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57 Days of Selling "Day 44"

 

Thirteen days left..... it's been exhausting.  It's about 20 past ten and I'm ready to pass out.

In the AM, I had a training session for one of my largest accounts. Recently, we placed three wide format multifunctional systems, the primary use of these systems was for scanning.  My training session was to teach them about the additional scan features that could be used for scanning wide format documents. 

Their IT department had the systems set up for scan to a single folder.  The user would name the file at the MFP, scan to that folder and then go to their PC and then upload that file to their document management system. 

Just last week, I spoke to our sales people about FAB (features, advantages and benefits).  I spoke about the importance of how a single feature on a device can lock out the competition. We call those "lockout features". 

With our line of Ricoh wide format MFP's we have one of those "lock out features", that feature is the TWAIN scanning driver that comes with our Ricoh wide format device.

Why is that important?

During training, I was asked, can the system scan the document and save it as a .tiff file? "Of course" I stated, and then added, "why do you need a .tiff file?". I was then told that their document management system will only recognize .tiff files.  Basically, .pdfs were of no use to them.  I then asked their IT person if their document management system can use a TWAIN scan driver.  The answer was yes,  I then stated they could load the TWAIN driver, then pull scan the documents right to their document management system.

Now, I was not aware of the need for the TWAIN driver during the initial sales call, however I learned a valuable piece of knowledge today.  I learned that "xyz" document management system can use a TWAIN driver and eliminate a few steps in the scanning process. I'm keeping this tidbit of info in the memory banks and will proceed to call other accounts that are using the "xyz" document management system. This one little piece of knowledge will open some doors for me in the near future.

Back to the training, after two hours, I was finally out of there. I was going to do a planned stop in for a production system, but had to scratch that in order to make my 1PM appointment that was more than an hour in another direct. In addition, I had to pick up my Guru of Major Accounts.

You never know what tomorrow will bring 

Our appointment was with a larger SMB that was pricing four new MFP's for replacement in February of 2017.  Three A3 black devices and one color device, volume with black was more than 100K per month and just about 10K per month in color.

This is the same account, where I have failed twice before, just can't seem to knock out the incumbent. I brought in my Guru of Major Accounts because he is the best at presented our IOP.  While I listened to mu GURU deliver the IOP, I also had my eyes glued on the client for body language.  That body language told me that we have a decent shot this time around. 

Of course, I asked what is your time frame to order. I was expecting January, February and was delighted to hear that our prospect will be making a decision in the next ten days! Woohoo!  Chalk up a $40K opp.  Yeah, it's not a sale, but never the less it's another roll of the dice that I'll have before the end of the month.

By, the time we returned it was later in the day, and I was so pumped that I started crunching the numbers for this account.  Believe or not, I had kept all of my quotes and notes from the last six years, and I'm going to rely on that data to try an win this.

Nothing sold today, I was able to schedule my other large opp for $48K for Friday. I have a long day tomorrow, with my last appointment scheduled at 7:30PM.  Probably will not post up a blog tomorrow night.

Amount Sold Today = $0K

Total Revenue to Date = $115.5K

New Opportunities Created Today= $40K

Total New Opportunities Created = $346K

Revenue Required to hit 200K Goal = $84.5 K

Lost Opportunity Today = None

-=Good Selling=-

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Comments (2)

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Love it Art! I had a day of running around  with a networking luncheon followed by a training for a new device that I sold earlier in the month and stole from Sharp. I was extremely late to the party with this deal but they already had a canon that was very old and decided they wanted another canon and on top of that wanted someone to deal with local over Sharp and Ricoh direct. Then I was walking into the grocery store on the way home and got a call from a person I quoted a machine to about 2 months ago. This was one of those where they insisted on only speaking by phone about their needs and then having me do a proposal only to email it to them. Normally I won't do it, or if I have to, I'll send a proposal for something and if they call that's great and if they don't that's great too. Turns out they want it and while we aren't breaking records with this order it puts me one order and about 6k closer to our presidents club than I was at the beginning of the day. My trip to the Bahamas is getting closer and closer with several days left. I feel the sunshine already. Just need to grind it out the remaining days and get things lined up for January and February.

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