Better Call Art

This series is all about connected with some of the most tenured and talented reps I know in the industry today. I'm asking them to give up the ghosts for prospecting net new, what's hot for hardware/solutions and what's working from them in their market place. Please join us!

This could be and probably will be one of the shortest blogs I've ever written.  When I used to have a lot of newbies reps around I would always ask them "what type of day is it today?".

Kinda makes you think right?  I could also see the puzzled look on their faces and thinking there's got to be more than this to the weather right?  Yes, most if not all of the answers to my question was weather related. Raining, sunny, cold, hot, humid and not a one gave me the answer I was looking for.

The answer is simple and should be easy to figure out when you're in the business of selling. Ah, that key word of "selling", for those that are new they don't understand the art of selling.  Their early entry to the sales world is more about being an order taker because most don't know how or when to ask for the order.

Are we really teaching the art of sales anymore or are we just teaching reps about prospecting and finding opportunities?

Back in eighties when I learned it was all about asking for the order and we all understood that if we don't ask we don't get.  Those who didn't get the order by asking for it and still got the order were the "order takers".  Who the frak wants to be an "order taker?"

Those that listened to their clients and heard those key words; warranty, maintenance, availability, and support knew that these were buying signals and the next question of course would be the trial close.  Of course it took many orders lost for us to understand what the client was trying to tell us.  However over time we learned from listening and asked more questions that would lead to a yes.

Is there a moral to this?  Well yes and no, times have changed from those days when you had to sell a client hard and on the spot. We've learned to be a bit more patient and be more consultative in our approach.  That's a great thing, but from time to time we still need to ask those closing questions that move the order into the win column. If you don't ask you don't get.

Ah yes, the answer to the question is.  It's a Great Day to Sell Something!

-=Good Selling=-

Just an FYI we'll be be posting these once a week. The first four will be free and then you'll need a premium/vip membership to access

Better Call Art "The Start of Something New"

The pandemic is just about over here in the United States. Many of us are wondering what the post pandemic business environment will be like for sales. During the pandemic many of us had on the job training with how to use Zoom and MS teams to communicate, present and close business. For the most part we adapted, we made mistakes, we made adjustments and long run many of us became more productive.

What will be the post pandemic process for those of us in office technology sales? Will we continue to remain virtual, will we offer clients a hybrid meeting model, or will we go back to our pre-pandemic sales calls? Are prints falling off the cliff, will we see a return to pre-pandemic print levels, or is all the hype about office printing not true?

With a tenure of forty-one years in the office technology space and my Print4Pay Hotel (primarily with copiers), I've been able to establish relationships with some of the most tenured and talented office technology reps from around the world.

Our new "Better Call Art" videos offer up 15-20 minute video chats where we'll have an informative sales chat and ask those questions that everyone want's to know about selling office technology in our post pandemic business climate. For me it's all about sharing our knowledge and I believe that these chats will be offer up fantastic tidbits of information for newbies, rookies, novice and even tenured reps like my self. Yes, I'll be asking many of you to give up the ghost, and tell me those secrets that make you successful. In return you'll also get to hear from other tenured reps that may being doing something different but still producing results. In the end we can all get some takeaways from every chat with every rep.

It's my belief that that there's not enough of this peer to peer sharing in our industry. Yes, many of us may have sales coaches or our dealerships have contracted with "sales consultants", however it's my belief that if you haven't been actively selling office technology in two years then you're a dinosaur. We all know what happened to them.  Most consultants have no clue what's working or not working in the field.

Below are a couple of the questions we'll be asking.

1)  What did you do differently during Covid19 for finding net new clients?

2)  What are you doing now in a post COVID19 for finding net new clients?

3)  Are you chatting with your clients about MFP security more now than before?

In addition I'll be asking follow up questions during our chat. We've already completed two of these and our goal is to post one each week from here on in. From time to time I'll be changing the questions to reflect real time issues that we are facing every day.

Our first four "Better Call Art" videos are free. If you have a Premium Print4Pay Hotel membership then you're in like Flint because the new series is included with a premium membership. Premium memberships can be purchased for $117 per year through our site www.p4photel.com, we also offer lifetime Premium memberships for $399.

Keep in mind that my day job is still selling copiers, managed IT, content and backup. I'm in the trenches every day just like you.

Tonight we post our first Better Call Art with our group of seasoned and tenured reps from across the globe.

-=Good Selling=-

You've heard it from me over and over and that's as long as you work hard and put in the effort good things will happen. Now they may not happen on your timeline however in the long run the work and the effort will pay off.

It was about three years ago when I started posting IT, MSP, MSSP and Document Management press releases on this site.  Over those years the news from those press releases and the verbiage used in them has slowly helped me to better understanding of the IT world.  When you couple that with the awesome training that Stratix offers on a weekly basis it became clear to me that sooner rather than later I would have my first managed IT client.

Today I received my first managed IT order for 10 users from an existing account and while it's not a medium nor huge client,  it's a start.  Sometimes it's more about ability to knock one down to build the confidence and then the other domino's can fall in to place.

Did I have help?  You bet your sweet butt I did and I couldn't have done it with out the members of our IT team. 

The Future

While I'm a little late to the game I can see the pay-off for younger rep because of the monthly residual for each client acquired. While the sales of copiers only pay you once every three or five years the managed IT is a gift that keeps on giving each and every month for as long as you have the relationship with your client.  I have two clients that I have a forty year relationship for copiers, and then another 15-25 for thirty years and I can only guess at the rest.  Imagine selling managed IT services for forty years and the residuals?  Now I'm thinking I was born thirty years to early!

After Memorial Day I have second appointment with a much larger company to see if we can finalize a proposal we introduced about four weeks ago.  At this time I think we have a good shot winning and that's because of the vision, the team and the IT stack that we bring to the table. 

I'm not giving up at selling copiers because there is still quite a bit of demand but you can bet the ranch that I'll be telling more clients stories about IT news that I've read.  The Columbo in me comes out with that last question before I leave, hey did you happen to hear about XYZ company that........which means a new conversation starts

-=Good Selling=-

30 minutes with Joni at Relyco to learn more about the substrates they have available for production and SMB clients. Without a doubt knowing that your print devices can output different substrates can make or break the deal. In addition knowing more about the substrates can actually open opportunities when there wasn't one. Good stuff!

Chat with David Clearman with Muratec AMERICA "What's Hot With Color Labels" I missed the first three minutes, but overall a great session.

I had a lot of wind shield time today and it got me thinking about the recent thread that Kyocera was moving with speed licensing for some of their MFP models.

I've always been a huge proponent of reducing the amount of MFP models that we offer to our clients.  I believe there is no need to have 5 color and 5 black A3 models for clients and or sales people to choose from.

We as an industry need to simply MFP offerings to dealers and clients alike.

I would like to see one A3 model to replace all ten that I mentioned before.  I'm not in favor of changing the 65-90ppm devices yet but the thought has crossed my mind.  At lease moving from ten A3 MFP's to one MFP could benefit both manufacturers, dealers and clients.

• Less inventory for dealers and would eliminate stale inventory when a new MFP is launched.  This is true for manufacturers also, just the strategy of how many different models to produce every year must be a tall task along with the engineering
• Clients can now buy a subscription for the speed of the device, I would tend to make the subscription an annual cost this way the client could increase the speed down the road if desired. This also gives our industry an on going revenue stream
• Clients can choose a subscription to add color either during the sale or after the sale. This too should be an annual subscription that can be turned on or off
• Clients can also choose a subscription for a variable speed copier, which means I can run the MFP at any speed I want. This could be a critical feature for companies that have busier times of the year with printing.  If you remember digital duplicators they all had a variable speed control.  It also might come in handy for printing and coping onto different substrates.
• Features, solutions and accessories are identical from the slowest speed MFP to the fasted MFP.  As of today many of the manufacturers play games with these accessories and don't make them available for every model
• Moving to one A3 MFP will make sales people more proficient with the devices at a faster pace.  Less support may also be needed on the manufacturers side of the business support and tech services
• Overall parts inventory for both manufacturers and dealers this will increase overall profits for both parties

As our industry moves to a post pandemic world I believe we need to simplify our offerings to our clients and present them with options and not box them into one device because of volume.  Every MFP should be capable of producing as little or as much volume as they want to print.  In essence we need to make printing fun again for our clients and give them options.

Here's a question for you.  Let's say a client has a 60 page a minute A3 MFP, what would you say to your client if they asked "can I reduce the speed of prints if I want to?"

-=Good Selling=-

Just a side note for everyone. Great chat with Andrew from Austral Business about the current state of business and how Austral is making a difference in their market place. More to come. Would love to hear everyone's thoughts!