Sales

Since the invention of xerography, copier sales people have possessed one critical skill: they are able to drive conversations. As we step into the bold new world of social selling, nothing changes. Until you start a conversation with someone, nothing happens.

The Art of Social Conversation

In face-to-face encounters sales reps look for any way to start a conversation. Sometimes the topics are business-related. Other times they are more personal. 

Whether you are talking about a business or a personal topic, the art of conversation requires that you bring something interesting to the conversation. For example, if you're talking to a prospect about last weekend's football game, you want to do more than talk about the score. You want to talk about something interesting about the team, the coach, the players, or the school. In the same way, if you're driving conversation about a business topic, you also need to make it interesting by relating it to their business or telling a story about another company that has experienced a similar problem.

Yet most sales reps have turned their LinkedIn feeds into anything but social. Look at most sales reps' LinkedIn profile and you'll find very little things that spark conversation. Instead, you mainly find re-posts of articles, pictures, and graphics. It's like reporting the score of a football game and not drawing the person into conversation. It is not engaging. It is noise.

If you want to drive conversation, you need to have something interesting to say.

Say Something Interesting, Please!

Reposting someone else's content without adding your opinion is like reporting that the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Eagles by three touchdowns. Everybody knows that. (Sorry, we desperately need Tony Romo back.) What makes a conversation interesting is your opinion.

You could talk about:

• WHY the Cowboys lost
• WHO is responsible
• WHAT they need to do
• WHEN they are going to make a change, and/or
• HOW they are going to do it.

What drives conversation is your take on the idea. This is true in face-to-face conversation. It's also true in social conversation.

Following are a few ideas that can be helpful as you seek to drive conversations on LinkedIn.

1. Resist the Blank Repost

These days my LinkedIn news stream is littered with blank re-posts of articles. People share articles without giving their opinion. It's like they didn't even skim over the article, let alone read it, before they posted it.

Yes, you may have found an interesting article. But turn this into an opportunity to drive conversation by sharing your opinion:

• Did you agree?
• Did you disagree?
• Did the article prompt a new idea?
• How do the ideas in this article relate to your area of specialty.

Today when you repost an article, take 30 seconds to write down what prompted you to repost it. (Hint: It needs to go beyond saying, "Great article.")

2. Write Something New

The business world craves new ideas. The most successful people are the ones who bring new ideas to the table. 

As a sales person you meet with business leaders all week long. You discuss problems and solutions. In the face-to-face sales world, you live in the world of ideas.

Why not take 30 minutes every week and write down some of those ideas. Create a long post in LinkedIn. Add something valuable to the world. When you do this, you position yourself as an expert and you begin to drive conversation online. 

Stuck for ideas to write about? Think back to your meetings over this past week:

• What problems do your prospects have? How can you solve them?
• What themes are you noticing in the business world?
• What did you read this week that sparked a thought?

Take the time to write a LinkedIn long post on LinkedIn Pulse. Not only will this show up on your profile, everyone you are connected to gets a notification that you have posted a new article. You get top of mind awareness while setting yourself up to drive conversation. 

Pay attention to the comments that come in below the article. You'll find all kinds of opportunities to connect with new people and start new dialog that can lead to sales appointments.

3. Comment on Other People's Posts

Rather than just reflexively re-sharing an article that someone posted, instead, why not simply comment on the article that they posted. Add your opinion. Share an insight. 

These comments show up in the person's notifications. Many times this can ignite a conversation about the topic in the article. Remember, online conversations can turn to offline conversations which can turn into sales.

A Few Rules

Here are a few rules that apply equally to face-to-face and online conversation:

1. Have something useful to say. Bring relevant ideas to the table.
2. Don't be offensive. 
3. Be authentic. Don't just comment on something to comment on it.

(I'm confident there are more rules--feel free to add yours to the comments box below this article.)

In Conclusion

Here's the bottom line. If you become the person littering other people's LinkedIn feeds with nothing more than clever sayings and thoughtless reposts, you will get tuned out. It's no different than what we've always done in person. You have to bring your opinion or you're not interesting and therefore, no one will give you attention.

When you bring new ideas, you stand out. You spark thought. This sparks conversation. This begins to build trust. This leads to in-person meetings. All of this results in sales.

(Disclaimer: The author of this article may or may not be guilty of some or all of the above practices. But he is committed to changing...)

What's the Golden Rule when selling office equipment? Know your competition or least what they are quoting.

Ever notice every time you walk your dog that he or she stops at every tree, telephone pole and fire hydrant, ever wonder what they're doing?

They're checking out the competition. Who's who, whose doing what, who was here and where ya been! Amazing that dogs can find all of that out in a few whiffs .

We as sales people need to know the competition as well, what they're up to, what's their current maintenance pricing, leasing rates (did you know you can figure out the lease rate by backing out the payment), special promo's, or just how they are positioning themselves with the client.  I just had a quote given to me a few days ago and there was some good value statements from a competitor that I'll change it up a bit and use for my quotes and proposals.  Thus being able to read the quotes and proposals from the competition you may be able to tweak your proposal and borrow from others!

Here's some threads I've uploaded to the P4PHotel Message Boards, click the links and you'll be brought to the page.

proposal Canon C5235.pdf

Konica Minolta bizhub c654e pricing.pdf

W3601 pricing from bid.pdf

Ricoh MP C305SP proposal quote.pdf

Sharp MX-M453N Pricing_Proposal.pdf

The Print4Pay Hotel includes boards for Ricoh Family Group, Kyocera, KonicaMinolta, Sharp, Toshiba, Canon, Muratec and Xerox.

-=Good Selling=-

Why is there so much turn over in our industry?  Is it that we're not hiring the right people, maybe we don't have the right training programs in place. Are we putting them in the field too soon, if so that means most are doomed for failure.

I don't have the answers to the high rate of turnover, however, I can give you a few points of why you will fail selling copiers.  It's up to you to understand these reasons and make sure you avoid them.

• You work ethic stinks.  I've stated this before, our job is not a 9-5 job, if you want a 9-5 job go work at bank. Examples:  Dang, I just got a text, better read that now, or got a phone call from my buddy about our weekend event, or I need to check my facebook or social notes as soon as they come in.
• You look for reasons of why you can't prospect.  "Oh, I just don't feel like speaking to anyone today", "I had a tough weekend and can't get motivated", "Why should I make the calls, no one wants to speak to me anyway", "I'm not good on the phone, I'm better at going on the road and prospecting" (this last one, should set off an alarm that just maybe that sales person is working two jobs at the same time).
• After 5PM, I'm off work.  Thus, I don't have to put in any extra time to learn more about the products, create a couple of extra quotes, research some prospects on linkedin or send a few late night emails, so I can get a head start on the next day.
• I'm not reading any of those sales self help books on my own time. My time is my time.  Plus, I think that most of that stuff is so stupid.

So, there are just a few, if I had more time I could probably add another 5 or so.

It took me about two years in this industry before I finally figured out that in order to make the big bucks I needed to teach myself more about sales, and learn more about the products that I sell.  I had to do this on my own time, because there was no one to mentor me when I first started. I survived the first two years because I had an excellent work ethic, and that was something that was drummed into me when I was a teenager. By the time I was in my early twenties, I knew how to "work",  all I needed was the opportunity.

By, the time I was twenty eight I opened my own copier dealership and had that for 12 years before I sold it.  Funny story about selling it, there were three partners, we all got married and thought it would be a great idea to let the wives work with us. BAD, BAD IDEA, and that was that!

Even now, there are days when I just don't feel like going through the grind. Matter of fact, I've had the ups and downs that many of us have faced through out the years.

It's all about what you want, are you willing to be undistinguished in your work, or do you want to excel and keep raising the bar?

-=Good Selling=-

Late today, I had to bring my wife to the local Emergency Medical Office in NJ.  Nothing bad, just a muscle in spasm.  

The medical office had been renovated just about a year ago.  Pretty much new everything and even a new copier. No, I didn't get that order.  I had visited the same EMO a few months ago for something minor.  When I was  there, I was handed a paper form and had to fill out information that I guess was related to HIPAA compliance.  I was gratified that this office was still using forms, kinda told me that maybe, just maybe, paper is not going away as fast as predicted.

However, today told a different story.  After my wife sat down with the receptionist and gave some information, she was handed a "check in" tablet to fill out the rest of the information that was required.  The information required was basic, like email address, you agree to pay the bill, and who they can speak to about your condition. In a few minutes the form was completed and you were then directed to pay "x" amount. On the table there was a place to swipe the credit card. Within a few minutes the transaction was complete, and then the last prompt was for a copy of the paper work to be emailed to you. OMG!

I was well..... thoughtless for a moment and then realized that indeed we are in a downward trend for pages that are printed with imaging hardware. The thought also crossed my mind that that I can't be solely focused on imaging hardware anymore. 

If I'm going to survive another 5 years to 10 years in the business then I need to ramp up my knowledge for providing workflow solutions.  But, that leads to another question.  Most of the workflow solutions that we sell are based on scanning paper and getting that data somewhere.  I then asked myself, how long would I be in the business of providing workflow solutions for paper?  Dang, it seems like a catch 22, is this a no win scenario?

We had a short discussion in the office today about what the future will hold.  I have a few of my own ideas, but, would rather focus on a quote from Peter Drucker, "Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window."

Putting ink and toner on paper is not going to cease to exist anytime soon, but, the writing is on the wall.

Luckily, I remembered that I'm past my prime (kinda just like paper) and in a few years I won't have to worry about selling systems that put ink or toner on paper. 

-=Good Selling=-

-=Good Selling=-

Hi Art,

I am already a year in in the copier industry. It's interesting to know that membership includes qualified leads.

I like the idea but not sure it would work for my role. I am an Account Exec in California. I have zip codes assignment but normally restricted to SMB space which can be challenging in terms of sales goals - you meet decision makers who pull out money from their own pockets and deals are typically one off, leaving me little to no room for expanded offering.

I also used to subscribe to ProvenProspects.com that gives you hint about business leases via UCC data -- but they are super outdated. So I stopped using them.

What's the price for Gold and how can it be effective for a low level sales professional like me?

Thanks for your time...

A blog from the past.  Enjoy!!

Part One:

Once upon a time (back in the early eighties) we sold copy machines.

It was a simple business. We had maybe three models of plain paper copiers. I can remember the EP Minolta (Eny Paper lol) 310 which just copied letter and legal size paper.

The Minolta EP320 not only copied letter, legal but also copied ledger paper.  Dig this, you had to buy additional paper trays for each size of paper.  What a drag this was when you were picking up the copier for a demo.  You had to load the copier, then get the paper trays, and then the exit tray. Broken paper trays and exit trays were a common occurrence because they kept falling off the demo cart.  We then had the BEAST which was the Minolta EP 510. What a pain the butt, copier had to weigh more than 300lbs. Was noting more than a square box and I believe it copied at 50 pages per minute.

Right, did I tell you,  we had to deliver, install and train the users with every sale. It was a drag, however, this made us more knowledgeable about our systems, made us better sales people and gave us addition opportunities to see accessories.

There was no stapling, no two sided copying, no document feeders, along with no scanning, printing, and faxing.  All we had was one paper tray and a single sheet by pass tray to feed paper from .  You also had to make sure you didn't place a cup of coffee on top of the copier since most of those copiers incorporated a moving glass top (platen).  Yes, the top of the copier would move back and forth for every copied page. Those copiers took forever to make a few hundred copies.

As the industry evolved we saw the emergence of companies that developed sorters (remember Gradco), key counters (remember Hecon), coin op units (can't remember one of these), copier cabinets, and even a company that sold custom covers for the devices. Yes, back in the day every new copier came with a cover and when asked "do ya think I should cover the copier at night"?, we stated yes, but please make sure you turn the copier off at the end of the day! Back in the day, everyone had heard a story about a copier catching fire.  Few and far between, however it happened.

I can distinctly remember one company back in the eighties that manufactured a foil overlay for plain paper copiers. It was a novel idea that allowed users to make a copy of a document and then you could either slide the copy underneath the foil sheet (which was sealed on one side) and then run both the foil and the copy through the by-pass of the copier in one pass.  Presto chango... all of the black image on the page was changed to the color of the foil.  The foil would only stick to the black toner when the media passed through the fusing section.  These foils came in many different colors and the most dramatic was the GOLD foil, we used to tell potential customers that you could turn your copies into GOLD!(pretty lame right?)  You could even get fancy and with the use of removable tape and scissors cut strips of foil to get different colors on the copy.  This was probably the inexpensive and easy way to get a color copy, the foil media was primarily used for certificates and proposals.

It was awesome, walking in with a proposal that had the look of gold print. Check it out, you can still get this stuff, I just may buy a pack just to mess with some of the younger reps in the office.

Someones novel idea added some sizzle to copiers at a time when the analog copier market had matured. That was also true for companies like Gradco, Hecon, and it's been so long I can't remembers the rest. Point is new products and new services not only helped us with hardware but we provided solutions for our customers. Believe it or not the ability to reduce or enlarge copies was a time saver for many companies. 

How about the key counters, can you remember how popular they were?  It seemed that every school had hundreds of them,.  Key counters were used to track who made how many copies. Everyone was outfitted with a little box that had a mechanical counter (called the key counter).  The key counter  was then inserted into the copier. If the key counter was not in the copier, the copier would not operate. No key counter meant no copy!!

At a time when the analog copier industry was maturing. These products and solutions allowed copier dealers to sell more machines and capture additional clicks (back then toner was not included in any of the maintenance agreements).  The copier manufacturers saw the success of these companies and thus started adding their own sorters, their own counters and expanded the offering for accessories for copiers.

Dealers and Manufacturers have always been on the front lines to introduce new technology that will help customers increase efficiencies, and reduce costs. In my 33 years in this business it's more about how we can improve our customers work flow and reduce your costs, whether it's imaging with copiers, printers, duplicators, managed print, or document management.

I'll have part two of this ready in a few days........

 -=Good Selling=-

I was reading an older blog post and then caught a thread about selling. With that I thought I would share some ideas about sales in general.  You've got to be different and you've got to be smarter than the average bear!

Search for Clients who are NOT in the market!

While cold calling in person, take a good look at how they do things. Ask the receptionist if they are scanning, LAN Faxing, printing to inkjets etc... Try to get an appointment to introduce yourself and when you're there don't ask about replacing a piece of hardware, however do ask if they are experiencing document problems, such as lost documents, making too many copies, high maintenance bills, excess breakdown of hardware, how their document workflow is conducted (is there pain). Prospecting like this enables you to find their pain and may help you introduce a solution or a business process that can be bundled with a new piece of hardware.

Lead With Something Different!

Look at what your manufacturer has to offer for embedded solutions along with third party solutions that your dealership has to offer. Lead with offerings for embedded print management, secure print, document management, smart scanning, TCO energy analysis and cloud applications. Here you are setting yourself apart from the BOX seller (trust me, there are too many reps that still just sell boxes).

Business Process!

See if you can tie in a Business Process improvement.  What this means is that you'll have to dig deep and ask "is there any jobs that you perform on a daily or weekly basis that is very time consuming or you wish there was a better way"?

Help Customers to Improve their Business: 

Can be accomplished in many ways. If I find a prospect that does not know that much about social media, I will go out of my way to tell them what I know and how to improve their social media presence. Think like you're the owner of that company and present "What if" we could do this another way.

In order to be successful you have to be the best at what you are doing. Put yourself in opportunities to succeed and make a move to break away from the pack. Our job can be very rewarding, however being an order taker and just relying on prospects who are in the market will is the kiss of death.

-=Good Selling=-

A Star Trek flick from 1996 had the crew of the Enterprsie travel back in time to undermine the Borg attempt to stop Earthlings from making "First Contact" with the Vulcans. 

The last few days I've been busy on the phone prospecting for new accounts, new opportunities, new upgrades and what else... initiating the "first contact". 

It seems every year it gets somewhat tougher to get a hold of Mr. or Mrs. Right. For those of us that consider ourselves Professional Prospectors we get used to these types of responses when we know the name of Mr. or Mrs Right.

"Sorry so and so just left for lunch", "He just stepped out", "So and so is on the phone right now", "He or she is busy", "We're not interested", "So and so just stepped into a meeting", "she just went to lunch (it's 4PM!!!)" and the list goes on and on.

So what are we to do, well as one Print4Pay Hotel member stated many years ago, that we need to be "smarter than the average bear". We've all heard these before but here's a few for a refresher:

• Vary the time that you call on that account
• Call from your cell phone
• Call early in the AM before 8AM
• Call late in the afternoon 4-6PM
• Call on a Saturday
• Call on another employee in the company and ask to be transfered to the person that takes care of the office equipment

It used to be that on-site cold calling used to work well, however at least here in the NY metro area it's hard to gain access to buildings since 9/11.  Doors are locked, security cameras are in place and sales people are left other means to find out who the DM is.  By the way, why is it that when you make the call and ask who the DM is, it's seems like you're sentencing that person to ten or twenty lashes??

One such person got so nasty with me when I asked for the name of the DM.  I really was on my best behavior. I ended up telling her that I wished that a camel would walk through her bed at night. It just came out....I should have been more professional, yup... however sometimes you get so fed up.  We're just trying to do our job and feed our families. I also understand that the gatekeepers are also doing their job.  But, can't we be nice about it?

The web is a wonderful place and I've found creative ways to seek out those first contacts when the gatekeeper does not want to give any information.

Below is a few of resources I use on the web, if you'd like to know how I use each one to my advantage then send me an email, become a member of the p4photel.

Manta

Linkedin

Contact Us

Box Approach

Google

Avention

-=Good Selling=-

There was a recent Print Audit thread on Linkedin that asked "What are your Office Traditions"?

Sales Genie

I responded with one about our Sales Genie. I started the the Sales Genie thing when I came back from the Photizo Transform Conference in May of this year. Not a long tradition, but you've got to start somewhere.

While at the airport waiting on another delayed flight I visited one of the Southwest themed gift shops at Sky Harbor. I was able to pick up something for the wife and then I caught sight of a cool looking handcrafted Native Indian Hopi Doll.

I bought the doll and brought it back to the office. Now I'm not one to believe in superstitions but named it our Sales Genie. Sometimes it's good to have some luck, right?  Thus if you're looking or need for a little bit of luck then you might pay the Sales Genie a visit and say a few kind words.  Me, I'm a firm believer that luck is for rabbits!

We have it sitting on the front counter and for the last month or so we would give it a rub or two before we went on appointments.

When I get into the office on Monday I'm going to burn the son of bitch because sales have been horrible for the last 30 days since I got back from Phoenix.

The Rookie Cold Call

We have another tradition to break in the new reps.  Mind you this one is pretty cool and I've been using for years.

We'll make up a legit lead sheet and give the phone number, address and contact info for the name of a local zoo. In this case we use the Turtle Back Zoo.

The contact person can be one of two people.  " Call and speak to  Mr. Gee Raft or Ms. Eli Fant.

I tell you, if you haven't done this you've got to do it.

We do it when we're all in the office, and it's a riot.  On one occasion we had the rep ask for Mr. Gee Raft.   I would then tell the rep to keep the person on speaker so we can coach you.  Of course there was no coaching to be done, just us listening for when our rep asks for the contact. 

"I'm sorry there is no Gee Raft that works here" our rep stated, "Well Mr. Gee Raft called our office and left a message that he was interested in a copier and to call", with that the secretary gets it and blurts out "very funny", our rep went with, "I'm not trying to be funny but just asking to speak to Mr. Gee Raft", the secretary then states to the rep, "do you realize who you're calling a zoo?" and "don't you get it"? W

With that the rep finally got it and hung up. We had a great laugh all afternoon that day! Who says you can't make work fun!

-=Good Selling=-