

NEX GEN SALES REPS DRIVE ADDITIONAL SALES REVENUE BY:

• Creating target lists of companies within their marketplace. Integrate modern sales tools such as Twitter, Google News/Alerts and LinkedIn to conduct research determining appropriate contacts.
• Following these targeted companies and contacts. They leverage Twitter, Google News/Alerts and LinkedIn to learn as much as they can about their prospects.
• Incorporating social listening and trigger events to understand what their buyer cares about.
• Connecting with them on LinkedIn with meaning while personalizing the invitation.
• Nurturing and building the relationship through educational content. They become engagement magnets by driving 1-1 online conversation.
• Engaging with potential prospects regarding their interests, concerns and initiatives.
• Turning these online conversations into phone calls and thus into face to face meetings by building credibility, value and trust worthiness. They become visible and valuable inside their networks.

• Helping potential prospects through the buying process by making the journey about helping them solve their business problems or challenges.

Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to results

To be truly proactive and follow these best practices involves extreme focus, process, discipline and personal accountability. A strong alignment of activities with an emphasis on objectives, process for continuous improvement and a discipline toward utilizing best practices throughout the sales process is a must for performance at all levels.

REACTIVE VERSUS PROACTIVE IN BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS

If 50% of your client base in 2017 decided not to upgrade...How would you meet or exceed quota?

A proactive prospecting approach focuses on eliminating problems before they have a chance to appear while a reactive approach is based on responding to events after they have happened. The difference between these two approaches is the perspective each sales rep provides in assessing the actions and events to keep the sales funnel full.

A PROACTIVE STRATEGY

Creating a proactive sales strategy includes planning, profiling targeted accounts, executing account strategies and obtaining feedback to continuously improve performance and drive additional sales revenue. Creating a business plan and setting goals facilitates this potential into achievable numeric objectives, i.e. sales revenue and margin growth. This is the basis of proactive selling.

I understand where you all are coming from. I have walked a day in a life of your shoes.

I am fully committed to helping your sales team integrate social selling into your current sales process to grow net-new business. I want you to get results. This is why I am passionate about doing this the right way.

Your comments, likes and shares are greatly appreciated.

In 2016, Larry was recognized by ENX Magazine, “The Difference Maker” as someone who is making a difference inside the copier channel. Larry is passionate about helping sales reps succeed in creating their online brand image

You can find more blog posts inside the Social Sales Academy website.

I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my LinkedIn stories. Integrating the use of LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive copier world. With great pride I transform, coach and inspire B2B Office Technology Sales Professionals to grow net new business by helping them tell their story and communicate on LinkedIn. My commitment is to help office technology dealers thrive in a changing marketplace. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, as well as at the Social Sales Academy

PaperLock Device Adds Extra Layer of Security for HealthCare Industry Copiers & Printers

I’ve asked this question a hundred or more times and I always get the same answer, silence, followed by “I don’t know.”   We’re all aware of the constant threats of hacking, malware and malicious software, however what steps do we take to secure our paper based documents?

These paper based documents can include corporate checks, medical prescription forms, purchase order forms and letterhead.

It’s great to have the latest and greatest in IT security measures, but what stops those thieves from opening the paper tray on the printer or copier and helping themselves to a stack of letterhead, checks or prescription paper? What happens with an after-hours break in?

Thieves can come in all shapes and sizes, they could be new clients, disgruntled employees, delivery people, and even sales people. Reminds me of a story from years ago. A salesperson visited one my accounts and promptly stole the Office Managers wallet that was in her pocket book. Weeks later we heard that this salesperson was stealing many items from other accounts as well.

Doing a little bit of research, I found this on irs.gov web site:

These schemes — which can occur over the phone, in e-mails or through letters with authentic looking letterhead — try to trick taxpayers into providing personal financial information or scare people into making a false tax payment that ends up with the criminal.

Here's a recent snippet from an article about stolen checks:

The charge was supposed to be $120, but instead, Katz was given a check for $1,370.89. The name on the check was a New York-based company called Professional Testing Corporation. Professional Testing Corporation was unwilling to comment to the Signal Tribune about the potential scam incident, but it did confirm that checks were stolen and representatives had filed a report with the FBI.

I find it odd that most copier and printer manufacturers do not offer paper tray locks as options. Yes, from a couple of manufacturers you can buy/lease a printer or copier with a paper tray lock. However, those locks are nothing more than a site deterrent and be dismantled within minutes.

The good news is that there are high quality secure after-market paper tray locks that are available for most copy machines and printers.

Adding a paper tray lock to your current printer or copier can be an inexpensive and easy way to safe guard and close the last gap of document security at your facility.

Office Equipment Dealers

If you would like additional information about these high quality secure Paper Tray Locks, please pay a visit to Copier Solutions. If you’re a copier dealer, check out their FREE Dealer starter kit. A $780 value for FREE.

-=Good Selling=-

K, so I'm a fan of selling, whenever I come across a blog or an article about sales, I'm all in for learning something new. 

On  Friday, I ran across this The Danger of Using Legacy Sales Techniques in 2017 .  Personally, I'm sick and tired of reading sales/selling articles from people that don't have end user sales experience.  Go ahead check out this persons LinkedIn bio here.  I'll admit the bio is impressive and he seems to be a successful and great person,  however where is the damn sales experience?

Is hard closing a bad thing? 

What exactly is hard closing?  If it's asking for the order more than twice, then I guess most of us that are successful are hard closers.  You don't have to be pushy or rude to ask for the order on your timeline.

ABC

Delving deeper in to the blog, I also disagree with "Why always be closing doesn't work anymore".  Closing comes in many shapes and forms in sales, you could be closing for the next appointment, or performing a trial close to see if the client is truly interested in your product or service.  Heck, when was the last time you walked in an office and the CEO or buyer stated, "OK, I want to buy from you, write it up and I'll sign it"!  Uh, never happened in my thirty six years of sales.

I understand that the process of sales has changed, we as sales people need to educate the buyer, find their pain, and provide data that will help the buyer make their decision. 

What pisses me off the most is that the writer has not clue about selling on a daily basis.  The ups and downs, those clients that call you in, along with six other vendors and then leads you down a path that never ends.  Countless follow ups, emails and phone calls go unanswered.  Eventually we get the hint and we go away. This is what you get from being wishy washy about closing. 

Rude Closers

Now, I do know some "rude" closers, and I'm sure most of us do. I have no stomach for those sales people that lie, cheat and steal to get an order.   I ran across an existing client the other day, that stated she hated the sales person from "XYZ", because they pressured her that she has to order NOW.  Instead of the writer using "hard closers", maybe he should have used "rude" closers.

Why We Need to ABC

What I can tell you is that we always need to be closing. Whether it's for the next phone call, the next webinar, or the next meeting.   We have to take the client to that next step, why not close for a demonstration of your products or services.  Why not schedule that next webinar, why not ask if they are thinking about leasing or buying.  These are legit trial closes.  If you don't ask, you don't get. 

I wonder if the writer of this blog ever had to make a sale in order to keep the lights on, make payroll or feed the family.  From the looks of the bio, I'm guessing no. I'm tired of people who have not sold a thing in their lives stating that if you're a good closer (hard closers are good closers) that you are ruining your personal reputation and ruining your brand.

Personally, I would rather read blogs and articles from sales people that are "living the dream" and helping me with information that will help me close more orders. 

I'm not an order taker, I'm a sales person. If that's the definition of Legacy Sales then I guess I'm it.

-=Good Selling=-

It's been while since I posted the last one.  Now that I have a little more time, I'll be back to posting this series one a week.

There's a thread below titled "Who Needs 11x17?".  It's been ten years now for A4 devices and I feel that most manufacturers have held back from developing advanced A4 devices.  When it comes down to it, it's all about profit and the manufacturers don't want to ruin there A3 business.  Come to think of it, none of the manufacturers are really killing it with A4. Wonder why that is?  My first thought would be collusion.

Anyway below are the popular threads from ten years ago this week!

Kyocera Mita America's New Line Of Color MFPs Receives Prestigious BERTL

Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand

Seth Godin

I ask you to think about these two words "broken promises" and what it means to you and to your clients.

Many sales reps are extremely casual about making promises. As a result, their promises are quite often made at the drop of a hat with no thought behind the long term impact. “It has been awhile let’s do lunch,” “I’ll call you later,” or better yet “Let me do some research and get right back to you” are all examples of throwaway promises seldom kept.

When you break a promise, no matter how small it may seem to you, alarm bells aren’t going to go off but think about your reputation. How do you feel when someone else breaks a promise to you or gets caught in a lie?

YOUR WORD IS YOUR BOND, YOUR REPUTATION!

Personal integrity as a major account copier rep is both expected and valued. Every time you give your word, you’re putting your honor on the line with your clients. This implies your clients can place their trust in you as you value integrity and would never let them down, RIGHT?

This goes without saying if you don’t live up to your word, you may end up tarnishing your credibility, damaging your relationships, and defaming your reputation. Most importantly, you’ll be letting yourself down while placing your relationship with your clients at risk.

Broken promises... Isn't that what you say? Think about it the next time you make a promise to one of your clients. Please make sure they are not promises in the dark!

A MAJOR ACCOUNT COPIER REP

As a major account copier rep, you are a vital component to your dealership's sales force. On behalf of the dealership, you represent their largest accounts and are responsible for supporting, managing and growing the strategic relationships within these accounts.

I encourage all major account copier reps to set aside some time and think about the promises you have made to yourself as well as to your current clients. You may want to check out Why Having A Business Plan Is A Must For A Major Account Copier Rep

3 PROMISES MAJOR ACCOUNT COPIER REPS MUST MAKE TO THEMSELVES AND TO THEIR CLIENTS

PROMISE NUMBER ONE - HAVE CONSISTENT TOUCH POINTS WITH EACH CONTACT INSIDE THEIR ACCOUNTS

A frequently-cited stat from the CEB is on an average there are 6.8 people involved in today’s B2B purchase decisions. Driven by a decentralization of organizational structures, these people may be distributed across different divisions within their company or even locations.

Major account copier reps make a promise to develop relationships with at least 6.8 people inside their current accounts.

In 2017, I as a major account copier rep will connect to at least 6 people inside each one of my current major account clients

Each contact inside your current major accounts has different agendas, motivations, and preconceptions. Major account reps who fail to build strong ties to any one of these people could see important deals collapse, relationships lost and more important revenue loss.

Major account copier reps must promise to make client obsession part of their personal culture. It is about building relationships within your current major accounts. Always be looking for blind spots within your current accounts.

PROMISE NUMBER TWO - CONDUCT MONTHLY SITE VISITS

Major account copier reps must become visible inside their accounts. Monthly sites visits is a necessity as part of building a fortress around your major accounts. Think about diversifying your relationships and establishing consistent communication patterns during these visits.

As these visits are conducted look to engage in quick conversations with key contacts and stakeholders. Look out for potential opportunities and or issues which can then be brought up in your quarterly business reviews.

Becoming wildly curious about your client and their customers during these visits as this may open many more possibilities for engaging with and potentially solving problems which would otherwise may have been missed.

A great major account workshop was had by all...

PROMISE NUMBER THREE - CONDUCT QUARTERLY BUSINESS REVIEWS

The more value you demonstrate the more strategic you become to your client. Consistent quarterly business reviews creates top of mind awareness and serves to create engagement. Goals for these reviews...

• Develop your relationship from vendor to partner
• Reinforce the value the customer is getting
• Review/set goals
• Establish your standing (How are we doing?)
• Capture and reinforce successes

As a major account rep this is to reinforce your promise. The promise you made to them when they became your client.

WHAT IS IN IT FOR YOUR CLIENT?

• It's a progress report on how you and your dealership is doing

• It's an educational opportunity as you provide overview of performance, trends, and expenses

• It's an opportunity to discuss improvement ideas

MODERN MAJOR ACCOUNT BUYER'S HAVE CHANGED

In the book, To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink, he writes about how we’ve gone from a "buyer beware" culture to a "seller beware" culture. There’s so much information available to customers today via the internet that customers are often well versed in their options and interests before the salesperson even enters the scene.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon us as major account copier reps to really understand the client's world to add value, not to just show up, throw up and educate them on a product or solution.

It is the promises you make that will make you or break you as a major account copier rep. As Ashley Welch of Somersault Innovation, says, "Start with them, not you." 

See you at the next major account workshop in April!

I get where you all are coming from. I have walked a day in a life of your shoes.

Your comments, likes and shares are greatly appreciated.

In 2016, Larry was recognized by ENX Magazine, “The Difference Maker” as someone who is making a difference inside the copier channel. Larry is passionate about helping sales reps succeed in creating their online brand image

You can find more blog posts inside the Social Sales Academy website.

I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my LinkedIn stories. Integrating the use of LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive copier world. With great pride I transform, coach and inspire B2B Office Technology Sales Professionals to grow net new business by helping them tell their story and communicate on LinkedIn. My commitment is to help office technology dealers thrive in a changing marketplace. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, as well as at the Social Sales Academy