MFP Copier Blog

I've been thinking about this for the past week or so. 

Where the frak is the sizzle for selling Managed IT or BDR (backup Disaster Recovery)?

Selling Managed IT and BDR is boring!! As my wife states "it's a real snooze"! 

Where is the sizzle?  Am I missing something? There's no oohhs and ahhs with Managed IT/BDR, unlike when you see a beautiful color print emerge from an MFP aka copier.  Or do you see a clients eyes light up with that look of "buy me" when you tell them your BDR service will mirror all of your data in two separate data locations on the east and west coast.  Nope, it's still a fraking snooze.

Is this what sales have come down to in the office equipment industry, selling services from a brochure? 

Even now, when telling clients about the new cloud services that they can print from the cloud, scan to the cloud and even enable documents as searchable .pdfs can still get a "really, we could do that"? or "gee these would be nice features to have" and "we want that". This is SIZZLE!

"I'm mad as hell and not gonna take this anymore", was actually a famous line from the 1976 flick NETWORK.

I'm mad as hell and I'll dig deeper on appointments and look for those opportunities that will enable me to NOT to be the same as everyone else. I will help companies manage the great expanse of data and help them manage, collect, analyze and store their data that will help them improve their business process!  I promise to find the pain that every company has and bring forth a solution of hardware (SIZZLE) and software that will be the correct prescription to alleviate the pain and improve their business and make them more profitable!

I'm thinking what I may have just posted above is the new Art Post manifesto for taking my sales to the next level. Everything changes nothing is constant and we need to be prepared and excited to change and try new concepts. Not changing or diversifying can be our demise, but look at how much some of us have changed in the last 20 years.  Did I ever think 20 years ago that I would ever even consider selling Managed IT or BDR, NO, because it's still a fraking snooze!

-=Good Selling=-

Most will say, argghh, it's way to complicated and I don't have the time for that. All I want to do is sell and make money or I'm sure the commission report is correct and there's no need to double check, or how about this one that was once stated to me many years ago. "we don't make mistakes with commission reports".  WHAT!!  I just shrugged my shoulders and kept quite but thought "what do you expect from a pig but a grunt".

Knowing the ins and outs,of your comp plan and the manufacturers programs will win you extra business or lose additional business if you are not an expert with those plans.

Knowing when to hold them and when to fold them should be a crucial part of your learning curve as a sales person in the industry.  I try to be as up to date as possible with all of the manufacturers programs and have learned by stupid mistakes the ins and outs of my comp plan.  Stupid can be good, cause the 2nd time around you will have learned your lesson about being ignorant of the comp plan.

Most of the manufacturers have special programs for Print4Pay, Real Estate, Health Care, Major, Municipal or let me put it this way "most vertical markets that still have a paper intensive workflow.  Don't be wishy washy and expect these plans to be laid out to you, some will and some won't.  The some won't is probably just because everyone is busy, we're all trying to do more with less and sometimes these plans are forgotten. 

"Outta Site" and "Outta Mind" is a saying that I use for many of my advertisers, and it is so true. I have reminders pinned in the walls of my cubicle so I don't forget!! 

Thus take some time to think of all the plans that are in your sales arsenal, make your own flyer, pin or tape it to your wall at the office, your pitch book and be prepared to do some business!

-=Good Selling=-

If we were took take a look at the copier industry in 10 year snapshots, I would name the snapshot from 1981-1991 as the "Decade of Expansion", 1991 -2001 as the "Decade of Digital", 2001-2011 would be the "Decade of Color" and 2011-2021 as I see it now would be named the "Decade of Diversity".  Dealers have been and are diversifying their portfolio of services to their new and legacy account base. 

Fonality:  Which leads me to Fonality!  I'm a hardware geek, and I am not ashamed!  This was the first BTA show that I've attended where I was able to speak with a telecommunications vendor. Ask your self, how many times has a new prospect of an existing customer asked you if you can provide them with phones?  I hear it at least four to five times a year, some of us will provide a referral to the customer, others will say "sorry we don't do phones" and very few of us will say "yes, we can help you!".

"Fonality is turning the tables about how you think about and purchase a business phone solution for you company. It has never been easier to a complete business-grade voice, collaboration, and contact center solution for a simple , all-inclusive (we like that word right!), per user price." 

The above is an excerpt from their brochure, I did speak with Bill briefly and I liked the idea of offering telecommunications services. I'm sure it's not for all of us, but why walk away from controlling or offering all the communication services?

Darrell Amy (Dealer Marketing):  What an excellent speaker he is!  I could only wish that when he was selling copiers that I was one of his customers looking for a system, you just have to be impressed with how he delivers his message.  

The message?  Dealers need to embrace the change in the way customers want to interact with your sales teams.  The days of walking down the street handing out 50 business cards and brochures is long gone. Darrell understands the significant changes in social media that's taken place in the last couple of years.  Darrell's put together an awesome webinar that will enable dealer sales management and sales people to learn the 7 steps of making social media work for you!

Even an old guy like me that has figured out social media will be in attendance on the 9th of October, because you can teach and old dog new tricks!!! Go here for additional info for the webinar.

Too late to post #6 come back tomorrow or the next day or even the day after for the finale!

-=Good Selling=-

-=Good Selling=-

Baltimore was awesome! The BTA event had excellent attendance by Office Equipment Dealers plus all of the vendors that I spoke to were in agreement that they thought the show was well attended and the quality of contacts and meetings were top notch.

Not in an particular order, but here's what I liked when I visited the vendors looking for new products, features and or services.

Global Printer Services:  Half the battle when looking for a new vendor or adding services is the knowledge and tenure of the representatives that work for that company. We all like stability and can develop a relationship with reps that have some tenure and an excellent track record.  I've been attending the BTA and Photizo events for a little more than a year now. At every event is Roy Divine (Account Manager) for GPS.  I've found him to be quite knowledgeable and an expert when it comes to helping a dealer grow the MPS side of the business.  GPS specializes in offering dealers re-manufactured HP laser printers with warranties to help build an MPS fleet with a low investment. For more about GPS click here. 

Okidata:  Oki has always been one of my favorites for niche type imaging systems. A fellow BTA member motioned me over to him and handed me what I thought was a brochure, it was a brochure alright however the image was fused onto a letter size magnet!!  Image was awesome,  I later found out that this was a sample from the new OKI C941dn color printer (C941dn, C931dn, C911dn.

This beast (C931dn) will handle up to 360gsm single sided, is a five color process with Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and White or Clear!!!  FYI, the C931 and C911 are 4 color only. Oh, I forgot to mention the C921dn has a speed of up to 50 pages per minute. I gotta get me one of these!!

While other printer and MFP manufacturers are thinking of ways to generate business process solutions, OKI continues to knock it out of the box to create color imaging systems that will increase clicks!!!  Kudos to Oki!

Muratec: If I were going to start my own dealership or desired a 2nd line, Muratec is on my short list for the first call!  They've got A4, A3, Managed IT, Mobile and more.

AS I came up to the Muratec booth I noticed there was a new fellow with them.  He was young, Japanese and a real ringer for either being a product person or an engineer. Now, I always like to have some fun, especially at someone else's expense. Well I guess you had to be there, later both he and I agreed that I speak very little Japanese and he speaks very little English.

Thus on to my point, Gregg Ross demo'd me the latest and greatest A4 MFX 3590X device.  Most of it was old news except for two features, one was the internal mounted convenience stapler device, which I thought was cool feature to have. The other and more alluring was the fact that the Muratec 3590X out of the box is able to scan to any shared folders on the network ( I was on the phone with Lou @ Muratec a few minutes ago and he claimed that they have had this feature for sometime ).

No third party software to reside on a server, no additional expense to the dealer or customer or dealer, and easy to deploy once the system is installed.  I can't do this with the systems that I sell out of the box, I need additional software, maintenance and install is required.  Thumbs up to Muratec on this one!

Stay tuned 4,5 & 6 will be posted in a few days!!

-=Good Selling=-

Managing Print Costs for Wide Format Ink Plotters

Over the weekend I took the time to finish one of my spreadsheets that enables us (Print4Pay Hotel members) to identify the cost per square foot for HP inkjet plotters.  

Happy CASH!  This was a statement that a cab driver stated while he was taking us from the Hyatt Regency to Camden Yards. He was happy that he was only charging us $5 for a 5 minute cab ride, because when the Yankees are in town the same cab ride would be $5 dollars and he would have to sit in traffic the entire way. Our cab driver stated he didn't like that kind of business, because everyone would be po'd because of the traffic,  thus the ride he was taking that night was "happy cash".

In a sense I can say that there are orders that I write that are also "happy cash", those are the orders where you're in and out in 45 minutes or less and you have a signed order.  The GP isn't a big deal and I'm alright with less because I can move on to the next deal! 

Close #8

8.      Deferred payments to Close:  Most leasing companies will give you different rates to defer the first few payments of the lease.  In most cases it’s the first 90 days. However you can also get 30, & 60.  Keep in mind that most leasing companies bill arrears thus you also have 30 days.

With this program the customer will still have to make all the payments for the term of the lease, it’s just that the first payment wouldn’t start for 90 days.

It was a nice an easy drive down the New Jersey Turnpike this afternoon, the wife and I made the drive in about three and a half hours.  

This year the Grand Slam Event is at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore inner Harbor. This is my first to trip to Baltimore and so far so good.

Our event kicked off about 4PM and the conference was packing (standing room only).  If you're not familiar with the BTA Regional Events you would love the setup of the conference area.  All along the walls of the conference room is where the vendors (show sponsors) reside with their tables, In the middle of the room there are rows and rows of tables set up for the BTA attendees and at the front of the conference room is where the presenters will present their educational seminars tomorrow.

I was really looking forward to hearing from Tod Pike Senior Vice President of Samsung/Business Enterprise Division. I was impressed with the keynote that he delivered.  Unlike the canned MDS/MNS presentations of Ricoh in Orlando and Kyocera in Rye, NY last year, Tod focused on tell the BTA attendees about "What it Takes to Stay Great" and emphasized the need for dealers to hire more twenty somethings to develop and grow the business for Managed Services.  Tod also spoke about the need for Dealers to gain a good grasp on how to connect with new customers with social media.   

Just a couple of takeaways from Tod's keynote:

• 17-18% of the printed pages is color.
• 2% of the printed page volume is 11x17.
• Game changer is marrying hardware with output management software

Tomorrow I'll get to hear hear from many other speakers but more importantly I'm looking forward to hear from Frank Cannata in the dealer panel that goes off at 9AM.  BTW I'll have the video of Tod Pike's keynote address uploaded this Sunday night.

-=Good Selling=- 

When I first heard about LinkedIn I can remember that LinkedIn was a social site for professionals that would help you advance your career and help with finding new job opportunities.

Personally, I enjoy using LinkedIn and I feel that LinkedIn is one of those invaluable resources for learning more about "WHO" makes what company tick when you need to do some research. 

On appointments I will ask existing customers and prospects if they are using LinkedIn, if they are I will connect with them and if they tell me they are not I will then ask them if they know about LinkedIn. In most cases the DM's that I meet with are familiar with LinkedIn, however in recent months I had some DM's tell me that they have removed themselves from the service due to the fact they are being overburdened with sales people trying to connect, looking for appointments or just sending them junk.  In a recent thread from one of my prospects on LinkedIn, his thread stated something to the effect "if you are connected with me and continue to annoy me with sending inmail, then I will delete you from my contact list", whew kinda cruel and I thing very small minded but he's got a point. 

It seems that some DM's that are connected on LinkedIn are becoming more and more dissatisfied with the service and are opting out.  Why is that?  I have my own theory that there is an abundance of lazy sales people out there, and instead of doing some real prospecting like picking up the phone, sending some real mail and doing an in person visit, they are following the path of least resistance and are cyber stalking influencers and DM's.  Thus, I can't put all of the blame on those lazy sales people since LinkedIn has some premium pay modules that will guarantee a response with three little asterisks next to it.  Of course if you don't read the asterisk points you can get the impression that you will get a response.

If many influencers and DM's opt out, then I would ask where is the value in using LinkedIn?  What most sales people don't understand about LinkedIn is that it's not about you contacting them, it's about those influencers and DM's wanted to contact YOU! 

Most sales people are not aware of how to make this happen. I've been able to make this happen with use 8 different techniques that will have influencers and DM's contacting you.

I guess the next Blog I will do after the BTA Grand Slam Event (which starts today in Baltimore at 4PM) will be titled "My Top 8 To DO List Items When Using LinkedIn". It will be a Premium Blog, which the yearly subscription is only $117 per year, but if you follow the 8 points you will have influencers and DM's contact you and that's what it's all about.

-=Good Selling=-

This Blog is the top blog on the old site has more than 15,000 page views!!  ENJOY!!

Demo, what the heck is that?  In other posts I've mentioned that demo's were the way we used to sell copy machines many years ago. 

So, the first one everyone knows, hey we're already in the office servicing the account for copiers.  Our service and support is excellent and we are a valued service provider.

The second reason is also a no brainer for most companies. One stop shopping for your IT needs and Imaging needs, and one POC (Point of Contact), larger mid-size companies are all over this concept. They all need to do more with less and some don't even have the time to look at consolidating their vendor list.  You my friend would be doing them a great favor by scheduling an appointment to tell them about added value your dealership has to offer.

My third reason is knowledge, or let's say it's the knowledge that is needed to sell Managed IT, and Backup Disaster & Recovery. Everyone could use it, most may want it, but more importantly you only need to learn what Managed IT encompasses and a how you BDR programs work. You can create a short FAB list for each one and you're off and running to close some deals.

The 4th reason, is that this is something we need to sell to existing accounts first!  Forget about the 65 cold calls trying to pitch Managed IT to new prospects. The gold mine is in your database.  Some may ask where?  For me it's those annoying network sheets that I have to fill out for every MFP sale. There's a box that states IT on-site, IT off-site and for me I know when there is no IT. Throw out the IT on-sites, hold off on the IT off-site (you'll call them later) and focus on the no IT.  Those are the customers that probably have the most issues and are paying time and materials for every issue. It should be as easy as buying a loaf of bread to find some pain.

But here's the real reason and the final for why Managed IT makes the most sense. IT'S ABOUT THE CASH!!! Let's say you're a 20 something, new to the business, you're not married, and the pay you're getting as a salary is decent.  Since the average Managed IT (going on some of my quotes and deals) is in the $700 a month range, there are some comp plans that will pay you a 10% residual every month (not all, some). Crunching the numbers let say you get one stinking order a month, that's $70 bucks for the first month, $140 for the 2nd, $210 for the third, $280 for the fourth, well we can see where I'm going with this. By the end of the first year you'll be getting a residual commission of $840 per month with only writing ONE order a month. Why not hang around for year two, and the end of year two you'll be cranking $1,680 per month, year four $3,340 and in year 8 you'll have $6,720 in commissions every month. FOR ONLY one stinking deal a month.

I wish I was twenty something again, selling two a month would be INSANE money after 8 years.

Of the course the trick is to hold onto every account, but as time passes you'll get better at what you do and selling more than one of month is not out of the question.

We all can't sell production print systems to pay the bills, right!!!!

So remember to go out and sell something or as I ask the younger reps in the office, "What kind of day is it today?", most  will say it's nice...., NO IT"S A GOOD DAY TO SELL SOMETHING!!!

-=Good Selling=-

I always to try to add some type of value for one of these threads that I post for "31 Ways to Close More Sales".

A few months ago I had to purchase a new cell phone, the blackberry was crapping out and so were my eyes from staring at that small screen.

I elected to go with the Samsung Galaxy 3 and wouldn't you know it that the next week or two they released the 4.  More importantly I purchased what Verizon calls the "jet pack" which will give me internet access anywhere, yes the cost was $24 dollars more per month and for the first three months I hardly used it. However the last day of the quarter was yesterday for me and I found my self having to write deals and email them from a parking lot. If I did not have the jetpack it would have taken me an hour to get back to the office and not enough time to get these orders booked. Thus, what I figured was right, it's only going to be that one time when I need the jetpack that made a huge difference since I was able to hit my quarter number and get the big bonus money. 

You can also use this when selling an option on a system, thus the scenario would go like this.  "Mr. Customer the booklet maker option will only cost you $30 more per month", the customer states "naw for $30 bucks a month I don't use it that often",  "understood, but what's that worth to you when you do need the booklet maker option, what will it cost you to outsource the job, pick it up, along with that one special time and we all have them is when you say, dang it I wish I would have bought that booklet maker, because when you get to that point, the cost of $30 more a month was well worth the investment".

Sometimes you gotta spend it to make it! 

On with the #7 close

7.      Offer to prepay lease payments to Close:  Need to close the deal and the customer won’t budge?  Call em back and don’t drop your price, but off them a deal they can’t refuse like paying the first six payments on the lease.  Also make sure you tell em it’s not deferred payments but their lease will have a shorter term.  If you pay the first 6 payments on a 60 month lease the customer only has to make 54 payments.  Again, make sure you have enough money in the deal for this.

-=Good Selling=-