MFP Copier Blog

Copier prospecting without having contact information?  How can you locate an unknown email address?

I believe the year was 1995. I had taken my first copier sales job working for a Lanier direct location. Sales was a pretty straightforward prospect. I would drive up and down the street (dressed in a suit and tie no less), walk into someone’s business, and try to reach the owner. Face-to-face contact was always, and arguably still is, the best way to reach new copier prospects. At that time I really only had two methods to reach them – the telephone and my oversized Smurf blue colored van full of gas.

Then Lanier did something special. Every salesperson for Lanier received a brand-new, shiny laptop (thank you Mike Murray), which we were able to utilize to store all of our contact information and database notes. Most important to me through this process was I had an efficient way to reach out to clients through email. I had great templates set up and was able to build a pipeline pretty effectively utilizing them.

Fast-forward 19 years. For some reason people are not as willing to give out their email address today. With all of the interruption marketing and spam that goes out through email, it’s no wonder that CEOs are unwilling to give their email address to a sales person. They already have an influx of newsletters, advertisements, business emails, personal emails, and 1000 other items that they have to delete every day. Why would they want to give their email to a sales rep who will then add to the bevy of emails received each day?

The purpose of this article is not to discuss the quality of emails that you send out to your prospects but to show you the most effective way to find the email address of the prospect who won’t give it to you.

Google Knows …

Google knows just about everything you need to know thanks to well-optimized websites – including the email address of your prospects! Here’s how to put this amazing tool to work for you in two simple steps.

1) Know the Obvious

You really only need to know two things to make this work – the correct spelling of your prospect’s name and the website address of the company they work for. The correct spelling of their name will be vital in getting the proper results to show in Google.

2) Learn to Quote

There is a little-known technique that Google allows you to use which will return exact results. Quotation marks. When you do a search, anything you put in quotation marks will force Google’s results to return only pages that contain that exact results. If you search for “Baconator” (which happens to be 1330 calories of deliciousness from Wendy’s), the only results that you get will be results that have either the word Baconator in the title of the page or in the actual content of the page. No other results will be given to you.

What’s cool about this method (and incredibly valuable to you) is that it also works with URLs and email addresses.

So let’s make this practical. You have the name (i.e. Darrell Amy) and the URL where they work (i.e. dealermarketing.net). Now let’s get to work.

• Go to www.google.com
• Search for the name of the contact you’re looking for and “@sample.com”. Obviously instead of sample.com, you will use the name of the company website of the person you’re searching for.

• Scroll through the results and look for their email address in the results.

That’s it!

You may have to scroll through a page or two, but rarely will you be unable to find an email address for someone. For those rare occasions and what to do then, watch for my next article.

Now, make sure that you reach out to these folks with your newfound email address on an individual basis to connect with them. Legally, you cannot find their email address and add it to your database for next month’s email blast. That is a CAN-SPAM no-no, not to mention a sure-fire way to tick off your prospect. This is for reaching out and connecting individually as a sales rep, not a tactic to grow your marketing email database.

So there you have it. My top-secret recipe for locating that missing copier prospect’s email address. Give it a try.

Major MPS Provider Reports 12 Million Stolen Pages!

Call da Cops Major MPS Provider Reports 12 Million Stolen Pages!

Later that day, we turned on the lights and made a quick drive over to 54th Street and Lexington. 

Email security has been a relatively major pain point for organizations across industries and sectors in the past few years, as this immensely popular communication medium tends to be an easy entry point for hackers and other threats. Unfortunately, the effort to combat these malicious forces has not been a winning battle for many, as evidenced by the growing frequency and diversity of firms that have been victimized by data breaches that originate in email accounts and systems.
The fact is that email will likely be the most common form of communication in business and government for years to come, as other types of channels have certainly sprouted up, but none have come with the same adoption rates. What's more, the types of devices that are being used to manage emails are expanding in volume and diversity, making security an even more complex and challenging matter for many in the public and private sectors.

However, this does not mean that decision-makers cannot make a big difference in their organizations' security performances, but rather that the right types of tools and techniques are needed to get the job done. In fact, there have been plenty of studies and guidance released in the past few years to help all types of firms get a handle on their email security without negatively impacting user experiences or productivity.
As is always the case, the best strategies for security, or IT management demands of any type for that matter, will be reliant upon the adequate support and control of people, processes and technology. Here are five steps leaders can take and tools they can use, regardless of which industry they compete within or the size of their organizations, to begin to strengthen their email security performances and mitigate threats in a more comprehensive and proactive fashion.

1. Encryption software

Email encryption is a critical tool in today's threat-filled landscape. This particular software will help to ensure that even when information is leaked through an errant send or other issue, it will be more difficult for malicious individuals to capitalize upon and gain possession of the data therein. Advanced email encryption tools will be highly seamless in several ways, meaning that employees will only need to click one button to protect the information being sent, maintaining productivity in the process. 
Email encryption and two factor ID authentication is a core tool in the fight to protect email, but more is needed.

2. Secure cloud

Since email databases will need to be hosted on servers, companies might want to look into migrating these systems into secure cloud frameworks maintained and provided by trusted service providers. Secure cloud services can help to ensure that email data is being stored safely and encrypted at rest.  Plus, IT departments are not strained by the demands of server maintenance, and HIPAA compliance statutes are being obliged in stride with minimal disruptions to standard operations.

3. Training

Although hacking and other types of threats have overtaken employee negligence and error in some areas of IT security, the lack of awareness is still a highly common issue that leads to data breaches in email communications. As such, businesses must consider instituting advanced training programs to ensure that their staff members fully understand the best practices of sending and managing emails in a secure fashion.

More awareness and education is one of the primary and most powerful weapons against data breaches across the IT equation, and should be a priority moving forward.

4. Testing

Because negligence and error have been so clearly linked to the increased threat of falling victim to phishing attacks, tests have begun to be developed and made available to gauge the aptitude of employees in the past few years. These tests will essentially be taken without the staff members ever knowing, sending out fraudulent but benign phishing-like emails that will clearly indicate how well employees understand the signs of an attack.

This also falls into the broader category of measurement, which should be a priority for all managers. Building an analysis process that accurately and efficiently illustrates the overall capabilities and weaknesses of the firm in the email security discussion can be a boon to performance over time.

5. Always adjust

Email security threats and best practices are constantly evolving, and this is why the best strategies will never remain as such for long. Organizations, and particularly healthcare providers, that do not maintain a certain level of agility in their strategic oversight of email security will tend to experience increasing risk levels as time goes on, and dropping the ball on market research and analysis can have the same negative impacts before long.

Keep an ear to the ground and work to maintain flexibility in the programs to deal with major changes on an as-needed basis. As always, working with a provider of email security services and solutions can go a long way toward boosting the firm's protection against data breaches in these mediums.

Good afternoon Art. Had a quick question for you. One of my new reps had asked what information I could give for his review on cold calling tips, instruction, and helps. He is looking for help in running a better cold call in the field. HARVEG

HARVEG, thanks for the reply.  Thought I would turn this into a blog for your newbie rep and I'm sure other P4P'ers will chime in.

There was a time when I would knock on every door.  Back in the Eighties that was thing to do because everyone was in the market for a plain paper copier.  Can you believe that's how we used to refer to them?

The knocking on every door bit changed when Canon developed their first "PC" plain paper copiers, they were cheap to buy, expensive to run, but the demand was there for those that did not want to pay thousands of dollars for a copy machine.

Today, I still do walk in cold calls, maybe not as many as I should, but I still do them.  Here's some rules that I follow for cold calling in the field:

• 75% of my cold calls are planned, meaning I schedule them into my calendar. The accounts that I schedule are the ones that I can't make any headway with phone calls, emails, mailers, or Linkedin
• My main focus of the cold call is to get the Decision Makers name and the receptionists name.
• Once in the office, I will scout around to see any existing equipment.
• I avoid companies that are not paper intensive or low volume.  Dentists (unless it's a Dental Group), Law Offices that only have one Attorney, Doctors (unless it's a Medical Group), Insurance Agents (single), and there might be a few more, but can't think of them right now.
• I will pass up any building or company that has only a few cars in the parking lot (except architects, engineers, contractors).
• I will cold call every company that is paper intensive, usually larger law firms, medical groups, architects, engineers, contractors, and or any company that has many cars parked in their lot.
• I introduce myself first, and then ask for the name of the person that makes the decision for IT or imaging equipment.
• I try to make every cold call fun!  I will comment on the weather, maybe a recent bit of news or even state, "this is the first time I've every stopped in a was curious if you could help me".
• I will honor no soliciting signs, as much as I hate them, I will find a way to contact them other than cold calling.
• If the receptionist offers up the opportunity to speak with the Decision Maker right then, I will accept and wait for the audience with the DM.
• I keep every brochure and marketing information in my car, just in case it's needed.
• When leaving an appointment, I will scout around to see if any other businesses are worth stopping in. I will mention that I just had an appointment at that location and what we were offering that prospect or existing client.
• I will name drop every chance I get when cold calling, thus I just did this a few days ago when I cold called an account. I made them aware that I do business with so and so.  What this means is that if I cold call and architect, I will tell them that we also support these architects.

I try to do twenty five of them a week, most times I don't hit that number.  But, as we know, we can never stop prospecting. Just the other day while I was drive home from a late appointment, I saw a new custom home builder that I never noticed before. I stopped in and sure enough they were new to the area and they were in the market for two systems.  When I walking out, I thought, what if I was the lazy type I would have never found that opportunity.

Here's something cool also, one of our new reps was out cold calling and got a pretty big deal by stopping in a place I would have passed up. Just goes to show you, that anything an happen once you're out there.  Hope all of this helps!!

-=Good Selling=-

We all remember FAB right? 

For those of you that don't the what the acronym stands for.

It's Feature, Advantage and Benefit. 

Back in the eighties and nineties I can remember making a bullet list of all of the features for the Minolta copiers I sold.  In the next column I would list the Advantage of the Feature to the client and then in the final column was the Benefit that was derived from those features.

During the demonstration we would drill every feature, then the advantage and then the benefit to the customer.  A typical question would have been, "So, Mrs. So n So, would having a new copy machine that could process mixed sized originals all at once instead of breaking the original in to two parts help save time?"

Of course that question came after someone in the audience stated that the mixed sized originals would be a god send for them.  You new you were going to get a yes and the goal of the demonstration was to build up so many yeses, that when the close came, there was no way they would disagree with what they saw, and what they liked.

Back then, it seemed liked every demo we did was for a net new account.  They key to the demonstration was to listen to the clients wants and needs for a new copier.

Today, what I see, is that many clients are not educated with the advanced functionality that we have right out of the box or by adding a third party solution to our existing MFP.  Most believe all they are buying is a machine that will copy, print, scan and fax and that all systems are created equal.  That created equal part is where we lose if we don't take the time to educate them.

For me the educational process starts with my line of questioning to the client.  During each appointment I'll have a short list of 20 or so questions that I will pose to the client. In that short list there will be at least 5 questions that will help me determine if they may have a need for advanced functionality with my device.  Answering yes to any of those questions will then prompt me to develop a proposal or plan a demonstration around that functionality.    Advanced functionality can be anything from scanning bar codes, browse to any folder from the MFP, tracking prints/copies/faxes/scans, secure print or a workflow process for scanning.

Thus, number three that I use, is that I will not list the advanced functionality as an option.  I will present the system bundled with that option and present it a way that it's a standard feature on our devices.  Back that Feature thing, right?  In my 35 years of selling office technology, most clients do NOT want to pay for options, however, if it's a standard feature and there's value (Benefit), your device will be the logical choice over a competitors device when that Feature may be an option. But, I would bet dollars to Doughnuts that the other sales person did not or was not able to dig that deep with the client.

Dig deep, probe, find pain and bundle your way to a great sale!  BTW, FAB is not a nineties thing, it still works so use it whenever you can.

-=Good Selling=-

Ah, net new business has been a hot topic with me in recent days.

Adding net new customers at the rate of three per month can add up quickly. Thirty six net new accounts per year can per a tremendous upside when the renewals come due, in addition they can be a hedge against lost accounts.  Every year we see a loss of accounts, whether they go out of business, just close shop, are bought by another form, lost our main contact/relationship and maybe they had a bad experience.  For those of us that have been in the business for many years, we understand that we can't keep everyone happy, even though we try our best.

Just today, we had one of our manufacturers reps in the office for some training for the newbies.  It was my idea to have them download the Ricoh apps to their phones and have our manufacturers rep assist with enabling and teaching them how to use those apps.  You just never know when that one feature or that one app will seal the deal with a net new client.

When I was at Ethos Technologies last month, I spoke briefly about lock out features. I asked the crew. "what is a lock out feature"? Too my surprise there was no raise of hands. I then explained that a lock out feature is a feature that you have on your device that the competitor does not have.  However, there may be many different features that Canon may have and Ricoh does not.  Your job is to drill down with the customer and find that "lock out feature" that the client is ecstatic about and can't be with out it.

That one or two "lockout features" will win the deal for you as long as the client can cost justify the time or financial savings and the cost for those "lock out features" is not exorbitant.

In a recent sale, I was able to lead the client to agree that the paper exit area (feature) on the Ricoh W5100en was exceptional (that it would save them a tremendous amount of time) when compared to other manufacturers that were offering the same type of device with out that type of exit area.  It's not easy, and you may not find a "lock out feature" for every prospect, however, if continually drill down with the client you'll be amazed with what you may find.

-=Good Selling=-

I get it, we all need to drive net new business.  We can't survive by continually upgrading our base. Personally, I do a pretty good job with acquiring net new business.  A quick glance at my CRM will show that roughly 60% of follow ups and cold calls are for net new accounts.

Many dealerships will offer incentives to their sales reps to garner net new business.  Thus, those dealerships are willing to give away a piece of the pie to grow their revenue stream.  Good for the client, good for the dealership and good for the sales person, every body wins right?

What Defines a Net New Business?

All dealers will agree that net new business is an account that you have no play in, never sold them a thing.  Not only is it net new business, it's a net new account! WooHoo!

Another caveat that may or may not be considered for net new business is that the account can qualify if your dealership has not done any business with them within a certain time frame.  They got away from you years ago and you were able knock out the incumbent and win them back.  Your relationship with the client stood the test of time.  Knocking out the incumbent with your devices generates additional revenue for the dealership.

If you knock out a competitors piece of equipment and place your new equipment that's net new business, right?

It seems that it's not just that easy. Let's assume you have an account that has 10 imaging devices.  You own half of the devices and the competitors owns the other half.  You've worked the account for years and finally you knocked out the remaining five systems!  Do the five new systems count as net new business?  Seems that's a bone of contention and differs from dealer to dealer, some will say it counts, will others will not count that as net new business.  I'm in the camp that will take the side of "how is that not net new business", you knocked out the remaining five systems, captured additional clicks and grew the business!

Let's take another scenario, customer got away from you many years ago, they upgraded one device with a competitor, and still have one of your older systems.  After 5 years, you have a chance to get the business back, however you find out that twelve months ago they bought one toner cartridge for $49 from your dealership for the one old device.  There are dealerships out there that will say nada, this account will not qualify as net new business because they bought that $49 toner cartridge from us "x" amount of months ago. I don't understand this either, what part of the new hardware sale ($15K) is not net new business when you knock out the incumbents device!

Next month, I'm thinking about buying a new car.  Right now I have an older Eclipse, the dealership that I bought my car from is no longer in business. I'm going to go buy a buy a Ford from a local dealer, however, last month I bought an air filter from them for my son's car. Do you think that dealership will count my business as net new or not net new because I bought the air filter a few months ago?

-=Good Selling=-

It's not too often that I get excited about a distributor, however, I'm really excited about National Azon!!! 

For those of us that need to sell higher end hardware and solutions, many of us have incorporated wide format hardware and solutions into our portfolio.

National Azon is a dedicated wide format distributor that offers location in Troy, Michigan and Jessup, Maryland.  I'm extremely excited about the full line of Contex equipment that is available,  along with an easy to understand pricing guide.  The easy to use pricing guide was awesome since I'm still a little bit of a novice when it comes to the complete Contex line-up of hardware and software.

For me, focusing on wide format equipment offers me higher equipment revenues, shorter sales cycle for the AEC market, and the fact that many are not so knowledgeable when it comes to wide format printers.  I'm not selling grand wide format yet, however, if I had my own dealership I would make grand wide format a top priority to research and see if I could play in that market in my geo area.

In addition, National Azon is a distributor for Canon, Mutoh, CET Color, Finishing and has their own Azon color ink for various wide format products. 

Digital wide format printers is still growing and has 7% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate), and this is great news for office equipment dealers that may not be looking to expand to MNS (Managed Network Services).  Expansion to AEC (Architect, Engineer, Construction) wide format and grand wide format (those printers that print over 100 inches wide) can be extremely lucrative for office equipment dealers that still want to sell hardware in a niche market.

If you need to contact National Azon, just click the link here, tell em Print4PHotel sent you.  At this time National Azon is not a sponsor of the Print4Pay Hotel.  They might be one day, however, I was more excited to share what I found and I'm sure it may help many P4P'ers!

-=Good Selling=-