57 Days of Selling

My bad, I missed yesterdays post, because I didn't get home from work until 9:30PM.

Thursday morning was a long one. I made sure that I arrived at the office before 7AM, because I had to prepare and research some data for an existing customer.  This existing client had been laying fallow in our CRM since the last sales person exited our company. I can even remember if that sales person resigned or received the boot.

Thus, I wanted to make sure I was familiar with the existing equipment. I did not want to go in cold,  however I did want to go in hot!  Which means I wanted to be prepared to write the order on the spot if the opportunity presented itself.  I did my homework, I knew what they recently leased, I reviewed the contacts, I read the notes, I paid a visit to their web site (wanted to know what they did) and even prepared a spreadsheet of the existing costs vs proposed new costs.  I GBC'd the brochure, the spreadsheet, copy of the old lease, copy of the original sales order, copy of the old maintenance agreement, along with a new order doc, a new lease and a new maintenance agreement. Of course I highlighted the signature areas and off I went for the 30 mile ride.

I arrived late, because there was no address to their building, after panicking for a few moments because I had almost zero juice in my cell, I was able to connect with my contact. I finally arrived about fifteen minutes late.  The size of this building was HUGE!  I was escorted in by the guard, meet my contact and she then introduced me to the Operations Manager.  The Operations Manager then took me to the old Canon device that they wanted to replace. He asked if we can connect our system to the network IP address that was boldly stuck on the outside of the Canon. I stated "of course" and the Op Manager then stated well we want the same exact system that we received from you last time.

Thank goodness I did my research!!!!! I then asked, "how soon do you need it?  The Op Manager told me that he needed it before the 30th of this month. I then replied with, "got it, we're five to ten business days, I suggest that you order the system today", he replied with "that's fine, do you have paperwork for me?". I thought to my self (do I have paperwork, of fraking course I have the paperwork).  Five minutes later the docs were signed and I was out the door!

Every now and then we get a nugget right? That nugget goes back to the old days when you closed more orders on the first visit rather then meeting multiple times to get the order.  That order was worth $12K

I arrived back at the office about 11:30AM, replied to a few emails and then broke for lunch.  The afternoon consisted of additional follow up calls for open opportunities along with preparing all of the docs that I needed for my 7:30PM appointment before the board of a 501C organization.

I ended up leaving the office about 5:45PM, and headed south for a 90 minute drive. I arrived at the account about 7PM. I called in some back up on this one and invited my VP of Major Accounts in. Since I was going to present in front a board that had more than five people, I thought it would be best to have two experienced guru's available. In addition my  Veep was a champion of what the 501C organization does (sorry, I can tell everyone what they do, because that would let the lead out of the bag).

The presentation went ok, not great, because there was were many objections from one of the board members. Not a big deal, I just need to get more creative, do some additional home work and I'll see them all on Sunday for a charity event.

The order in the AM was for $12k, I also received the PO that I spoke about the other day. Thus, I'm putting up $18K in revenue for today.

Amount Sold Today = $18K

Total Revenue to Date = $80K

New Opportunities Created Today= $0K

Total New Opportunities Created = $219K

Revenue Required $120K

-=Good Selling=-

It was a late night last night, I finally got to sleep around 2AM or maybe 2:30AM.  The election had me riveted to the TV for hours and hours of counting votes, percentages and listening to commentary.

Rather than give you my journal for the day, I thought I would share an email that I just sent to a net new account that I had an appointment with today. The end of the appointment was somewhat humorous. The client had back to back appointments, my was first and then the competition followed.  As I was getting meter reads from an A4 color device (client did not know how to do this, nor where they aware of their color volume), I noticed a one of the two reps give me a stare down as I was working my magic with the A4 color device.  I thought, geesh they need to bring in two people?  Means of them is a rookie and the other is the most likely the sales manager. 

I had offered up a couple of closes, however with the other appointment waiting, the client also needed to met with them.  I did find out that we are close in price, in addition I knew the what the competition was offering from the brand but not the model number.  When I arrived back at my office, I placed a call and received additional information about the appointment with the competition. Below is the email that I just finished up a few minutes ago.

I hate to lose, especially to those that low ball service and supplies, because we all know what is going to happen on the back end.  Not sure where this deal is going, but I can tell you that I'm one tenacious rep that is not going to go down with out covering all of the bases.  Would love to hear some comments, even if it is from the two dudes that followed me!

Dear ...........

I've attached a document for you that list some of the advanced features of the Ricoh device compared to the Samsung device.  I put this together with my knowledge of our Ricoh and data that I found on Samsung.

The side by side that you sent me was great.  However those highlighted areas showing where the Samsung and Canon have "superior" specs is nothing more than an old sales gimmick.  Yes, the Samsung print engine is rated 5 pages more a minute, but the modeling is done with a controlled test document, with an optimized network.

Real print times should be measured when a document is printed from MS Word, MS Excel or .pdf documents.  It's not about the speed of the engine but more about how the engine can process (rip) files from different MS applications. The same holds true for scanning.

Samsung is a relative newcomer to the multifunctional copier industry.  Samsung Imaging Division (printers and copiers) is owned by HP.  It's business as usual right now, but what happens when XYZ company decides to part with Samsung because they don't like the HP business model, or what happens if HP does not want XYZ company as a business partner.  In both of those cases there will be pain for your company. 

We would like to offer you a demonstration/trial of the Ricoh product. We will install one in your location, connect for print, scan and fax and then give you a product demonstration.  You get to try it before you buy it.  There are no strings attached, if you like it you can buy it, if you don't like it we'll remove it.  All of this is done at our cost, no cost to you. 

We can't match the .039 per color page that XYZ company is offering. It's my opinion that they will have an increase after the first year or the first quarter. We've seen increases as high as 25%, that low price tactic is used to lure clients in, hope they don't read the fine print and then increase the heck out of the price to bring them to the normal color cost per page. 

Based on your color volume of 2,500 pages per month. Our excellent service and support would cost $25 more month for the color pages.  Over 36 months that's only $900.  In addition, I have provided you with our cost increases in writing.

What I can tell you is that Stratix is a professional corporation that does not rely on low price tactics nor old sales gimmicks to lure you in. We believe that our service and support is far better than any other vendor in our market.

Please let me know if you are interested in the demonstration at your location, and also please feel free to call me if you have an additional questions in reference to our proposal.

Art

Note from me: I feel that the only change I have is to get the demonstrator in there. If I can do that I know I can demonstrate the heck out of the advanced features compared to my competition.

Amount Sold Today = $0K

Total Revenue to Date = $62K

New Opportunities Created Today= $10K

Total New Opportunities Created = $219K

Revenue Required $138K

Comments are always welcome

I woke up today with this AM with serious trepidation that my candidate for President of the United States of America might not win.  It's now 10:25PM and we're still in the thick of it.  Hard to believe all of this started a mere eighteen months ago. After watching four hours of election results I'm really having a hard time remembering what I did today.

There are days when you have a plan, you start to execute that plan and then  everything goes south.  Today was one of those days. 

Since it is election night, I'm going to make this short and sweet.  My entire day was spent in the office.  I was able to move two opportunities closer to obtaining those orders, not sure though if I'll have them this week or next week.  In addition I was able to schedule two appointments, with one as net new and the other with an existing account for next week.  Even though tomorrow is the 9th of the month I only have eleven days left before the end of the month.  The last day of the month is the day before Thanksgiving, thus I can pretty much call it a day by 11AM. 

There's another way to look at the eleven days that are left.  On average there are twenty two selling days per month, thus I could also take the position that there is still more than fifty percent of the month left.  I like that spin much better.

There was a short discussion in the office today about creating the sense of urgency when you're meeting with your clients. For me, I always bring up the topic of my expectations when we can move forward with the order. In most cases this topic will flush out what the clients buying time is. In sales we understand that we need to know the clients buying time, however I find that telling the client my selling time has helped me close more orders when I need to have them. Thus, I'm creating that sense of urgency.

Oh Crap, Trump picked for North Carolina, it's getting exciting!

In addition to receiving more than 30 emails and sending more than 35 emails today, I was also able to finish up my presentation that I needed for a 7PM appointment on Thursday night.

I have one appointment with a net new tomorrow, this will be my fourth appointment with them and I think we're close to obtaining the order.  With this account, I prepared all of the documents in advance, if they're ready then I need is the signatures.  A wise man once told me, "assume the order". 

PS I'm suppose to get a purchase order tomorrow, however not going to put it in the book until I have the signed docs in hand!

Amount Sold Today = $0K

Total Revenue to Date = $62K

New Opportunities Created Today= $0K

Total New Opportunities Created = $209K

Revenue Required $138K

That's it, I'm out!

Monday, the bane of my existence in sales.

Makes wonder how many sales Mondays I've had in my sales career.  Thirty six years with fifty two Mondays for each year would mean that I've survived 1,872 Mondays. That's a crap load of Mondays.

To give me a better feel for Mondays I did a Bing search for all of those Monday songs. So far it's been, I Don't Like Mondays (Boomtown Rats), Manic Monday (Bangles), my those gals were awesome, Monday Morning (Fleetwood Mac), and for those of us old enough to remember, Monday Monday (Mamas & Papas). My fav?  Manic Monday by the Bangles

For me, Mondays mean a new beginning for the sales week. If you had a bad week last week, don't sweat it, you've got a fresh start with a brand new Monday!

Early Monday was spent getting to the office on time (woohoo), cleaning up any emails that were sent over the weekend. From their I move to developing my proposal for my 2PM appointment with an existing account. I'm meeting with the DM, and this account has been with us for the last 12 years.  The DM and spoke about a week ago, and their requirements are simple, the need for color, the need for wireless and the need for the system to scan to the cloud and print while not on the corporate network.  Did I say that was simple?  My plan was to supply  a MP CW2201SP with a wireless card, the DM could then use his phone as a hot spot and would be able to scan to the cloud, as far as printing goes, we would use the USB interface for printing. Easy peasy!

After finishing up the order docs (which I use as the proposal), I moved to my Thursday night presentation for the board of a 501C. Since I'm going to be presenting for at least seven members and with most of them being older than me, I figured I would develop a short power point that focused on existing costs vs proposed costs and a slide outlining that the assure parts availability expired more than a year ago.  I'm not a fan of power point presentations, however in this case I think this is my best shot to present the facts.  Not sure, if I'll print these out or not, I hate it when you had out multi page ppt's and within five seconds there is someone who is on the last page.  I'm thinking if I do print them out that I only hand them one sheet at a time, it's a little more work, but I can be assured that I will remain in control of the presentation.

By the time I finished the ppt, it was about noon, I grabbed a quick bite to eat and it was time to leave for my 2PM.  Forty five or so minutes later I arrived, had to check through security and then waited another ten minutes or so.  I heard an "Art Post" from the distance, thus it was my time to shine.  Wait, who is this?  The person calling my name was not the DM!  I was then informed the DM could not make it because he had called in sick.  We finished our meeting in about an hour, the upgrade looks good, however the person I met with was not able to sign anything. Man, do I hate leaving stuff out there!  But, I have a plan to get a hold of the DM early tomorrow and see if I can close the order over the phone.  Nothing is ever simple is it?

The ride back to the office took me twice as long as the ride there, due to the fact that I chose a different route back to the office. Well, that plan stunk because of traffic. In addition, my phone was dead the entire ride back and I have left my car charger in the wife's car.  Yes, my wife has the new car and I had the old POS.

After dinner (I was in charge of cooking), I checked the corp email. Nothing good, mostly junk, but I did have one voice mail.  That voice mail was a verbal for an order!  Wants me to call them in the AM.  This was the opportunity where I did all of those side by sides, NICE!  I do Like Mondays!!

Amount Sold Today = $0K

Total Revenue to Date = $62K

New Opportunities Created Today= $0K

Total New Opportunities Created = $209K

Revenue Required $138K

-=Good Selling=-

I'm not going to get into a lot of details, because there was not much going on for Friday. 

I had two stops and one appointment scheduled for the day. The stops were due to some issues with one client about supplies and another client with mobile printing. I could have handled one of them on the phone, but I wanted to get in from of the client fort two reasons. One is that mobile print tends to be a little tricky and I wanted to make sure I asked for a referral in person rather than over the phone. 

I had about 90 minutes before my first call and I used those ninety minutes to send a few emails, return a few emails, check LinkedIn and then prepare for my 2PM appointment.

The 2PM was the one I was looking forward to all week.  I'm looking to knock out a 90ppm A3 black device, along with a color A3 printer.  This opportunity will not be an easy one, since both devices are owned by the client and it was my idea for them to at least consider upgrading both devices.  I stated I would give them an analysis of the last  year of maintenance, supply, labor and parts for both devices. I would then take the existing volume from both existing devices, migrate the volume to the potential new A3 80ppm color and see where the numbers fall.  I have one plus in my favor and that's the age of the current devices.  The 90 ppm A3 device is at least nine years old and the color A3 printer is at least seven years old.

I arrived at 2PM, waited around for about 25 minutes because there was a previous meeting still in session.  Once my clients exited that meeting, we all gathered around the table, and one of the clients stated, "it's lunch time", and before I knew we were ordering up a pizza.  While someone went out to fetch the pizza, it was my time to go over my idea and the analysis for the potential upgrade.  I won't get into to details, however the meeting went so well that I was invited to prepare a presentation for the board and come to the board meeting which is slated for Thursday night of this week.

Thus, I have the opportunity to present and close this Thursday night, what else could I ask for?  I'll create a short and sweet power point, what's old vs what's new, existing costs vs proposed costs and a slide that details the age of the current device along with the parts availability for both devices.

I ended the day at an existing account that was not able to find toner that we had shipped to them.  Their IT person was on vaca and their current device was out of toner.  After five minutes I located the "lost" toner and was then on my way back to my home office to finish up the last few hours of the day.

I'm looking forward to next week. I have at least three scheduled closing appointments and I do see a path to $100K before Thanksgiving. 

-=Good Selling=-

It' just about 10PM, and I just finished up my LinkedIn chores.  Twice a day, once in the AM and then after dinner, I'll spend about 30 minutes viewing my wall, sharing content, adding content, commenting on content and then wishing everyone a Happy Birthday and or a Happy Anniversary at their job.  It's my way of keeping up with contacts and promoting content that I like or find useful for others.

Was there anything unique about today?  Naw, I had to process an order early in the AM, then it was off to follows ups with existing opportunities.  I'm thinking I followed up more by email than by phone, in additional all of the three appointments I set today were via email.   My how the world has changed from the eighties.

I was able to move a few more opps closer to closing and feel that I got a shot of closing at least 20K or more in the next 3 days.  Sure, hope so, Thanksgiving will be here before we know it.

I had a 3PM appointment with an existing account a few minutes from the office. I arrived a few minutes early only to find out that the account had moved on me!!  Arrgghh, now I'm going to be late. I should have checked with the client prior to leaving, thus being late was my fault.  I was lucky because their new office was only a few minutes away. I was suppose to met with the DM to go over that new wide format color scanner from Contex.  The SD One MF is a killer, if you have the time you can check them out at National Azon.

Our DM was not available and thus I meet with the office manager who I have know for years.  We went over features, specs, needs, and pricing, however the office manager was not sure if they needed a 24 or 36 inch model.  The office manager than also asked me for pricing to upgrade to old A3 color MFP that they have, kinda just like yesterday, you just never know what tomorrow will bring!

Before I left, I scheduled the follow up appointment for next week.  Scheduling that follow up appointment is crucial to moving the deal forward.  I could have stated this, "ok, I'll research these items for you and I'll call you to schedule another appointment".  So, WTF does that leave you, especially if you can't get a hold of them for a week or maybe two weeks.  Right, you leave with nothing! You then  hope that you can schedule that next appointment on the first call.  Leave nothing to chance, make your own way and control your own sales destiny.

By the time I left it was somewhere around 4PM and that meant stupid traffic on the way back to the office.  So, not a bad day, no orders but developed another $10 in opportunities, and that's what really matters.  You can't sell jack %$#$ without opportunities.

Amount Sold Today = $10K

Total Revenue to Date = $62K

New Opportunities Created Today= $00K

Total New Opportunities Created = $209K

Revenue Required $138K

-=Good Selling=-

"What Type of Day is it Today?" 

Any guesses...."It's a Great Day to Sell Something!" 

Initially, I had three appointments for today, "had" is the key word.  I rescheduled my early AM appointment for an existing account.  We were scheduled for a webinar for AP & AR workflows along with a discussion about the existing MFP.  I was not able to get a history on my MFP in time, thus I had to reschedule. 

My second appointment was a closing appointment, brings the docs, review the docs and get the signature. More on that  in a bit. 

One of the items I mentioned to the newbie aka rookie in the office is that I try to limit creating proposals. I would rather write up the lease, maintenance agreement and sales order in advance. Then highlight all of the signature areas and tag those highlighted areas with little green "sign here" stickers.  I'm thinking the little green  "sign here" stickers gets my point across. 

I've even presented up three sets of closing documents if I'm presenting multiple recommendations.  Assuming the order is a good thing!  I don't mind re-doing the docs because a client wants to add or take away something from the order!

Our resident rookie aka newbie broke the ICE today and signed his first order on his own!  Woohoo!  Awesome and good for him, I can see there's a good work ethic there. 

K, back to the second appointment, I got all of the docs signed and my client then hit me with, we want to get two more of these for the other offices, not today but maybe a week to a couple of weeks! 

See, that's a part of this business that I love, as long as you keep prospecting you just never know what tomorrow is going to bring.  I knew about their other two offices years ago, but put them on the back burner for awhile.  The order was for a color A4 MFP and revenue is about $10K. In addition, I scored with two more opps for $10K each!

Alright, my third appointment of the day, well never came to fruition. I had a call about noon from one of my clients, asking me what happened yesterday. Ok, I told him I had a few appointments, the day was ok and went home about 5PM. "No", he stated, "you were suppose to meet with Tim to go over the specs for a new copier". I was like WHAT!  No, I have Tim down for today.  I went to my scheduler and I had two appointments for them, one for yesterday ( had rescheduled that) and one for today. Anyway, we rescheduled for Friday, and I'm hoping that looks good for an 800ppm color A4.

Can't wait for tomorrow!

Amount Sold Today = $10K

Total Revenue to Date = $62K

New Opportunities Created Today= $20K

Total New Opportunities Created = $199K

Revenue Required $138K

-=Good Selling=-

Geesh, it's day twenty already!  Can't believe I've done this for twenty work days in a row. 

Everyday I try to add something in the daily blog that I can share with others,  after thirty six years of selling down the street, I have a few more than the average bear. I'll try and figure that tip out later in this blog.

My first appointment was at 9AM, and thank goodness for that, I was able to work from the home office until 8:30AM. 

The appointment was to discuss and review a proposal for a wide format system.  There was no opportunity to close since the proposal would have to be approved at different levels for the purchase order to be approved. We spent about 15 minutes reviewing the proposal, the features, and a few questions about a couple of specs. Other than that, nothing much to bring home to mama.  On the way out, I did close for the next point of contact.  We both agreed to touch base in 5 days to see where we are in the process of getting the system ordered.

Next stop, was the office for another day of following up, prospecting, working the CRM and preparing for two appointments for tomorrow.  I probably ended up with maybe 20 calls, set three appointments, with one closing appointment for tomorrow.  I also had a good email exchange with another client that believes we'll be seeing an order for a 45ppm color A3 device in a few days! 

Speaking of emails, I'm thinking I sent 25-30 emails and probably responded to another 15 that were incoming. It was a busy day.

I was able to add a one small opportunity for a small A4 device, but it didn't start out that way. I had received a call from a net new prospect that had seen one of our systems in the field. That prospect wrote down the equipment ID# number and gave us a call, stating that they were interested in that type of device. Initially, I had called the prospect, but was relinquished to leaving a voice mail.  Right after I finished the call,  I sent an email to our prospect with the hope of setting an appointment. We had an email exchange back and forth and the client was putting up a good fight for not meeting, stating "that is the model I'm looking for, and I need a price".  Not wanted to spend to much time on a lower end A3 Color device, I relinquished and offered up pricing via email.  But, I also sent along a paragraph on why it's important to meet (space, network, Macs, existing equipment).

We had a further email exchange today with the prospect objecting to the price and asking if there was anything pre-owned.  I had nothing to offer that would be less that what I already price out.  I had then had my epiphany of the day!  I forgot all about asking this client about his needs for 11x17. It turns out there was no need for 11x17, thus I called the prospect and we where chatting about some of the cool A4 color and black devices that we have.  Thirty minutes later I sent out some numbers for loaded A4 black and color device.  Figured I would give the prospect two choices instead of one. 

We just emailed each other about ten minutes ago for a few additional questions (8:56PM here).  I'm thinking we're a few days from nailing this down also. Other than that it's late I still need to post press releases on the site and figure out why HootSuite has been messing up.

Amount Sold Today = $0K

Total Revenue to Date = $52K

New Opportunities Created Today= $3K

Total New Opportunities Created = $179K

Revenue Required $148K

-=Good Selling=-

It's Monday, the weather was clear and I got a head start on the day.  Just about 8:30AM I received an email from an existing client that he had signed the order docs and they were ready to be picked up. 

I'm all over that and scheduled an appointment to pick them up at 3:15PM.  I selected the 3:15PM time slot because I had another appointment booked for 4:15 a few miles away with an existing client.

The other day, we had our net new telephone prospecting morning.  One of the newbies in the office made 90 calls and no connections.  Wow, that's awesome dialing that many numbers, but on the other end it's a real bummer that the newbie could not connect with anyone.  No worries newbie it happens from time to time.

I learned some time ago, that I will not make a telephone cold call unless I know what that company sells.  This allows me to ponder some type of vertical pitch before I make the call. 

The main pitch will not be about we sell copiers or IT, but more focused on how the DM could benefit from what our service or product can do for them.

For instance, I might ask the DM if they every have overage charges on their copiers. If so, I would make this statement, "our program could eliminate overage charges for copiers and MPS programs, is that something that you would be interested in?"

If I have the DM's name, then it's off to LinkedIn and Google to see if we have mutual connections or anything in common.  Commonality is huge, whether it's sports, fishing, reading organizations, try and find something that you have on common.

My goal for today was to get 10-15 mailers in the mail, which includes a corporate  brochure, my card, a folder and then a brief hand written note.  Thus, all of my calls today took some time. I checked out each company on their website and google. In addition I also checked out the DM's for any commonality.  One mailer even included a copy of the LinkedIn page and who we had in common for first level connections. That was a first!

I'll be following up on those accounts next week, since the mail takes so long now!

After lunch I was still committed to cleaning up the rest of the calls in my CRM.  I scheduled two additional appointments later this week and was able to schedule 3 webinars with existing clients for workflow processes.    Not a bad day so far.

At 3:15PM, I picked up my order!  The a short drive to over to my next appointment.  My client had expressed interest in moving from a black device to a color device.  They were doing more marketing and did not have a color printer, in addition they were tired of going back and forth to Staples and the local printer for color docs. 

Seems like there is always some of issues that we need to work through.  In this case it was twenty payments left on the lease. Which added up to a pretty hefty amount, but I had a plan.  My plan was to show my client their existing costs, and then their proposed costs, and then break the cost down from yearly to monthly and then to daily.  The end result is the daily cost to upgrade was ninety eight cents a day for 26 work days.  I have the closing appointment scheduled for Thursday to sign the docs for the new color device!

Amount Sold Today = $8K

Total Revenue to Date = $52K

New Opportunities Created Today= $0K

Total New Opportunities Created = $176K

Revenue Required $148K

-=Good Selling=-

Four days in to the new month and it already feels like I'm in the last week of the month!

My last day of the month for November falls on the 23, which is the day before Thanksgiving here in the US.  Thus, I figure I'm at least going to lose half a day at most. I've got three solid weeks to keep prospecting and closing

Last week was not one of my better weeks, a nagging sinus headache and then a flare up of arthritis in my left foot made my day start late on Friday and I had to scratch all of my in person visits that I had planned.

Never the less, there was much to do with prospecting, and moving deals forward.  The three orders that I thought would close this week did not, I didn't lose any of them, all just taking a little more time that I expected.

I was able to confirm my demonstration for Saturday with a net new client for the MP C8002SP.  I arrived at the office a little before 9AM, and there was my client pulling up behind me. 

My client brought in six different types of substrate to run on the MP C8002, and to also get a better understanding of how the Fiery can help with color matching (something he does not have now).  The demo was more of a sit down going over the features of the fiery, sending them to print and then evaluating the color quality on each substrate.  Two hours later we still had some other samples to run, however my client had to get back to his office to get a few things done. I agreed that I would print those other samples during the week and then bring them to him.

I'd love to talk about what he does, however his business is so unique that I'm afraid I'd let the cat out of the bag and would have others calling on him. The time I spent on Saturday was well worth it, because we were able to work together in a relaxed atmosphere and there were zero distractions.

Over the years, I'm scheduled many Saturday appointments, with most of them being demonstrations at the office.  Saturday demonstrations show commitment from the rep that he or she is willing to go the extra mile and work with the clients schedule. That's a plus for the client when they are looking at multiple vendors.  Any client that is willing to see you on a Saturday is serious about buying and has already developed a level of trust with that rep.

Next week here we come!!!

Amount Sold Today = $0K

Total Revenue to Date = $44K

New Opportunities Created Today= $0K

Total New Opportunities Created = $176K

Revenue Required $156K

Last nights sinus headache became this mornings issue. I gave some serious thought about calling in sick, but decided to tuff it out and get my ass into the office. 

Thus, I finally arrived at the office about 10AM, not my idea of a good start, but never the less, I was there instead of sleeping on the couch.

My goal for the day? 

Was to get some of these opportunities to close and too schedule appointments for some of the larger opportunities that I have in the pipeline.  First things first, I followed up with my appointment from yesterday for the inexpensive wide format color scanner.  Had to leave him a voice mail, but also sent him and email asking for the order. 

BTW, I use this subject line almost all of the time in my emails, "sorry, I missed, you", I read this on Hubspot a few months ago and the blog stated that the "sorry, I missed you", subject title gets more opens than "following up".

If I have that the contacts email address and I'm down to leaving a voice mail, I will opt out of the voice mail and send the email.

After a few calls, a few emails, I was no close to closing a few orders than I was yesterday. I had completed all of my follow ups and moved nothing forward. 

Incoming

I received a call from one of my existing account prospect that's fighting for me, however I've got competition and I'm at my lowest price, and that also translates that I've also got the highest price out of my two other competitors.  My prospect agreed that service and support is key, however there was a very large margin from the lowest price copier to mine.  Stating he could pay more, but needs additional justify for his boss to obtain the OK to move forward. 

I had completed a side for side for him the other day vs the other two competitors. It was a simple side by side that picked out seven specs that makes my Ricoh stand out.  That side by side proved not to be the answer, thus while on the phone with him, I stated, let me go through all of the features again and let me see what I can come up with.

Rather than supplying a spec side by side, I decided to research the heck out of my features and pick out four to five of them that my competition did not have.  That was the easy part, what I needed to do next was to put those features to work as to what they could do for his workgroup.  I then racked my memory banks for a current client that was in the same vertical market.  One I found that client,  I then thought about how they benefitted from those features.  Thus the first line of the spreadsheet was the feature, the second line was a detailed outline of how they used the feature, and how the feature saved them time or money.  Yes, it's quite a bit of work, but that's why I'm at work.

Within an hour I had my customized side by side. I called my existing account prospect and read line by line, by the time I was done he was pretty excited and thinks he can put this to bed tomorrow.  What's another day at this point in time, right. Three days into the new month and I feel like it's been three weeks.

Later that day

Scheduled an appointment with an existing account that wants to upgrade to color. Bingo!  Another opportunity. More calls, more emails.  I scheduled an appointment for Saturday with a net new account!  So much for sleeping in.

Home

Dang, this getting longer than I thought. I had an email from an existing client that he wanted to move in a different direction. WHAT!, different direction I thought?  I had pitched him on a color wide format system and was in the follow up stage because he could not make the decision alone. I knew this going in.  After a half a dozen emails back and forth, no decision was made, the objection was the price, and he was looking for just a plotter.  Ok, I got those, and we agreed that we will talk more tomorrow.  WHEW! 

Till tomorrow!

Amount Sold Today = $0K

Total Revenue to Date = $44K

New Opportunities Created Today= $10K

Total New Opportunities Created = $176K

Revenue Required $156K

-=Good Selling=-

FYI, I've got a killer sinus headache tonight, gonna make this short and sweet for every one.

Had two appointments for today, one was for a wide format color scanner scheduled at 10AM and the second appointment was too follow up with an existing account that had the hots for improving their paper based workflow for purchase orders and the associated invoices and maybe the need to replace to older analog copiers with something pre-owed.  Still can't believe I'm seeing analog copiers still in the field.

My early morning was tasked with sending courtesy emails to existing clients with a teaser about document management software.  Thought I would put a little bait in the email and see what happens.

One of my deals, backed off some. I was suppose to have the order yesterday,  which prompted a call to my prospect.  My prospect then informed me that they are going to wait a bit, because they really didn't need the system right now and the buying time was moved back a few weeks. ARRRGGHH!

I thought the move was intentional and the prospect was hoping I might drop the price to get the deal done.  Well, there was no dropping of the price, because I'm holding the position of strength with a cream puff of a pre-owned system.  Just going to let the ball travel with this account and see how this plays out in a couple of weeks.

My first appointment was with an existing wide format client who bought from me ten years ago.  Yes, he still has an analog wide format device that just makes copies!  Thus, I was ready with and pre-filled order doc, a pre-filled lease and the intent was to get an order for a low end wide format scanner. 

The first thing my prospect hits me with is a print out from Craig's list for a used Ricoh Digital wide format that was reselling for about $3K. I was able to debunk this quite easily because there was no model number, no meter read, and no service history. I knew and my prospect knew that if a drum needed to be replaced,  the cost was more than want he wanted to spend.

My client then hands me a printout from a web site where they are offering a full color wide format scanner (24inch) for $1,995. At this point, I'm thinking.......why am I wasting my time with this?  However,  the product he showed me was interesting and I thought I would pick the system apart by reading the entire brochure.  I did not walk out with an order, nor did I lose an order, but I offered up a stall to do some additional research and get back to my client later that day.  Right now, it's more about revenue, and I think I can get the order tomorrow with one more phone call. It is a big deal, no it's not, is it worth my time, not actually.  "But meat is meat and a mans gotta eat".  Like I've stated it's more about revenue right now.

I was back to the office by noon, had lunch and then received a lead for a wide format systems.  WooHoo!  I did reach out by phone and could not connect, thus I sent an email right after the call.  Hoping this appointment can be scheduled tomorrow.

Afternoon appointment was with that existing account that had shown some interest in document management and two copiers.  My client met me in the hallway and stated, "I'd like to get those copiers, however not everyone is on board", I then stated to the client (Operations Manager), "maybe it's time to wield your power and just order the systems, it's not like you don't need them.", "maybe you're right" he stated, "give me a few days on this".  I could have hit him again, but I backed off because I wanted to secure the meeting for the document management.  I offered up a lunch and learn for him. I stated you get your people, I'll get my people, I'll buy lunch and we'll schedule the webinar in your office.  My client agreed that was good and we both agreed that we would get our peeps together and select a date for next week or the week after.

I arrived back at the office and concentrated on prospecting with existing clients for the rest of the day.  Left a little after 5PM

Not a great day, but not a bad day, still moving things forward and added another opp. Like I stated, I'm ok as long as I can add one opportunity per day, because sooner or later all of these opps are going to start dropping.

Amount Sold Today = $0K

Total Revenue to Date = $44K

New Opportunities Created Today= $11K

Total New Opportunities Created = $166K

Revenue Required $156K

-=Good Selling=-