The Social Sales Academy provides social sales coaching to copier and managed services sales reps. The academy is a service of Dealer Marketing, helping copier dealers grow net-new business with online marketing services and LinkedIn sales coaching.
Learn more at www.socialsalesacademy.net and on our LinkedIn company page at www.linkedin.com/company/social-sales-academy
Two Japanese scientists snap more than 500 photos of a live giant squid and recover one of its two longest tentacles, which severed during a struggle. (National Geographic) (MSNBC [with pictures])
Sending out large email blasts to your market is so tempting. With the click of the mouse you can instantly spray email newsletters and event invitations to thousands of emails that you have gathered from your CRM, customer lists, and (worst-of-all) email lists that you've purchased.
On the surface, this seems like such a good idea. After all, what's the problem if the open rate is only 5%? "It's not really costing us anything, right?"
Not exactly. There are actually high costs to sending unsolicited email blasts to the wrong people.
How many times today have you clicked the "Junk" button in your email today? Think about it. When you send a decision maker an email they don't want and they click the "Junk" button, they have essentially blocked your company from communicating with them. What happens when your sales rep wants to reach out with a legitimate email? They may not be able to get through.
When you send out emails to non-existent email addresses that bounce, it hurts the credibility of your domain with SPAM filters. Once again, this may harm the ability of your company to send emails--even important ones like billing or service emails--to your clients.
Send too much unsolicited email to bogus addresses and you can actually get blacklisted on email servers. This could be very harmful to your company. (Curious if you're OK? You can check your domain here against multiple blacklists: http://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx)
In 2004 we ran a newsletter service for copier dealers across the country. Back then, email marketing was an effective strategy. Every year, we noticed email open rates continued to decline. At the same time, more companies started implementing robust SPAM filters. We even started noticing that some of the emails our sales people would try to send to prospects wouldn't get delivered because they had previously put us in the junk folder or their SPAM filter had flagged us. Ouch!
Finally, with the rise of social media, the emergence of Buyer 2.0, and the beginning of blogging, we ditched email newsletters. Instead we moved (with the rest of the marketing world) to more of an inbound strategy that provides content to people who are looking for it.
Please hear me. I'm not saying email is dead. What I am saying is that mass blasts of emails to "everyone-on-the-list" no matter if they are interested or not can hurt your business. So here's some advice based on what I've learned:
Sending out a company newsletter to the masses seems so tempting. Avoid the temptation. Check the data on your last email blast and you'll see how few people outside your customer/fan base even open these. Instead, if you want to send a newsletter, only send it to your customer base.
When you do send an email, make sure it is relevant and interesting to the audience. Since you sell to a lot of different kinds of people, it takes a lot of work to segment your lists and create custom content. (Ask any inbound marketing professional and they'll agree.)
At a minimum, after each email blast, make sure to delete the "bounced" and "undeliverable" emails from your system. As a best practice, our company only sends emails to people that have previously opened our emails, signed up for one of our webinars, or downloaded a special report from our website.
If people aren't opening your emails, why would you want to keep sending to them?
Instead, try this. Once every 90-days pick your best-performing or most interesting email. Send it out to the people on your "unopened" list. Then, see if any of them bite and move them over to your list of people that open your emails.
Rather than interrupt people with emails they aren't interested in, why not invest the time to get found where prospects are actually looking? According to a 2014 B2B survey by the Acquity Group, 94% of buying decisions begin online. IDC research shows us that 94% of c-level decision makers use social in the buying process. Why not invest your time in getting really good at connecting with the people who are actually looking for what you sell?
Don't stop sending email. Just be much more selective about what you send and who you send it to. Blasting out unsolicited emails, no matter how pretty they look, will hurt your business.
Look around. You'll discover that there are so many strategies like social selling, blogging, search engine optimization, and inbound marketing that you can use to connect with your audience, develop relationships, and get appointments.
There is much more that could be said here. However, today I want to simply make this point: blasting out emails indiscriminately to large email lists can hurt your company. It's tempting, but please consider the costs before you do it.
For those of us that sell Ricoh MFP's, we know that the Ricoh MP C305SP is a little long in the tooth these days. Personally, I only had one problem with the Ricoh MP C305SP, and that was the size of the color display. That 4.3 inch LCD color display was shorter than a Nathan's Hot Dog, and with color LCD displays being so inexpensive I thought Ricoh could have done a better job with the size of the display.
Thus, I'm elated to report that the new Ricoh MP CZ306SP & SPF will have the 10.1 inch Smart Operation Panel that is offered on Ricoh's A3 MFP Color devices!! Woohoo! Want some additional juicy info? There's going to be an MP C406ZSPF too!!
Hold them horses ....., it seems for now these systems are only available in Ricoh Europe, but, I'm thinking these units will be available in the US market soon, and the "Z" will be dropped for the US market. I have no clue what the "Z" represents, maybe the Smart Operation Panel?
Here's a few of the specs:
So, these are not all of the specs, I'll put a link on the bottom of this blog for the brochure.
What I'm most impressed with is the addition of the Smart Operation Panel, we'll be able to add apps and more importantly we'll be able to add third party software solutions, something we were not able to add with the MP C305SP devices.
Keep in mind that these specs are from the Ricoh Euro site and their may be some changes with the US models. Here's the link for the Ricoh Euro site and here's the link for the brochure.
-=Good Selling=-
When it comes to tackling any problem, the more you know the better suited you are to assess the situation and solve, prevent, or even predict it from happening in the first place. Luckily, in our industry, diagnostic intelligence technologies and the internet have given integrators and their clients access to data on an easily accessible and immediate schedule.
Two areas where IP-connected products shine are in power management and overall energy intelligence. Our ability to remotely view data, monitor power and energy usage, schedule events, reboot/recycle power – whether stationary or on-the-go – all add up to create an intelligent and effective means to manage power. That said, here are five ways to use diagnostic intelligence and remote monitoring to keep a business operational and free from power disturbances:
IP-enabled systems that offer surge protection, diagnostics, usage/status reports, and the potential for energy savings are creating great opportunities for power management and dealers to expand their portfolio and improve system health and longevity for their clients.
Gee, was not sure how to title this blog post. But, I wanted to record some of the items I remember from 9/11/2001.
It was almost 9AM and I was in just putting the finishing touches on my tie and was ready to head out the door for a few appointments. Our home rang and it was my Mother-in-Law, she told me to turn on the TV because a plane had just struck the World Trade Center. My first thought was "really", thus I went to channel 7 and one of the towers was billowing with smoke. I was stunned that a plane could crash into the one of the towers, especially since I'm pretty familiar with the flight paths that planes will take into JFK, Newark and LaGuardia airports.
At first, I thought it might have been a small passenger plan. The next moment, another plane (jet liner) appeared on TV and in seconds that plane struck the other tower in a fiery explosion! It was like Holy Crap, WTF just happened.
Living seventeen miles due south (across NY Harbor & Raritan Bay) of Manhattan and having a view of the New York Skyline, I immediately went to my back yard to see what was going on first hand. I guess for a few moments I could not believe what I saw on TV and needed to see it first hand.
After I got back in the side my house, the news was already reporting that two planes had been hijacked, with reports of maybe 2 or 3 more and that the United States was under attack. I called my wife at work, told her what had happened and that was the last call I was able to make that day because our cell and land lines went down. My son, was in High School at the time and it was pretty nerve racking because we were not able to call the school. A few hours, our son was home, because his school had early dismissal.
That entire day was spent in front of the TV and trying to comprehend what had happened and what else may happen. So, I'm having a little bit of a tough time with this now, because I'm recalling the loss of lives that day. It seemed like everyone in our immediate area knew someone that had passed away that day.
Later that day, I can remember seeing and hearing F15's patrolling the skies in an around New York Harbor and Raritan Bay. Looking back, I can remember how quiet the skies were for days after the attack, since all domestic flights were cancelled.
For days, I would walk to the back yard to see if the columns of smoke had expired. I guess I was hoping that the disappearance of the columns of smoke would somehow make everything better?
I remember, I will always remember and I hope that all generations that come after us remember what evil people can do. My heart goes out to all of the families that lost someone that day.
Art
Nothing is for FREE, we've heard this over and over through out our sales careers right?
We share information, we are the relentless, we drive the sales, we generate additional clicks, we seek new customers, we (Print4Pay Hotel) members are the top sellers in the industry. Our need for knowledge translates to increased sales, generates additional GP and above all helps us provide for our families. Without a doubt, the Premium Members of the Print4Pay Hotel are the best of the best.
However, we all didn't start out that way, the key for most members is that they are relentless in their search for knowledge, the Print4Pay Hotel provides us with the opportunity to share, inspire, collaborate and exchange our ideas so we can move forward.
Premium Membership will get you access to:
Recently I was asked to comment on a new sales cheat sheet that was sent to me, in fact I liked it so much that I comp'd that member a Premium Membership. The file that was created is a fantastic reminder for all of us in sales of what we should ask and do on every call. I believe this is invaluable for new reps!
I'm running a special Premium Membership, which is limited to only the first ten (10) sign ups. We have eight (8) left. Sign up for two years for $234 and receive and additional three years for FREE. Thus, you'll have a 5 year Premium Membership! Send me an email if you are interested to arthurkpost@gmail.com
If you're interested in a Lifetime Membership the cost is $499.
-=Good Selling=-
To all Print4Pay Hotel Members, Have a great and safe Labor Day Weekend!!!
There's been so much talk about LinkedIn, and Buyer 2.0 that I can't stand it anymore!! Just kidding with you!
Change is happening right now and we all need to be a part of it, figure it out, and make it our own.
Today, I received a power point presentation on Buyer 2.0, which centered around LinkedIn. I realized that they left something out that is critical when prospecting with LinkedIn. Use this, it works, and I've laid out the step by step process for you!
Bonus tips: You can download a .csv data file of all your Linkedin contacts, which is awesome if you’re using constant contact to stay in touch with your accounts.
In addition with the Premium Membership, you'll also be able to send in-mails to people you are not connected with. To me, that's the real power of the Premium Membership!
Above all, have fun with Linkedin!!
-=Good Selling=-
It all started yesterday afternoon, I had a call from the DM at one of my largest production accounts (has 3 devices) that he received the wrong toner. It happens, none of us are perfect, however, getting the wrong toner when you print all of your volume only once a week and you're going on vacation on Wednesday turned out to be a very BIG deal.
My Client Care department was awesome and put someone on the road and drove more than 120 miles to deliver the last two toners we had in stock. I thought, we're awesome! Uh, not so fast, Murphy's Law reared it's ugly head and I had another call from the DM that two toners is not going to cut it and he needs to get the printed docs out before he goes on vacation (help)!!! They need more. Late Monday, I emailed and called a few people at the office, however, it was too late in the day.
Tuesday morning, I knew the problem still existing and tried to figure out where, where can I get this toner? My first call was to my good friends at Polek & Polek (they once delivered toner by sled in a snowstorm), but, Mark informed me that they did not have any. I then remembered that Fisher (P4P member) is with a Lanier Dealer near Atlantic City, I gave them a quick call and they had two that they could spare. Thus, when I really needed to make some calls to set appointments (cause I got squat for this week), I set out on an 80 mile road trip to Copiers Plus in Egg Harbor Township.
Hey, it was 93 degrees, humid as heck, and the AC in the car was bunko, thus I opened the windows, the sun roof, took off my shirt (gotta work on the tan) and preceded south bound on the Garden State Parkway.
For those of you that are not familiar with New Jersey, the Garden State Parkway runs north and south and is the main corridor to all of the New Jersey Shore resorts.
I can't tell you, how many bennys that I gave them the "you're number one sign", on my way south. After 34 years of being a professional driver (cause we do a lot of that), many of the Bennys were just pissin me off with left lane, right lane, in, out, step on the brakes, pick your nose and talking on the cell!
Finally, I arrived at Copiers Plus, grabbed the toner, and headed back North to my account that was located about 40 miles north of Atlantic City.
Now, you all know I'm getting some what older, and on the drive back, I caught my self starting to do the "head nod" (drifting to sleep). It must have been from all the heat and the constant driver, nether the less, I pulled over and caught a 15 minute cat nap, then good as new.
I finally arrived at the clients office around 2PM. My client was ecstatic! Matter of fact when I walked in both black devices and the one color device was going full bore. As I turned the corner, I saw the customers one lone KonicaMinolta device and it was BROKE, saying Call Service! That made my day!!
In the end, it was the customer who stated to me, "great sales people solve business problems". I thought that was awesome and I was happy that he was able to get his work out and the he an family could enjoy a GREAT Vacation!
-=Good Selling=-
It was interesting to read one of the threads that I posted below. It's been ten years since Ricoh changed from their old logo to the new logo which we see today.
Hawaii, represented by Ewa Beach, Hawaii, defeats Willemstad, CuraÇao 7-6 in the Little League World Series. Other than that, not much else for the last week in the summer of 2005!
Well, it's now the last week of the summer! Now is the time to kick into high gear to get ready for end of year sales opportunities. Good weather will be behind us, kids back in school, and the companies that we do business with will kick into high gear also!
Below is the top 10 copier quotes and proposals that were posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums for August of 2015. In order to view them. all we ask is that you exercise an Annual Premium Membership. The regular price is $117 per year, and if you sign up for a two year membership from now until Labor Day, we're packing you in an extra THREE YEARS at NO CHARGE! Thus, you'll get 5 (Five) years for the price of 2 (Two). If interested please email me directly so I can set you up...arthurkpost@gmail.com
Ty for reading! If you just need a one year Premium VIP Membership you can click here.
-=Good Selling=-
Appointments, we love to have em, and we hate to have to prospect for them.
Wouldn't it be grand to wake up every day and have four appointments scheduled for each day of the week that you didn't have to spend the time prospecting for.
As a dealer principal, or VP of Sales, would you rather have your reps spending most of their time on appointments or would you rather see them spending most of their time prospecting? That's a no brainer right!
Times are changing, and the way we schedule appointments are changing. No longer do we just set appointments with a phone call or a stop in. Today, we have the ability to schedule appointments via Linked-in (in mail), email, twitter and texting. Yes, I've scheduled a few appointments via texting and it was awesome!
Thus, since times are changing with the different tools that we set appointments with (email, in-mail, texting), then why do most dealerships still grade their sales people on the amount of phone calls that they dial each week or each month? If I were King, I wouldn't care how my reps got the appointments as long as they were getting them. Once they stop getting them, then that raises the flag to try and help them.
Recently, I posed a series of questions to some of my existing clients. These questions were:
So far, I've only sent these questions to three existing clients, all three provided answers for me. What I can tell you is that the answers were quite enlightening. I then posed this to our P4P'ers (Print4Pay Hotel Members) to crowd source these questions to their clients. As of now, there's been no input (I get it, we're all busy), but I feel that the more responses that we can get from existing clients can help us in our disruptive marketing efforts. You can view that thread here.
Ok, ok, I'm getting to the end of this. I (we) would like to hear from other sales people as to how you are getting your appointments. We've created the survey here. Please take the time to take the survey.
We'll check back in 30 days and report the findings, and for those of you that do take the survey, I think you'll find the current findings pretty interesting.
-=Good Selling=-
Due to the "bean counters" at our office, we close our month early.
Closing the month is not a bad thing, in fact by closing the month early, I now have two opportunities to garner end of month business. The first is the "bean counters" end of month and the second is the calendar end of the month.
For me, the number of selling days that I have for September 2015 business is only twenty and a half. I'll be losing one day due to the Labor Day Holiday and by noon on the 4th of September, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that most DM's are gone for the Labor Day weekend.
Thus, I know in advance that September will be a short month when compared to some of the previous months. There's no time to slack and if I'm to hit my goal of 100K in revenue then I'm going to need to have at least 300K in my pipeline!! Do I have 300K in my pipeline now? NO Do I have half of that? NO, Gesh, all of these NO's are bumming me out!
Let's see, short selling month, no real pipeline to speak of, kids going back to school, traditional Labor Day weekend is a week late this year, and yes the odds are stacked against over performing.
Thus, I plan to add almost 3 extra selling days to the month. For the entire month of September I plan to get in the office one hour earlier. Doing this over the course of the month will add 20 hours or 2.5 days of selling. Those extra hours will only be devoted to returning emails, researching, and producing proposals & quotes. The rest of the day is reserved for prospecting, appointments or returning a call to close an order. I may be able to squeak in a Saturday appointment, not sure if that will happen, however, if the opportunity presents itself I will offer it up.
So, I have a plan, and having a plan is a great start to reach your goals. Having no plan equals never reaching your goals, and having no goals is just a waste of time and effort. The biggest key to having a plan, is to stick to the plan, don't deviate and keep moving every opportunity forward. If I hit the numbers that I want, I'll be super excited and if I don't, I'll know that I put every effort forward to get there.
Only in the last few years have I really given much thought to the amount of selling days per month. What that means is for the last thirty some years I was flying by the seat of my pants with NO plan. Geesh, if I could only have been better on planning in my younger years!!
For all of you newbies out there, what can you take from this? Well, be sure to have a plan to reach your goals, be aware of how many selling days you have each month, be prepared to add extra days when you need them, and when you reach your goals make sure you reward your self with some extra "me" time.
-=Good Selling=-
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Follow the link on the forums to get your Premium Membership. If you're interested in a lifetime membership please send me an email arthurkpost@gmail.com and we'll send you a pay pal invoice of $399 of a LIFETIME Print4Pay Hotel membership.