October 2016

In my prior my post, 5 Things Top Sales Reps Do And Why Most Just Shoot Themselves With Complacency Bullets, pinpoints what makes sales reps so successful.

Great salespeople do the same thing every day. They are purpose driven. They focus on the success and happiness of their prospective and current clients. They are able to see the business world through the eyes of the other party. They are naturally curious and love serving their clients.

The silent killer to sales success lies with one word... COMPLACENCY and this is why most sales reps continuously shoot themselves with silver complacency bullets.

What the heck is a sales monkey? Have you ever seen a sales monkey with a loaded gun?

HOW MANY SALES MONKEYS RUN AMUCK INSIDE SALES DEPARTMENTS TO

I take you back to your childhood as I ask you to all sing along with me...

Three little monkeys swinging in the tree

teasing Mr. Alligator can’t catch me….can’t catch me

along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be

and snapped that monkey right out of that tree

SUCCESSFUL SALES REPS CATCH PROSPECTS RIGHT FROM THEIR COMPETITORS TREE

They continually prospect keeping their sales funnel full

Top sales reps divide their time between selling, prospecting and taking care of their clients. Top sales reps who crush their quotas are fully dedicated to prospecting and have modernized their prospecting approaches to align with the modern buyer.

It’s hard to sell something if you don’t have a prospect to talk to. The most important part of selling is prospecting – finding new, qualified people to talk to.

Brian Tracy

The primary differentiator of today's successful sales reps is their ability to prospect. Learn more in one of my recent posts... How To Use New School Prospecting Methods To Crush It In Sales In The 21st Century

Career Builder leveraged this rather funny video to help promote the slogan... "Want A New Job?" Follow the sales monkeys and you will be looking for a new job!

TOP SALES REPS AREN'T DISTRACTED BY SALES MONKEYS

3 Things Sales Reps Must Use So They Don't Look Like Sales Monkeys With A Loaded Gun

Top sales reps successfully use these three silver bullets...

Silver Bullet Number 1

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE - Top sales reps appreciate their CRM as this allows their sales data to be stored centrally and delivered to them in an easy-to-follow format allowing them to monitor current client and prospect information. They don't view this as another "sales tool" or just another way for their bosses to police their work.

According to The Tas Group, on the average 2/3 of all sales force (67%) miss their sales quota.

Top sales reps synchronize their daily schedules through their CRM and prioritize tasks to make sure customers are not ignored. This insures their key prospects are contacted on time. This alone helps to boost sales performance. These four areas of a CRM will help sales reps to excel...

• Better search, filtering and qualifying leads
• Improve follow up on sales opportunities systematically and on time
• Help to prioritize and rationalize follow up activities
• Help to increase target reach rates faster

Silver Bullet Number 2

CONTENT - Sales reps can't go one day without hearing, "You have now entered the world of buyer empowerment." Yes, thanks to Google buyers have the ability to research and make buying decisions independent of communication with sales reps. 

Successful sales reps who recognize this learn how to not only engage the new digital buyer but to align their online and offline resources to the buyer journey.

Successful sales reps realize the one critical part of addressing the new buyer’s journey is not merely creating digital tactics, but focusing on how they engage prospects and even clients once they engage digitally.

SUCCESSFUL SALES REPS CREATE ALIGNMENT WITH THE DIGITAL BUYER BY GOING FISHING

"Sales reps must learn how to become digital fishermen and content is the bait on the hook"

My friend Jack Kosakowski says it best, "Content drives value, value drives conversation, revenue is a result of both of these combined once you go offline."  Content includes blogs, social posts, videos, webinars, white papers and more. All the content your company produces to engage customers is marketing collateral which can then be used inside the sales process. Posting content online (LinkedIn as an example); the most important thing to remember is you are opening up a conversation.

Successful sales reps realize they learn something as well with all the content used to go fishing.

THE NEW MODERN SALES EQUATION

Fishing + Content / Learning x Conversations = Closing Opportunities

SirusDecision cite,The number one reason why sales reps were not meeting their numbers was, “Their inability to provide insight into a buyer, adding value and starting relevant conversations.”

Silver Bullet Number 3

CUSTOMERS - Sales reps must leverage their customers and ask for help! Wouldn't you agree a warm lead is better than cold lead? Then, referrals from happy clients are about as warm as it gets, correct? In fact, a Dale Carnegie study found that 91 percent of customers would be willing to give referrals if they were asked. Unfortunately, only 11 percent of sales reps actually do ask.

I find this crazy....

You work so hard to get clients then why on earth would you not ask them to help you?

TOP SALES REPS SET ASIDE THEIR FEAR AND EGO AND ASK FOR HELP

Sales reps continually face rejection. It is the fear of rejection which plays a role in a sales reps reluctance to ask for a referral. Asking a customer for a referral opens up potential negative feedback or "no's," and as a result, sales reps avoid it in order to keep their relationship positive. You work your ass off to help keep your clients happy, therefore; successful sales reps have earned the right and have no problem asking their current clients to help grow their business.

"46% of sales reps feel their sales pipeline is accurate", TAS Group

What sales rep doesn't have a big fat healthy ego? We have been trained to believe we can sell in the face of adversity. This is true as we have to in order to be successful sales reps, as we believe our sales method is the best and we can sell without any help. The notion of sales reps as lone wolf hunters means we are reluctant to ask for a referral as a referral is asking for help which depicts a potential sign of weakness.

"Do you know who works almost exclusively by referrals? High end consultants, surgeons, attorneys, accountants, the wealthy. Do you know who never asks for referrals? The incompetent.” 

Claude Whitacre, Sales Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide To Finding Highly Likely Prospects You Can Close In One Call

Please don't allow the sales monkeys to run amuck inside your sales department and distract you from achieving the success you deserve.

To borrow a line from Days of Our Lives,

"Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our sales lives"

I get where you all are coming from. I have walked a day in a life of your shoes.

Your comments, likes and shares are greatly appreciated.

In 2016, Larry was recognized by ENX Magazine, “The Difference Maker” as someone who is making a difference inside the copier channel. Larry is passionate about helping sales reps succeed in creating their online brand image

You can find more blog posts inside the Social Sales Academy website.

I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my LinkedIn stories. Integrating the use of LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive copier world. With great pride I transform, coach and inspire B2B Office Technology Sales Professionals to grow net new business by helping them tell their story and communicate on LinkedIn. My commitment is to help office technology dealers thrive in a changing marketplace. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, as well as at the Social Sales Academy

I was trying to look for something special in threads from ten years ago this week. However, not much to hang my hat on for a conversation.  I item that did cross my mind is that these threads are from 2006, and just a six month before I noticed a drop in wide format business in 07.  We all know what happened next.  Enjoy the threads from ten years ago this week!

Konica Minolta P4P Up and Running!

Last nights sinus headache became this mornings issue. I gave some serious thought about calling in sick, but decided to tuff it out and get my ass into the office. 

Thus, I finally arrived at the office about 10AM, not my idea of a good start, but never the less, I was there instead of sleeping on the couch.

My goal for the day? 

Was to get some of these opportunities to close and too schedule appointments for some of the larger opportunities that I have in the pipeline.  First things first, I followed up with my appointment from yesterday for the inexpensive wide format color scanner.  Had to leave him a voice mail, but also sent him and email asking for the order. 

BTW, I use this subject line almost all of the time in my emails, "sorry, I missed, you", I read this on Hubspot a few months ago and the blog stated that the "sorry, I missed you", subject title gets more opens than "following up".

If I have that the contacts email address and I'm down to leaving a voice mail, I will opt out of the voice mail and send the email.

After a few calls, a few emails, I was no close to closing a few orders than I was yesterday. I had completed all of my follow ups and moved nothing forward. 

Incoming

I received a call from one of my existing account prospect that's fighting for me, however I've got competition and I'm at my lowest price, and that also translates that I've also got the highest price out of my two other competitors.  My prospect agreed that service and support is key, however there was a very large margin from the lowest price copier to mine.  Stating he could pay more, but needs additional justify for his boss to obtain the OK to move forward. 

I had completed a side for side for him the other day vs the other two competitors. It was a simple side by side that picked out seven specs that makes my Ricoh stand out.  That side by side proved not to be the answer, thus while on the phone with him, I stated, let me go through all of the features again and let me see what I can come up with.

Rather than supplying a spec side by side, I decided to research the heck out of my features and pick out four to five of them that my competition did not have.  That was the easy part, what I needed to do next was to put those features to work as to what they could do for his workgroup.  I then racked my memory banks for a current client that was in the same vertical market.  One I found that client,  I then thought about how they benefitted from those features.  Thus the first line of the spreadsheet was the feature, the second line was a detailed outline of how they used the feature, and how the feature saved them time or money.  Yes, it's quite a bit of work, but that's why I'm at work.

Within an hour I had my customized side by side. I called my existing account prospect and read line by line, by the time I was done he was pretty excited and thinks he can put this to bed tomorrow.  What's another day at this point in time, right. Three days into the new month and I feel like it's been three weeks.

Later that day

Scheduled an appointment with an existing account that wants to upgrade to color. Bingo!  Another opportunity. More calls, more emails.  I scheduled an appointment for Saturday with a net new account!  So much for sleeping in.

Home

Dang, this getting longer than I thought. I had an email from an existing client that he wanted to move in a different direction. WHAT!, different direction I thought?  I had pitched him on a color wide format system and was in the follow up stage because he could not make the decision alone. I knew this going in.  After a half a dozen emails back and forth, no decision was made, the objection was the price, and he was looking for just a plotter.  Ok, I got those, and we agreed that we will talk more tomorrow.  WHEW! 

Till tomorrow!

Amount Sold Today = $0K

Total Revenue to Date = $44K

New Opportunities Created Today= $10K

Total New Opportunities Created = $176K

Revenue Required $156K

-=Good Selling=-

FYI, I've got a killer sinus headache tonight, gonna make this short and sweet for every one.

Had two appointments for today, one was for a wide format color scanner scheduled at 10AM and the second appointment was too follow up with an existing account that had the hots for improving their paper based workflow for purchase orders and the associated invoices and maybe the need to replace to older analog copiers with something pre-owed.  Still can't believe I'm seeing analog copiers still in the field.

My early morning was tasked with sending courtesy emails to existing clients with a teaser about document management software.  Thought I would put a little bait in the email and see what happens.

One of my deals, backed off some. I was suppose to have the order yesterday,  which prompted a call to my prospect.  My prospect then informed me that they are going to wait a bit, because they really didn't need the system right now and the buying time was moved back a few weeks. ARRRGGHH!

I thought the move was intentional and the prospect was hoping I might drop the price to get the deal done.  Well, there was no dropping of the price, because I'm holding the position of strength with a cream puff of a pre-owned system.  Just going to let the ball travel with this account and see how this plays out in a couple of weeks.

My first appointment was with an existing wide format client who bought from me ten years ago.  Yes, he still has an analog wide format device that just makes copies!  Thus, I was ready with and pre-filled order doc, a pre-filled lease and the intent was to get an order for a low end wide format scanner. 

The first thing my prospect hits me with is a print out from Craig's list for a used Ricoh Digital wide format that was reselling for about $3K. I was able to debunk this quite easily because there was no model number, no meter read, and no service history. I knew and my prospect knew that if a drum needed to be replaced,  the cost was more than want he wanted to spend.

My client then hands me a printout from a web site where they are offering a full color wide format scanner (24inch) for $1,995. At this point, I'm thinking.......why am I wasting my time with this?  However,  the product he showed me was interesting and I thought I would pick the system apart by reading the entire brochure.  I did not walk out with an order, nor did I lose an order, but I offered up a stall to do some additional research and get back to my client later that day.  Right now, it's more about revenue, and I think I can get the order tomorrow with one more phone call. It is a big deal, no it's not, is it worth my time, not actually.  "But meat is meat and a mans gotta eat".  Like I've stated it's more about revenue right now.

I was back to the office by noon, had lunch and then received a lead for a wide format systems.  WooHoo!  I did reach out by phone and could not connect, thus I sent an email right after the call.  Hoping this appointment can be scheduled tomorrow.

Afternoon appointment was with that existing account that had shown some interest in document management and two copiers.  My client met me in the hallway and stated, "I'd like to get those copiers, however not everyone is on board", I then stated to the client (Operations Manager), "maybe it's time to wield your power and just order the systems, it's not like you don't need them.", "maybe you're right" he stated, "give me a few days on this".  I could have hit him again, but I backed off because I wanted to secure the meeting for the document management.  I offered up a lunch and learn for him. I stated you get your people, I'll get my people, I'll buy lunch and we'll schedule the webinar in your office.  My client agreed that was good and we both agreed that we would get our peeps together and select a date for next week or the week after.

I arrived back at the office and concentrated on prospecting with existing clients for the rest of the day.  Left a little after 5PM

Not a great day, but not a bad day, still moving things forward and added another opp. Like I stated, I'm ok as long as I can add one opportunity per day, because sooner or later all of these opps are going to start dropping.

Amount Sold Today = $0K

Total Revenue to Date = $44K

New Opportunities Created Today= $11K

Total New Opportunities Created = $166K

Revenue Required $156K

-=Good Selling=-

As I attempted to open the front door this morning. I quickly realized that Otis, the neighbor’s bulldog, had decided to sleep in front of it. Otis occasionally visits because he likes the biscuits we give him. Dogs are matter-of-fact creatures. They figured out through evolution that if they just use their eyes, they can stare a hole through the thickest wall of resistance and gain emotional attachment.

Otis likes to wander the neighborhood. He is more about what he can find than what he has. Dogs live in the now, and what they had yesterday is never more important then what they have right now, and right now is a constant quest. As I gave Otis his biscuit, I wonder did he expect the biscuit? Did he plan the walk to my house knowing a biscuit was waiting, or was it all just in the moment? Then I realized he didn’t eat the biscuit.

In business, whether you’re the leader or an eager follower, if you fear then avoid what is new in the moment, you will always look to yesterday for excuses to hold yourself back. You imagine that tomorrow will be comfortable if nothing changes today.

Otis decided that wondering would be more exciting than hanging out in the comfort and safety of his fenced yard, Otis wasn’t looking for absolutes, Otis was just living in the now on a quest to learn what can come. I imagine Otis had hopes of finding a biscuit, getting a pat on the head, or maybe a little game of tug-of-war. After all, everyone has an old sock on their porch, right?

Otis travelled the neighborhood simply because he was looking for what he might find. Otis wasn’t in search of absolutes. He may have had some hope and dreamed of biscuits on the porch of his neighbor’s house. Otis simply wanted to see what he could find. If leaders and teams took time to simply search for the unknown, they would more often than not be rewarded by finding what others missed by being static in their search.

Sometimes business leaders put themselves in what I call their “fenced yard of security.” They never stray the neighborhood for something different; they are too determined in needing the map with detailed instructions before they wander. They fear that allocating the time for understanding something they currently don’t comprehend is a bad investment. So I guess that unlike our dog friends, they are scaredy cats (I couldn’t resist.)

“When you stop looking for absolutes, you discover the excitement of the unknown”

Well, Otis is done exploring my porch. Today, he passed on the biscuit. See, the new neighbors moved in yesterday, and Otis went there first. The little neighbor girl fed him a package of bologna. Sometimes when you explore outside your fence, you find new friends and better food.

R.J. Stasieczko

You can view Ray's LinkedIn profile here

Yabba, dabba, do! 

The MP C6502SP and the MP C8002SP were getting a little long in the tooth, if you know what I mean.

About a week ago, I picked off the new brochure for the Ricoh MP C6503 and MP C8003SP off the web.  Thus, the rest of what you read is coming right from my interpretation of that brochure. 

This new series incorporates many of the features that are now available for most of the A3 color 04 series that Ricoh has released in the last year.

Features that makes me go yawn is the addition of the 10.1" Smart Operation Panel,  Human Detection Sensor, Ricoh dedicated App Site, and the Conference Concierge App (which is used to guide users through the advanced copying features).  First think I need to ask is, "who the heck copies anymore!"  Where's the Beef with this new color device?

The beef could be here with the addition of the Quick Print Release feature. This feature offers up a view of the print queue for locked and stored prints.  Pretty much means that you can have quick access to a specific stored document and print asap.

If that beef doesn't do if for you, how about the ability to print three-edge at full bleed?  Got it, this is something new, not sure if I'll ever remember it, but I'm thinking that this is a better feature of light production replacement of the MP 5100/5110s that should be launched soon. 

That's about all I can get from the brochure, the brochure was pulled from Ricoh New Zealand site and for some reason that brochure doesn't see to be as informative as some of the brochures that I've seen from the US market.

I do see a few new options that were not present with the MP C6502/8002 and one is the banner paper tray guide and the other is the NFC Card Reader.

Yes, I agree, it's not much, but it just might be enough to create some upgrades before the end of 2016.  More to come in the following days!

Right, here is the link for the brochure.

-=Good Selling=-

Guess who woke up on time this AM? 

After yesterday's fiasco I made sure that my phone alarm was set for AM & not PM like the night before.

If I tend to ramble some on this blog, it's because I'm also paying attention the Cubs vs Indians. I'm a fan of neither team, but I am a fan of baseball. 

There's a term in baseball called, "let the ball travel", or some people may say, "let the ball get deeper", in any case the term is generally used when a hitter is out in front and fouling balls off.   Let the ball travel, is something I use with sales, in my case it means to back off a bit from the follow ups on opportunities and see what develops over a few days and then move the ball forward as those opportunities contact you. 

Today a few of those opportunities did call me back for additional questions.  Once I answered those questions, I was then able to pose additional questions that helped me move two opportunities closer to closing.  One existing client committed to demo tomorrow, and the other scheduled time with me on Friday.  I looking forward to closing both of them this week.

My day started with getting additional information about an A3 Canon color device (special thanx to P4P'er Jason for getting me that info), so that I could finish up that side by side spreadsheet I promised to have for a client today.

Once I finished that up, I was off to following up on early morning emails about supplies, deliveries, billing questions, geesh it never ends does it?  It was then time to review my "deal sheet", and yes I keep a list of potential deals/opps on a sheet of paper.    That deal sheet is something that I update everyday, I find it easier that muddling through the opportunities in my CRM, and at a quick glance I can figure my next steps with those 18 opportunities.

Made a few more calls to existing accounts, and then just about 11:30AM, I had an email from accounting that the down payment check had arrived for a decent order.  I had requested a deposit for seventy-five percent of the order due to the complexity of the order, however that's not what we received.  The check was for the full amount for $42K and change. Woo Hoo! Now the real work begins.

Now, I all I need to do is sow up a couple of more orders this week and I'll be in a good position with forty two days left in the year...., as long as I keep on prospecting!  For those of you that are rookies, newbies, I can tell you from experience that you can't rely on leads from the manufacturer, nor your dealership to hit your numbers.  There is never nothing to do in sales. If you're not prospecting, then your competition is. 

My afternoon was filled with answering questions for some of the rookies in the office, a few more phone calls and many emails to existing accounts, kinda more like a courtesy calls.  I just wanted to stay in front of them and the quickest way is to shoot them an email rather than leaving a message, or playing phone tag.

Tomorrow?  One appointment, a few cold calls, and then back to the office to make more calls.

You know, one of these days, when someone asks me, "who may I say is calling?", I'm going to reply with "God, please tell them God is calling".  Matter of fact, I will do that before I retire.

Amount Sold Today = $42K

Total Revenue to Date = $44K

New Opportunities Created Today= $0K

Total New Opportunities Created = $154K

Revenue Required $156K

-=Good Selling=-

Best laid plans of mice and men. 

That's what came to mind when I woke up at 8:13AM!  I had set my alarm clock for 5:30AM so that I would be able to hit the office at about 7:00AM.  Figured for the remaining forty four days of selling I would add an hour for every day, thus I can add almost another two days of selling.  Well......, it seems that I did set my alarm for 5:30, but it was PM and not AM!  The plan for tonight is to double the AM/PM on my phone.

Yup, I arrived at the office late and during the ride into the office, I was notified that my AM appointment needed to reschedule to a death in the immediate family. 

The good news is that I have the entire day to catch up my CRM with all of the activity from Friday.  In addition I can follow with many of my opps to move them forward to a closing appointment.  I did not keep track of my phone calls today, however I did have some excellent talking tracks with a few of the open opportunities. 

I did get a call from one Business Administrator asking me for additional information about a quote I submitted about four weeks ago.  My client was asking for a revised proposal for a 55ppm color MFP, stating that she was waiting for the revised pricing on the maintenance/supply agreement that we spoke about, in addition she stated her purchasing person had asked, "why would we spend more on the Ricoh, rather than going with the "the other brand?" The other brand was $70 less per month than my Ricoh offering and I was at the bottom for pricing.

I called the BA, reminded her that I had sent the revised proposal about two weeks ago that included the reductions for the maintenance/supply agreement. I then moved to the issue of pricing, and stated, "here's what I can do, I'll develop a side by side spreadsheet for you that outlines the features that you require and I'll also include five or six specifications that will show your Purchasing Agent why the Ricoh device costs more, will that work for you?" she agreed and within a few minutes I was back to my meeting notes and outlining what features and specs were important to her department.

For us old timers, developing our own side by side comparison is something we always used to do in the seventies & eighties.  If we knew who the competition was, then we developed a spreadsheet that focused on our positives and the competitors negatives.  It was an effective way of presenting and closing the order from a sheet of paper.

Within forty five minutes I had developed the excel file that would show the feature set and specs that would show the Ricoh in the finest light.  After completing the doc, I emailed it off to my BA.  Just about twenty minutes later I had a return email asking me if I could add another device in my spreadsheet.  I agreed to add the other device, and claimed that I would get this to her tomorrow in the AM.

You remember me speaking about those notes, right?  For every prospect I visit, I will keep a page of notes from that meeting.  In this case that the first appointment was already a month old and thank goodness I didn't have to rely on my memory.  Those notes saved my butt, because I made sure that I lead with questions that focus on Ricoh strengths in the market place.  Below is some of those feature sets:

• Customizable workflow shortcuts
• need to print 12x18 size documents
• scanning speed
• document feeder capacity
• fuser off mode for scanning

After I finish this blog, I'll be  finishing the spreadsheet analysis for this client and then I'll be committing additional research that's required for another client.  I'm hoping by the end of this week to putting up $50K on the board.

Amount Sold Today = 0

Total Revenue to Date = $2K

New Opportunities Created Today= $0K

Total New Opportunities Created = $154K

Revenue Required $198K

-=Good Selling=-

HP, Samsung and the Uber Factor

I am reminded of how Status Quo thinking is so attached to one's emotions. As you read this give your imagination power over your perceived reality. This will spark things you might not want to think about, but probably should.

I have argued the point that it’s not about how many pages experts say are printed. The disruption coming quicker—well it’s here!—is based on how many manufacturers can survive the consolidation, how technology will reshape the printing device, allowing alternatives to their delivery, and the way they are serviced. Some manufacturers, are barely hanging on, rumors spread on their sale, or not. Manufacturers, where print represents such a small part of their overall deliverable, will see more value in an exit strategy, than a growth strategy. More than likely their executives are eating lunch at the HP cafeteria listening to their Samsung friends explain how good the food tastes. The industry has too many players, and the customer base simply does not care about print like they used to. The facts are that most organizations spend less than 2% of their technology dollars on print.

The good bad or ugly—HP is the multi-billion pound gorilla and could be the biggest, last one standing. Everyone in the imaging channel should focus on business possibilities in a changing world. This can only happen when you keep the emotional baggage containing your product prejudices’, your spreadsheets prepared by some analyst describing the growth of print as a reason not to change, or having the attitude that HP can only survive if the imaging channel cooperates.

Lockup these thoughts in that emotional baggage and leave it at the train station as you get on the train to the future.

The catalyst which began the “Ubering” of the imaging channel started when manufacturers increased their footprint of direct operations. This forced them to make better products, with longer lasting consumable yields, so easy to deliver Amazon could do it. The new HP shown in Boston has only seven replaceable parts. HP had 13,000 resellers at their Boston meeting. When they talk channel they are not talking about the 2,000 or fewer copier dealers. HP does not see a border in service providers the way the imaging channel does. When Dion Weisler talks about disruption he sees a different vision of who delivers and services the equipment. Some will most surely be from the imaging channel, although HP won't care.

So, what’s the Uber connection? Go to the google machine as I affectionately call it, and type in Field Nation, or Work Market. These are just two examples of many companies like them. Then simply use your imagination. These two organizations and others like them probably don't even know yet, how they could disrupt the service deliverable of the imaging channel. Or is there an organization being created specifically to disrupt the service deliverable of both dealer and direct?

The future will not be the same even if we insist on it. All of us reading this understand that customers, or lack of them, determine the fate of all things sold, manufactured, and serviced.

This article is intended for provoking thoughts, tapping imaginations, exploring things and concepts which are different. Driving discussion based on reality, not emotions. If the actors in the theater of the imaging channel can look past what is in front of them, and leave their emotional baggage in the past, they can win.

I close with my favorite quote. “Status Quo is the killer of all that will be invented”.

R.J. Stasieczko

Who says thirteen is unlucky? 

I woke up to a driving rainstorm this AM, funny how stuff works out sometimes for the good or bad.  In my case, I had scheduled two appointments and thirteen stop ins today, in hindsight, maybe I should have checked the weather yesterday.

I could have just went to the two appointments and canned the stop ins, but that wasn't going to happen since I haven't sold much for the past two three weeks. 

For me, stop-ins are pre-planned, for those accounts or prospects that I've not been able to contact via phone, email or social media.  I don't have my schedule in front of me, but I do remember is that I could not find two of the companies that I wanted to visit and another company that had a huge obnoxious sign that stated, "NO SOLICITORS"!  I decided to honor the No Solicitors sign, because I didn't want my business card ending up in the trash can.  I'll get what I need one way or the other from that company. 

I made up for those three lost stop-ins with three additional cold calls, this way I could achieve my goal for the day, which was the fifteen stops.

Every now and then a squirrel can find that but. 

I had a plan for one of my existing clients.  I had been in to see them about a month ago, and they had shown some interest in a pre-owned wide format systems. The gatekeeper stated that she would forward my information and the pricing to DM, and if interested they would call or email me.

When I was there I noticed that they had the same Brother printer that I had used in my home office.  Key word here is "had", I purchased a new printer about six months ago, and found my self with three un-opened ink cartridges.  MY ink cartridges were identical with theirs. 

Thus, when I arrived soaked to the bone on Friday morning, I made sure I had those three ink cartridges on me.  After arriving,  I offered up the three cartridges of ink, told the gatekeeper that they were new and they could have them for free.  After a few minutes we found out the ink cartridges were not identical.  As the gatekeeper handed me back the cartridges, my prospect stated, "we want to buy that pre-owned wide format system if you still have it, do you still have that?".  I checked my inventory list on my phone (no not really) and stated, "yes we still have that and consider it yours." 

Well, that was pretty awesome, forty-five minutes into the day, soaking wet and I had an order!!  This was not an opportunity that I had planned for October since I did not heard from the DM.  Going back on Monday AM to get the paperwork completed.  Developed opp for $9,000 and closing on the 24th.  Not a bad way to start the day, right?

There was nothing special for the rest of the day, may have a slow op develop from one of the cold calls.  Completed all of the stop-ins, picked up a check from another account and before you know it, the start of the weekend is here.

Amount Sold Today = 0

Total Revenue to Date = $2K

New Opportunities Created Today= $9K

Total New Opportunities Created = $154K

-=Good Selling=-

"You don't close a sale, you open up a relationship if you want to build long term, successful enterprise"

Patricia Fripp

Successful sales reps often have indescribable and complex abilities which set them apart from their peers. These sales reps connect easily and build relationships with prospects. With pinpoint accuracy they move opportunities through the pipeline and effortlessly close sales deal after sales deal.

WHAT MAKES THESE SALES REPS SO SUCCESSFUL?

Great salespeople do the same thing every day. They are purpose driven. They focus on the success and happiness of their prospective and current clients. They are able to see the business world through the eyes of the other party. They are naturally curious and love serving their clients.

Being a sales professional requires a special kind of mental toughness to ignore all of the times the word NO is spoken in pursuit of the wondrous YES.

Ask an extremely successful salesperson...

What makes you different from the average sales rep?

I guarantee you will most likely get a less-than-accurate answer, if one at all. Quite frankly, they may not even know the real answer because most successful sales reps are simply doing what comes naturally.

• Successful sales reps know when to go for a deal and when to walk away (they qualify hard).
• Successful sales reps seek to truly understand their clients’ needs (use the knowledge to challenge their clients).
• Successful sales reps drive deals proactively (stay in control throughout the client’s buying process).

Great salespeople know their biggest enemy is time wasted on the wrong things.

According to The Challenger Sale, there is a class of sales reps out there that consistently outperform their peers by up to 200%.What’s their secret? How are they succeeding where others fail? Top sales reps teach, tailor and take control of the sales cycle by driving each stage forward without fear and with client buy-in.

A SALES APPROACH FOR A CHANGING BUSINESS WORLD

In today’s sales world, old approaches aren’t cutting it. Successful sales reps build the confidence it takes to offer influential insights to open up the right kind of conversations with their prospects and clients. Conversations allowing them to be seen as a trusted source of advice setting themselves apart from the competition.

FIVE THINGS TOP SALES REPS DO

1. They hold themselves to a much higher standard

Top sales reps who consistently deliver outstanding results make high performance the de facto standard. They realize the "buck" stops with them. They know their actions alone determine their results and they do what is necessary to achieve their goals. They never blame internal problems, the economy, tough competitors, or other factors if they fail to meet their sales quotas. With extreme self-discipline they take it upon themselves as they self-manage to a higher standard as they fail to accept mediocrity.

2. They continually prospect keeping their sales funnel full

Top sales reps divide their time between selling, prospecting and taking care of their clients. Top sales reps who crush their quotas are fully dedicated to prospecting and have modernized their prospecting approaches to align with the modern buyer.

It’s hard to sell something if you don’t have a prospect to talk to. The most important part of selling is prospecting – finding new, qualified people to talk to.

Brian Tracy

The primary differentiator of today's successful sales reps is their ability to prospect. Learn more in one of my recent posts... How To Use New School Prospecting Methods To Crush It In Sales In The 21st Century

3. They never stop learning

Top sales reps are always reading sales books, learning new skills, asking for coaching, and improving their own selling abilities. They never sit back and rest on their laurels. They are constantly striving and pushing themselves to improve. This strong work ethic pays off and results in sharper selling skills and improved win rates straight across the board. The most successful sales reps are never content with their current abilities as they are constantly learning and pushing their limits.

4. They are always helping

Legacy, old school and analog minded sales reps are closers. The pitch starts the minute they open their mouth.

The next gen, new school, digitally minded successful sales rep places the customer’s needs before their own. They develop trust with their prospects and clients. They leverage trust to gain a better understanding of their challenges, goals and problems.

Top sales reps use their prospects and clients terminology to closely align themselves as to how they can help.

If a top sales rep believes the prospect or their client has the wrong goals, they don't hesitate to challenge them. They educate them as to why they may be wrong as they help their prospects and clients avoid potential business potholes or roadblocks.

5. They have become digitally savvy sales professionals

In this highly networked business world, the internet along with Google has forever changed the sales process. In this modern buyer-driven society, sales reps must step up their sales game. They need to be viewed by their prospects and clients as trusted advisors.

Top sales reps make the investment and commit to obtain this status. Successful sales reps commit the time to build up their online authority and presence. They read blog posts their targeted prospects read and they drive conversation around them. They follow them on Twitter and connect with them on LinkedIn. They retweet their best messages and comment on their posted content. They join the same LinkedIn groups their prospects are involved with and answer relative questions. They take the time to write their own blog posts around the top questions they receive during prospect and client meetings.

They become digital thought leaders and subject matter experts. They soon realize educational and relevant content drives online conversation which ultimately turns into offline meetings.

WHY MOST SALES REPS FALL BACK INTO THE COMPLACENT SALES WORLD THEY LIVE IN

Today sales reps must invest their time and have enough patience to reach this level of authority with their prospects and clients. They must remove the "I have no time" excuse and learn to have patience.

We must be patient in managing our own business expectations. Let's face it selling can be tough. This is why top sales reps are so well compensated. Patience helps us all remember what we do as sales reps is difficult and the relationships essential to success are not created overnight. Great sales reps are tough and demanding on themselves.

It is unfortunate as most sales reps have hypnotized themselves into believing what they aren't doing doesn't work. Think about it for a second...

Complacency, it is a ruthless disease. It cares only of the weak and timid or the wait and see what happens. The hard reality behind this is while most sales reps operate with hints of contentedness, top sales reps inside your marketplace do not. With extreme precision they have rewritten the playbook adapting to the changes inside the buyer's world.

And so the sales story continues... This is why most sales reps will shoot themselves with complacency bullets. Have you ever seen a sales monkey with a loaded gun?

I get where you all are coming from. I have walked a day in a life of your shoes.

Your comments, likes and shares are greatly appreciated.

In 2016, Larry was recognized by ENX Magazine, “The Difference Maker” as someone who is making a difference inside the copier channel. Larry is passionate about helping sales reps succeed in creating their online brand image

You can find more blog posts inside the Social Sales Academy website.

I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my LinkedIn stories. Integrating the use of LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive copier world. With great pride I transform, coach and inspire B2B Office Technology Sales Professionals to grow net new business by helping them tell their story and communicate on LinkedIn. My commitment is to help office technology dealers thrive in a changing marketplace. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, as well as at the Social Sales Academy

Geesh not sure where to start this, since today was almost a mirror image of yesterday.

Thursday mornings are set aside for a net new call block.  We'll start around 9AM, break about 10:30 and then finish up with a 10 minute chat at Noon time.

I can't tell you who impressed I was with a few of the rookies, they were coming in with 65 calls, 71 calls and one rookie topped off with 84 calls!!  That's impressive! 

Many had three net new appointments and there was one rep that led the pack with four.  When it was my turn to report the calls, I was kind of embarrassed because I only made 10 calls, however I was able to schedule 3 net new appointments.

We all know that making net new calls is arguably one of the most daunting tasks that we have.  I've been making these types of calls for thirty-six years, however the task of net new calls seems to be getting tougher with each passing year.  The defenses are up with the gate keeper, called ID, and voice mail.

I found one company that was building a new facility a few miles from the office, I checked out their web site,  and found the phone number for the corporate office.  In a few minutes I was dialing in, and I was copier blocked with voice mail.  In a few seconds I was given options, press #1 for Sales, press #2 for Corporate Parties, Press #3 Support and that was it! 

Ok, I then selected 0 to get to the operator, I was then greeted with a recording that you can't leave a message here. Feeling pretty frustrated at this point, I figured let's select #2 for Corporate Parties, surely I will get through to someone.  I press #2, received another recorded greeting, stating that all reps were busy and please hold.  Thirty seconds later the line disconnected!  Come on, I thought, this can't be this tough can it?  Thus, I repeated the same call pattern again and I received the exact same result!!  Arrgghh!

I then went back to their web page, went to the contact page, and filled in my information for sending them a message through their system.  Within ten minutes I had an email response that my ticket was logged, 20 minutes later I had another email response.  That response stated that "if you are a vendor, we will consider your services and or products and we'll decide if we will call contact you." Those may not be the exact words, but you get my drift.

An hour passes and I get another email from their system, asking me to rate their level of customer service. Let me tell you, I ripped them up in the response section.  My last thought after responding was, how can a company get away with this, how can they not be reachable, how can they succeed in the long term. 

What I can tell you, is that I'm seeing more and more of this lately. I called a software company later and there was no way to get through to anyone unless you had an extension, but how the heck can I select an extension when you don't offer up a directory.  Fortunately about two weeks ago  I was able to connect with the CEO through LinkedIn. He and I are now first level contacts, thus I hopped on LinkedIn and sent him an in-mail.  I'll be checking my LinkedIn right after I finish up this blog.

The rest of the day was filled with many more appointment calls, follow up calls and by 4:30PM I was drained. 

Tomorrow, I'll be on the road all day, I have three appointments and I've also scheduled 12 stop ins.  The stop ins are those suspects that I have not been able to reach in recent months. 

When the going gets tough, the tough need to get going.

Amount Sold Today = 0

Total Revenue to Date = $2K

New Opportunities Created Today= $0K

Total New Opportunities Created = $146K

-=Good Selling=-