Tagged With "B2B sales process"
Comment
Re: Post-Virus We Must Defeat The Zombie Companies!
Although I am 60% on board with your move to A4 strategy, most of the rest of the stuff you are posting is "knocking it out of the park"! I would like to see a poll. As a business owner, during COVID-19 would you prefer? 1). No lease payments for 90 days 2). 1/2 price lease payments for one year The auto industry is pushing no payments for 90 days but I think business owners are more concerned about cash flow for the next year. I think the correct strategy is to offer as part of your...
Comment
Re: 7 Deadly Topics from 7 Deadly Sinners at Top 100 Summit (Part One)
I disagree that you have to own the network in order to offer seat-based billing. Before I go into why, can we (imaging industry) please stop referring to Managed Services as MNS? No one in the IT world uses this term; it's industry jargon that makes you stand out as a copier dealer 1st and an IT Services provider 2nd. Managed IT Services, Managed Services...fine. MNS needs to die. Now, here is why I disagree that you have to own the network as a client's Managed Services provider in order...
Comment
Re: 7 Deadly Topics from 7 Deadly Sinners at Top 100 Summit (Part One)
Originally Posted by txeagle24: I disagree that you have to own the network in order to offer seat-based billing. Before I go into why, can we (imaging industry) please stop referring to Managed Services as MNS? No one in the IT world uses this term; it's industry jargon that makes you stand out as a copier dealer 1st and an IT Services provider 2nd. Managed IT Services, Managed Services...fine. MNS needs to die. Now, here is why I disagree that you have to own the network as a client's...
Comment
Re: When is Net New Business not Net New Business?
Interesting perspective. We constantly have the talks about competitive machines we took on service, especially brands we don't carry. I tend to consider is taking a Konica on service and then a year or two later upgrading it to our equipment net new business from the sales side. Obviously we had net new business on the service side but not net new for "x" with the equipment sale. I'd be interested to hear how others see this. I hear a lot of people say it doesn't matter but if I bring a...
Comment
Re: When is Net New Business not Net New Business?
I was wondering if the subject of those customers who were acquired through service was going to come up, & Jason's comment is certainly "food for thought"... In his example, he brought on the service customer (with the obvious intention of upgrading them at the first opportunity) & the dealer gets a contract & machine sale that they otherwise wouldn't have. Sounds like net new to me. In my experience, though, most of these service to machine sale conversions are from customers...
Comment
Re: Slumps Happen... 3 Tips To Beat the Sales Funk
Great stuff Larry. A sales slump means you've fallen in love with the result more than the process. It's not a slump if you love selling and working with your clients.
Comment
Re: Five Reasons Why I'm Stoked About the New Ricoh SP8400DN Printer
Had a conference call with Epson Monday afternoon. They said the ended up with a 1 year warranty on the print heads but you can purchase an extended warranty for something like $250/yr.? I didn't write that down because the only thing that matters to me is what gets passed on to the customer and manufacturers warranties are seldom passed on. Epson Ink Process advantages: No heat so no heat related issues...no fuser, no cooling fan, no warm-up. Consumes 50% less power No drum or developer so...
Comment
Re: Five Reasons Why I'm Stoked About the New Ricoh SP8400DN Printer
Interesting, I thought jh told me the cost was 2,500 per year. I was like what? Can you find out exactly that that cost is. I'm curious as I guess we all are
Comment
Re: Five Reasons Why I'm Stoked About the New Ricoh SP8400DN Printer
I guess he was just referring to the Epson C869R (25 ppm). We kept asking questions about the 100 ppm unit and I lost track which unit this information applied to. Sorry for the confusion. We have a launch on the 11th and he promised more info on the 100 ppm at that time.
Comment
Re: Why Social Selling Stinks for Most Copier Sales Reps
Art, love this! You know my take on the integration of social into the sales process. Sales requires hard work as most will not put forth the effort. The reason why ones social anything stinks is their effort, plain and simple. Operating with an analig mindset in a digital world = death blow to a sales rep.
Comment
Re: Copier Parts & Accessories China Tariff Starts in 9 Working Days
The Trump Administration today announced plans for a new round of $200 Billion worth of tariffs against China. https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/10...ffs-trump/index.html Copy machines were on the original list but but were taken off leaving parts and consumables subject to a 10% tariff. It seems most suppliers have not taken actions to increase their prices. On the new list which could go in effect sometime after Aug 30th are: 8443.39.20 Electrostatic photocopying apparatus, operating by...
Comment
Re: Top Ten "Why Copiers Should Have Warning Labels"
Ty Jason! Had fun with this!! Ty for the email about your rep, that was very humorous sale!! Maybe post in on the forums?
Comment
Re: Selling Copiers in the Seventies with Darrell Leven
Hi Art, Canon’s “NP” series stood for New Process. I started in the industry in 1985 when Canon released the NP50, NP60 & NP80 liquid copiers. Fun times. Regards Peter Ryan Dealer Principal Mobile 0409 458 065 Email pryan@inlandtechnology.com.au Web inlandtechnology.com.au Tamworth 02 6755 6600 Longyard Homemakers, 383 Goonoo Goonoo Rd Tamworth NSW 2340 Disclaimer: The above information is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind. Inland Technology disclaims all warranties, either...
Comment
Re: Selling Copiers in the Seventies with Darrell Leven
Peter Thanx for the answer. I would have never guessed new process
Comment
Re: Is This the Beginning of the End for the Padding of Lease Rates?
Here is a report from leasingnews.org. One of their legal editors is doing a three part review of this legislation. Leasing News Exclusive: State Senator Steven Glazer and the genesis of CA SB 1235 (Part 1 of 3) By Tom McCurnin Leasing News Legal Editor This is important not only if you are doing commercial business in California, but this may affect other states. If you are new to this, here is legislation passed both the assembly and senate, awaiting California Governor Jerry Brown’s...
Comment
Re: Is This the Beginning of the End for the Padding of Lease Rates?
Part Three Leasing News Exclusive: Is the Disclosure Too Complicated? State Senator Steven Glazer Position on CA SB 1235 (Part 3 of 3) By Tom McCurnin Leasing News Legal Editor The bill to require full disclosure of interest rates is awaiting Governor Jerry Brown's signature. It was reviewed to be recorded and sent to his office late last week. It seems unlikely he will not sign it as it passed the State Assembly 72-3 and in the Senate 28-6 .It then will be up to the California Department of...
Comment
Re: Attention Sales Leaders... What Are Your Sales Reps Prospecting For?
Larry, You are exactly right. Excellent article. The challenge in our industry is the mindset of obtaining new business and putting ourselves in the minds of the 21st century customer. We need to break the cycle of a commoditized product offering. I have not waived the white flag and surrendered to that thought process. Instead I believe we need to evolve as sales professionals and engage in the 21st century sales process and those sales professionals/ companies that do will become behemoths...
Comment
Re: The A4 Challenge or Opportunity
In my experience A4 machines are as much or even more hassle than an A3 machine to install and train which I do myself for the customer but my income off of the sale of the A4 device is a fraction of what it would have been had I sold an A3. Beyond that most A4 machines lack a document feeder built to handle the page volumes of walk up copying and scanning my customers do. At the end of the day I have to make a living so I spend my time on A3 opportunities.
Comment
Re: Copier Parts & Accessories China Tariff Starts in 9 Working Days
President Trump announced today, effective Sept 24 2018, a 10% tariff on a broad list of $200 B worth of Chinese goods. https://ustr.gov/about-us/poli...inalizes-tariffs-200 On this final list are all forms of copy devices. No mention of printers. No mention of toner. Unless China makes serious trade concessions to the USA, without retaliatory tariffs of its own on USA made goods sold in China, the 10% tariff will rise to 25% on Jan 01 2019. These devices are on the final tariff list,...
Comment
Re: Copier Parts & Accessories China Tariff Starts in 9 Working Days
SSG Thanx for keeping this thread up to date! Kudos The economy is doing so well here in the US that I don't think many will care. I will use this to my advantage to get clients to move now. Now, I hope they do care! Art
Comment
Re: Copier Parts & Accessories China Tariff Starts in 9 Working Days
Yup, it's a pretty BIG Hammer! I heard a radio report that the US trade debt rose significantly in July. I'm thinking what you stated is that "many of the manufacturers have stuffed thier warehouses". That's probably why we haven't seen anything to date with increases.
Comment
Re: Assume My Copier Lease....What?
Originally Posted by Kiwispike: Tried this recently but haven't found anyone to take it up, issue I have had is often the remaining lease is above the market rates at the time. But its a fantastic concept. I agree when the market rate is above what you can buy it for, however, but you just never know. Recently we had the Sandy disaster here in NJ. Many companies moved in for one or two years to help with the rebuilding process. They would be viable candidates to assume a lease that may have...
Comment
Re: Assume My Copier Lease....What?
Thanks for all of your questions and comments! To answer the first question by @AOSGROUP, we've had some success in our local area of Toronto, Canada. The transactions were completed manually before launching the marketplace. The current version of the marketplace was only launched this past January, so you guys are the early adopters. Transactions can take the form of either a lease assumption (where one credit-approved client assumes the lease of another as-is), or a split-buyout (where...
Comment
Re: Assume My Copier Lease....What?
@Kitz: Dealer support is also a great question. Currently we approach this on a case-by-case basis. New transfers would go to an affiliated partner in the geographical territory that is qualified to service that equipment. Ultimately, we are building a network of independent dealers not unlike what the direct channel already has access to. This way, independent dealers can leverage the network for new contracts as well, such as when a sale is made to a head office that includes installations...
Comment
Re: Assume My Copier Lease....What?
Originally Posted by fisher: How does this square with the fine print on every lease doc I've ever read regarding assignment or transferring the lease by the lessee??? Who goes to jail if the lease doesn't get satisfied???? Fisher: The assumption process is one that I've seen leasing companies do from time to time. You have to get the blessing of the leasing company first, and credit approval for the new leasee.
Comment
Re: Can I Copy Mixed Sized Documents on a Copier?
I disagree. Most law firms and many insurance companies still have a commonly re-ocurring need for mixed size originals. I am currently working with one European shipping company based in NA that wants to do do mixed size originals with a mix of A3 and A4 documents. I say it cannot be done as the paper is all of different widths. I am hoping that my unscrupoulous competitive vendors will admit to the same..... not likely!!! They want the sale today! Please advise.
Comment
Re: The Transition of the Copier Industry "Part III"
Art, So you’re saying you used eQuill with eWriter to process your sales paper work? To this day, are you still doing it that way? Did you have many customers buying in to eQuill in the healthcare, government agencies and law enforcement fields? It would seem that any entity that processed sales would be a good target for eQuill too—did you find that to be so? Yeah—it’s tough not to resort to ‘commodity speak’ when prospecting b/c that’s what it seems to come down to—cannibalizing from each...
Comment
Re: The Transition of the Copier Industry "Part III"
Hey Jeff No, we did not use the eQuill/eWriter. I thought we should have put this to good use for our sales team. The usage of the eQuill in the field would have enable many conversations about how we use it, how we set the system up, and what was our back end process. It was an opportunity to break out of that commodity role. Thanx for the reply and questions!
Comment
Re: 5 Questions for HP about the Acquisition of Samsung Printer Business Unit
I hope HP (Hardly Profitable)'s idea of market innovation is not to make the whole industry hardly profitable. Outside sales reps need to make a buck and will not flock to a new product that dramatically reduces their commission on every sale. Kind of like the A3 to A4 transition of a few years ago. Sales reps do not want to be forced to try and sell a lot more boxes to earn the same income regardless of how great the technology might be. Did that, been there.
Comment
Re: 5 Questions for HP about the Acquisition of Samsung Printer Business Unit
I'm not sure......will be interesting to see how the industry responds. I think it may be time for HaaS or Seat Based Billing for MFP's. Get ahead of the curve and tie up your accounts now!
Comment
Re: Inbound Marketing For Sales Reps (and Sales Vets)
Czech, Thank you for the very kind endorsement at the beginning of this article--I appreciate it. Most of our industry lives in the "outbound" side of lead generation with prospecting, cold calls, etc... This is good, but with today's buyer 57% of the way through the buying process before they contact a vendor or rep (Harvard Business Review survey of business decision makers, 2012) we HAVE TO get GREAT at inbound marketing. We're working on some exciting things to pull it all together and...
Comment
Re: 5 Reasons Why I Like Print Audit Best Over PaperCut
I do like the control that the dealer has with Print Audit as well as the pre-sale MPS tools if you are one of their Premier dealers. But, turning on various rules in PaperCut is MUCH easier than in Print Audit/PCS Director or other similar products in our industry. Additionally, it works extremely well in environments in which Mac workstations are present, & their embedded (PaperCut MF) software works with most product lines which makes it easy to integrate if a client has a mixed ...
Comment
Re: I'm Past My Prime Just Like Paper
Workflow is about process and information of which paper is just an element. There are unlimited opportunities to automate process and the movement of information through a business. Even if paper disappeared tomorrow workflow would still exist. Fear not young Jedi.
Comment
Re: Selling Professional Services for SMB Accounts, Worth it or Not Worth it!
As an independent dealer we are definitely giving away too much Pro Services in the SMB space. We kind of us it as a sales pitch against the National vendors who almost always charge Pro Services. Right now we are starting to give the customers invoice for many Pro Services that we deliver but offset it with a credit, so that they can see it's value. This will set up a future invoice where there will be no credit. We leave it up to the sales rep how he sells the workflow and how much...
Comment
Re: Tell em Columbo Sent You!
I would ask him - Who else are you going to involve in this process. If he mentions the name of the owner’s company, ask how do you know him. You may need to ask a follow up question to get to the owners name. If he does not mention the owners company don’t bring them up, you may end up putting that company in play. You never know how well he knows the controller. I might have 1,000 linked in connections, some of them I may not think of using. That’s my advice
Comment
Re: Tell em Columbo Sent You!
Thus, I took all the comments and made zero mention of the LinkedIn connection. I did ask about all of the other players and received. Names of the three other vendors, machine models, and monthly lease pricing for each of them. AS predicted price will play the most important part of the buy in, however, I was able to get me and my company to the top of the list (did not give the price yet)m due to the knowledge that I brought to table for automating a workflow process. Gotta just figure out...
Comment
Re: Canon Business Systems Pulling a Ricoh
Had a deal recently that we were the incumbent and CSA came in and placed the exact same machine as we tried. Customer gave us the quote and our true cost was around 14,000 or 15,000 and they sold it to them around $9,000.00. Anytime CSA is in a deal there is a very small chance of winning. The only thing we have going for us is their service is very lousy so after the lost sale we usually pick up a service agreement at some point. Ricoh has been good about enforcing the rules of engagement...
Comment
Re: Canon Business Systems Pulling a Ricoh
We have been very pleased with Ricoh's commitment to the ROE. We even got full credit for a sale that RBS made after we brought the discretion to Ricoh's attention.
Comment
Re: I Don't Walk Away from Many Opportunities, But this One was Crazy
Yes, I had an account who had TWO Xerox down for over two months and would NEVER do business with them again. I had been renting to this contractor for years and really made a great proposal and pretty much expected that sale. They stayed with Xerox!! You just wonder what their thought process is on these kind of deals. They will end up in the exact same boat in 5 years and go through the motions and get absolutely nowhere. Good Luck!!
Comment
Re: Xerox's MFP "All in Plan" Reveal
I still prefer the selling process face to face the old fashion way
Comment
Re: HP should Buy Xerox
I do understand where you are coming from in terms of your data that A4 MFPs are destined to displace A3 copiers at an accelerating rate. I also agree that A3 copiers vendors need to step up their game in terms of IT support and capabilities. A3 vendors still hold a couple of cards that IT centric print resellers do not have. 1). Feet on the street, experienced outside sales reps who can make 20 cold calls a day. We are in the B2B business which to some people means belly to belly 2).
Comment
Re: How Social Turns Sales Reps Downtime Into Prospecting Time
I was just thinking about this yesterday and this morning. If you have a day packed full of appointments, it's difficult to "work" between sales calls because you don't have enough time between each appointment to dive into anything except responding to a couple of quick emails. But with social media, you can use that in-between time to drive new business conversations and maintain productivity. Great reminder that we can always do something to Always Be Prospecting.
Comment
Re: How Social Turns Sales Reps Downtime Into Prospecting Time
Social and how a sales rep uses it can greatly enhance prospecting. Think of the social phone! The interenet is never closed when it comes to prospecting.
Comment
Re: How Social Turns Sales Reps Downtime Into Prospecting Time
Over the years, having the ability to post, comment, share and like content day or night is awesome.
Comment
Re: A Funny Thing Happened while Phone Cold Calling Today
If I could make sixty calls in one day I would feel like Superman. What's your secret? My current process is: a) Research the prospect and company b) Write out a potential value proposition c) Contact the customer to schedule an appointment d) Depending on the outcome, follow up with an email or LinkedIn message 4 calls per hour * 6 hours = ~ 24 calls / day
Comment
Re: Are Your Salespeople Good Losers? Ask Cam Newton...
just 30 minutes ago I lost a deal. I was happy, because the decision was made in a timely manner and the client notified me, thus I did not have to play phone tag for two months. I did ask why I lost and I lost to the incumbent, prices were equal ( had $3K GP in the deal ) and they were receiving good support and service, thus they stayed with the incumbent. Thus, what did I learn? The next time I go up against that competitor, I know I can add GP, and also need to dig deeper with why our...
Comment
Re: Losing is the Key to Winning!
Art, Love it! Great perspective, a true professional. We can't bat 1.000 though it is a nice mindset. Being able to debrief, self-evaluate and learn how to improve is the key. The office environment we sell into as copier reps is rapidly changing and evolving. You may have lost the hardware sale but may look what you gained. Play your "sales cards" right and this can be parlayed into more revenue and more profit. Great job!
Comment
Re: Are Your Salespeople Good Losers? Ask Cam Newton...
A good book on this subject is: From a Good Sales Call to a Great Sales Call ...Close more by doing what you do best... by Richard Schroder. It's about how companies should conduct post sale interviews on all deals to determine why you won or lost. They quite effectively illustrate the value of this process and why someone other than the salesrep should conduct the interview. It pretty much proves that a very high percentage of the time, the salesrep really has no clue why they lost or won...
Comment
Re: Are Your Salespeople Good Losers? Ask Cam Newton...
That's what this book is all about. Think of all the things that may influence a sale that the prospect will never say to your face. Are they going to tell you that they didn't believe what you said? Are they going to tell you that they just didn't like you as a person? Are they going to tell you that you were too pushy? No...they are going to say that you were more expensive whether it was true or not. The job of a sales person is the strategic management of perception. How can I possibly...