Smart Copier Sales Person or Not So Smart with Lost Deals

Art PostVIP 9/16/139:13 PM

Trip to Japan "Does anyone know where SAM is"? I believe I wrote this about four years ago and at that time I never used a real CRM system. Believe me, I fought it tooth and nail, four years later, I can't operate without it. If I had once wish for a CRM program it would be that I could have it display a large warning message when it was accessed by management.

How long have you been in the business, five years, ten, fifteen, 20 or more years?

The cliches never stop do they, one that comes too mind is "what comes around goes around", "the harder you work the luckier you get". or those of us who have been in the business a long time, well we've seen it all, new tactics get old and old tactics get new again.

Do you remember who you sold your first copier too? Hmmmmmmm, can't say I remember, how bout the first deal you lost? Do you remember the customer, sorry to say, I can't remember that customer either.

How did you first schedule your appointments? I can remember getting a Doctors appointment book to write down the locations, appointment times, and phone numbers. As the days turned into months and the months turned to years I would find myself getting another appointment book for every year. After about four years I realized that could go back and review the accounts that I sold and contact them again for the potential upgrade, gee wasn't that smart of me to keep those books.

These days most of us keep our appointments, contacts and lists of things to do on our pc's and the appointment books have all but disappeared.

It's a fact that we lose more deals than we sell, you can't sell everyone right? Well, that may be an understatement, how many us of actually track the deals that we lose. Meaning, you didn't get the sale, you know who you lost to and you know the term of lease or purchase that the buyer committed to. A little of bit of "extra" tracking can go along way if you commit to scheduling call backs for the accounts that you lost. Heck, if you know they signed a 36 month lease why let them go and never contact them again. You already have the name of mr. or mrs. right, the make and model number of the system, plus the volume.

Put your lost deals back in your contact list and schedule a follow up call for 18 months, then 24 months, and then 30 months on a 36 month lease. You can spread the time a little further for the 60 month leases, try getting back in touch with them at 30 months and then every six months thereafter. Customers lost, can be a customer gained down the road. Another thought would be to keep them on a mailing list, where you'll send them something every six months. If you've been in the business a long time, you'll agree that the months and years really do fly by.

If anyone has any additional comments, we'd love to hear them.

-=Good Selling=-

Response:

Steve said...

Great article! It is ironic that I had a sales rep ask me what I remembered about the territory he now has, which I had 13 years ago!

I just happened to have my old Daytimer and was able to show him the activity levels, appointments and we laughed about how many he is trying to get into!

Building that territory as a young reps will pay off for years to come and I always encourage young reps to at least stay put in the territory for 5 years to reap the benefits of the buying cycle you discussed.

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WallingfordElite P4P'er

I remember the first copier I sold, it was an Olympia wet process job, and it happened back in the early 70's. I was actually a typewriter salesman at the time, but they wanted a copier as well, and I had to beat the guy from Apeco.

Eventually I started in copiers full time, in mid-1976, and the first plain paper machine I sold was a U-Bix 101, which was quite remarkable, because the machine caught on fire during the demonstration. I can't remember what the excuse I gave was, but I got the sale, and won rapturous applause from my Sales Manager at the time. For quite some time after that I sold a lot of U-Bix 600W Copiers, in direct competition with Xerox (3100) and Nashua (wet process) but neither of them bothered me in the least, and I always assumed I would get the sale, if ever I was up against them, which was very often. Could go on, and on about this, but enough already. As I always said to incoming newbies, "everyone wants to get to heaven, but no one wants to die" !

9/17/133:55 AM

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