The Quest for $200K

Yes, it's Thanksgiving here in the United States and yes, after eating my fill of turkey, mashed potato's, cranberry's, stuffing, turnips and small piece of cherry pie, I felt the need to get back to work.

Many years ago, when I would bring in an awesome order, my former dealer principal would state, "the harder you work, the luckier you get".  That statement is so true!

Today, I had a text from a friend to go fishing this Saturday on a head boat about of Belmar. Now, I like fishing, I like eating fish, however I promised my-self that I would put in a couple of hours on Saturday to send about twenty emails to prospects and existing clients to get a leg up on next week.  Thus, I'm opting out of the fishing trip.

The Day Before Thanksgiving

Yesterday was one of those interesting days of the year.  The day before Thanksgiving can be boom or bust. However, one thing I can tell you, is that everyone you will speak to is in a good mood.  Thus it's a great day to make the some calls, right.

I spent the first couple hours of the day reviewing all of my opportunities and making notes (yes, I use an old fashioned pad of paper that lists every opportunity, the revenue and the percentage of close, it's good for me since it's right there on my desk for a quick look when needed) about the next step for each one. 

It was then off to my CRM to cherry pick who I was going to call today.  My goal was for twenty calls, five emails and five Linkedin researches. 

By The Numbers

I ended up with twenty-one calls, five emails, two Linkedin researches and added one client to my constant contact email list.  That's good, but what's even better is how the numbers panned out.  Three appointments (one net new), and from one of the emails I had a response from an existing client that wanted to move forward with a wide format device.  Yay!, this order was not even in my pipeline for the end of the year.  I'll finish this up on Monday.  Hey, the harder you work the luckier you get!

Opportunities

I also found three opportunities, one account for both black and color, and another for color.  These opportunities were not immediate but can be labeled as 2018 business.

Oh, one other item that was pretty neat. All of my calls to existing clients was to wish that person and their family a Great Thanksgiving.  That was it, no mention of copiers or any thing else unless they asked.  Two appointments off of those calls.

Yeah, I was very happy with the results.  My method of madness till the end of the week will be to outwork and out hustle everyone else.  Because if you're not working hard then your competitor is.

-=Good Selling=-

Over the last couple of months, many of my peers asked if I would be doing another blog series about outlining my daily sales activities for the end of 2017.

I stated, "No", the other two blog series (12 Days of Selling, 57 Days of Selling) wore my sorry ass out and I'm no spring chicken anymore! 

Next year, I'll be staring my thirty-eighth year in the copier industry.  Many of you know that I started as a technician, had my ninety day review and was told, "you're doing a great job of taking these copiers apart, however you're not so good at putting them back together". 

Arrgghh!, I was toast, lost my job and it's back to living on the dole from the State of New Jersey.  As I was leaving the dealer principals office, he pulled a "Columbo" on me.  It was the "Just one last question" before you go. The dealer principal reached into to his pocket, pulled out a few Benjamin Franklins and then asked me, "What would you rather do to make this money, finish out the week as a tech or try to talk me out of it?"  Fifteen to twenty minutes later I was not able to talk him out of the cash, however he did ask me if I would like to be a copier sales rep. 

Thirty-seven years later, I can truly say that I've accomplished almost everything I've ever wanted in the copier industry.  The copier industry has been very, very good to me.  Never been laid off, never was a slacker, always set attainable goals and always willing to learn and share knowledge. Thus the P4P Hotel forums.

Starting tomorrow, my goal is to reach $200K in revenue on or before the 26th of December (those darn bean counters are always closing the month out early).  That $200K is attainable since I have almost $225K in the pipeline and will adding to it over the next twenty-two selling days. I'm sure that all of the $225K will not close, thus the need to add more opportunities to the pipeline. I would feel much more comfortable if that pipeline was $600K.  I'm a firm believer that whatever your monthly revenue number is that you need three times that to feel comfortable.  I'm starting with a bank of $20K, thus my number is down to $180k already (yay!).

The plan for tomorrow is to process an order, and put a plan together for all of those opportunities that I've got out there. In addition,  I'm planning to make at least twenty calls to start setting up next week.  I'll also probably put some time in on Saturday for a few calls and a few emails.

I'm looking forward to this new series and hope everyone enjoys.  BTW, if you know of anyone looking for a copier in NJ, please PM me! 

-=Good Selling=