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The Quest for $200K "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail"

 

A great quote from the great orator and statesmen Ben Franklin.  As I stated in yesterdays blog, today was all about prepping for four appointments tomorrow.  

Back in the eighties,  copier sales people relied on their knowledge, demo skills and leading the client to the path of making a decision for buying or leasing that copy machine.  But, before the demonstration, we outlined what the clients needs were for each device.  For example the client required these features:

  • stapling
  • the ability to zoom reduction or enlargement to one tenth of one percent
  • Excellent quality for pictures and knock outs
  • Easy access for clearing mis-feeds


We then re-clarified these features with a question similar to this.  Mr. or Mrs. Demo, just to make sure I've got it correct your needs for a new copier are stapling, reduction & enlargement to one tenth of one percent, excellent quality and easy access to clear mis-feeds, is that correct?   Mr. or Mrs. Demo would answer that's right.

We would then offer up something like this, "If our copier meets all of our needs during the demo will it be possible to place your order with the completion of the demonstration?'  In most cases this will bring out an objection with that objection being price, because we have not discussed the pricing of the system yet.  The discussion would continue and sooner later pricing would be agreed by both parties.

It was then the time for the demonstration.  We never ever demonstrated every feature, we honed in on what the clients needs were and demonstrated that the copier would perform all of the actions.  Every time we showed a feature, we would then ask for a "yes" or agreement that the feature was acceptable.  One of the lines I remembered is to show the DM the copy and then to tell the DM to look at the a's, the e's and the o's.  Can you see how the small spaces are not filled in, isn't that excellent copy quality? You see what I'm getting at right?

It was more or less leading them down a path of saying "yes we need that or like that"  for every feature in order to get the final yes for the order.  Very rarely would you get a series of yes's and then get an objection or a no at the end. It was crucial to identify the clients needs, wants and pricing.

The reason for writing all of this is because most of use don't do or can't do demonstrations anymore.  Today, we need to lead the prospects down a verbal & visual path of what the copier can do for them.  Most clients today, want to reduce their costs, a few here and there may need to stop outsourcing wide format printing or scanning, others may have an old device on it's last legs.  It's our job to educate them on how our equipment can reduce there costs or improve productivity. 

Thus, my day was spent reviewing each of my clients needs. Most want to reduce costs. I then develop a series of spreadsheets or ppt's that will lead the client to a series of yes's.  Sales people today need to be able to paint a picture of the future and what happens when their product or service is in their office.

One of my other clients has a desperate need for capturing meter reads for each department and then automating the billing portion.  Much time was spent here creating those visuals which could paint the picture of the future once they were using the software

Prepping for those four accounts took almost the entire day. I also sent emails, received emails, did a few follow ups, and scheduled an appointment for Friday.

As to my possible production deal from yesterday, that was were I needed some concessions.  Well, let me not say anything at all at this point in time.

-=Good Selling=-

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