Tagged With "sales tips"
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Re: Bad salespeople still exist, don't they?
Spot on Art. I love Gary Vaynerchuk's famous quote, "Legacy is greater than currency." You never know where you will be in 5 years. Walking away from every deal with your reputation and integrity intact is more important.
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Re: The Death Of The B2B Salesperson [Infographic]
Art, I call Bull ****! At least for our industry, the copier industry! This may be true of a commodity (like envelopes, or coffee, or even a PC) but copiers, really MFDs require a lot of attention, both before and after a customer buys it. This article seems to be written by an old brick & mortar company that successfully transitioned to internet sales. This will work for any company that drop ships their products. And I agree that the MFD manufacturers would LOVE for this to be, or...
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Re: The Death Of The B2B Salesperson [Infographic]
Vince: Well stated! I'm having a hard time with this also. We've seen Ricoh on-line now, they are pushing the envelope with direct vs dealer. I agree with you, what happens once the box arrives, what they thought they were getting because product marketing for all manufacturers have a tendency to over state what they systems can and can't do. I'm hoping we are right and Forrester is just pushing BS
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Re: What Makes December One of My Best Sales Months for Revenue
It's so simple, i don't understand why people don't do it. I guess sometimes things are so simple it's not thought of or it is so simple people make it hard.
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Re: MPS and Linux HELP!
So some clarification first. PaperCut absolutely does support Mac. In fact, it is the only cost recovery/print control solution that I know of that actually installs in an all Mac environment. (Server and Client) It also is the only solution I know of that installs in a Linux environment. So both of your issues are solved with PaperCut. I included the install guides for Mac and Linux to get you started.
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
I just added a poll to this question, please take the time to vote!
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
In a lot of organizations, I'm sure it is a challenge to overcome the old-school "copier dealer" mentality of slinging boxes. Week 1-3: Sell services & solutions. Week 4: How many units are you going to sell?
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
Management is now to the point that they are asking me weekly to update my forecast, it's getting to be a real drag going over every account on the opportunity list and what happened with them on a weekly basis. Isn't that the reason why I keep my CRM updated on a daily basis?
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
Keeping the forecast updated is part of our job; they need to know what that looks like on a regular basis. If you're a proven producer (which you are), they shouldn't feel the need to ask for updates on every account. That's nitpicking.
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
Agreed forecasting is a part of the job, nitpicking is not.
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
The biggest obstacle and it isn't on your list is time! If we are honest with ourselves the amount of time we are actually selling versus so called non selling activities creates my biggest limiting factor to increasing my success.
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
Bend: Nice one, I guess you are referring to slacking off and not doing the work right?
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
I do block out some time for my fantasy football team but I don't count that
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
I have my moments also... although I do like to make the dough!
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
The biggest challenge I see is that you have to sell so much more to make the same money you have in years past. It used to be that if someone needed duplexing, or stapling, or speed, etc. they had to pay for higher scale equipment. Now they can get for $3,000 what they used to have to pay $10,000 for. It used to be that everyone was a profitable prospect. Now only the upper 20-30% represent a potential revenue capable of earning over $1,000. Even solution sales are hard to build profit in...
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
Old Glory I agree!! Solutions take longer, I've been working on a secure print solution for almost 4 months. I'm lucky if the deal will top 40K and even luckier if I get the deal. I've tried to focus on higher end hardware and multiple units. The multiple units is tough because everyone is involved and margins are so so at best. MY only saving grace has been the wide format stuff.
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
The Obama Economy is the biggest obstacle any of us face........He fixed it all right.
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
One of the biggest obstacles up until recently, was having to answer to a Sales Manager, who was totally incompetent, and the micro management he adopted in trying to gain kudos with management for his failure to produce a winning team formula was ridiculous. Fortunately, they have since given him the boot, and life is starting to get back to normal.
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
Wow. No poll answer regarding the rep’s activity…interesting. Over the years I have learned that if you work hard and SMART, you’ll hit your numbers. I also think that there is a condition that affects a lot of sales reps in virtually all industries. It is a type of an iron deficiency disorder. It is when iron in your blood is transformed into lead that forms in your rear end. If someone bounces from dealership to dealership and never finds success it is most likely them. If they’ve had...
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
I did not put an option for reps activity, because I believe most of the members here are true professionals and we understand how important it is to complete those activity goals for the week, month or quarter. You are correct, there are no short cuts, you need to work!! Originally Posted by dimaxusa: Wow. No poll answer regarding the rep’s activity…interesting. Over the years I have learned that if you work hard and SMART, you’ll hit your numbers. I also think that there is a condition...
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Re: Charity Suggestions
Thanks for the tip! It'd be great if everyone posted their personal favorite charity! The hunger site has a similar site http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com where they donate free food to animal shelters just for you visiting the site and allows you additional methods to give. One of those is: Feed a rescued Marine mammal.
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Re: CBS NEWS REPORT ON COPIER SECURITY
I have seen statements on return forms from lease companies that state that the leasee is responsible for securing data that may be on the HDD. Regarding the show, CBS producers get paid to make reports for "good TV". I heard about this HDD concern a few weeks ago in an early morning "tip" from Clark Howard on CNN a few weeks ago. I Googled it at the time and found a print article. I think that the concern is valid but I think that it probably the hard way to find personal information. As...
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Re: A4 Page Volumes
We are currently seeing a correction in the market. What we sold for $15,000 three years ago we are now selling systems of equivalent value for less than a third. The market is largely oblivious to the selling features that used to give the higher priced systems their value. They didn't need the features to begin with. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg..... New channels of distribution for enterprise print delivery, channels that tend to work off less robust margins than copier...
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Re: Memjet Color Printers to the Rescue?
I see these types of products making a serious impact on our business. From what I see from the video, I can't remember ever seeing a color laser that would be able to output documents that fast, especially with the envelope output. It's the tip of the iceberg with probably faster products to come down the road. Potential Users: Churches Colleges CRD's Print Shops Anyone else care to add to the list of potential markets?
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Re: Dealer Management Software
Thank you both Rick and Jason. We will definitely have them go over service contract invoicing and modules in great detail when we view the demo to see if it will suit our needs- great tip. Jason- being a user of both systems, your recommendation will weigh into my decision. Thanks again!
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Re: Cloud Printing
I just had a customer ask me more about collaborating files, he's sick and tired of zipping files and the emailing back and forth and can't keep track of the revisions to the documents. Other than this customer, we have many customers with sharepoint, plus we consult and install sharepoint. I beleive we're just starting to see the tip of the iceberg!
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Re: Windows 8 Compatability
FYI. To be technical, Windows 8 introduces SMB V3, improving security features among other things. http://www.windowsecurity.com/...SMB-Connections.html Although supposedly backwards compatible with SMB V1 & V2 found on most current MFPs, the transition is not quite as seamless as Microsoft hoped for. SMB V3 will likely require firmware updates from all of the copier manufacturers to be compatible. I have no idea on the Universal Print drivers until you try them. It is only a short time...
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Re: Are you a Data Miner?
Sure! How much time ya got? "Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search,...
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Re: 100 calls a day, 240 minutes talk time a day, 4 opps per day
I re read this and if Art hadn't have posted this I would have ripped it to shreds. So here is my new and improved toned down sophisticated paragraph by paragraph interpretation of this. That is how it works. New Sales Managers increase activity requirements when there in't enough. So your on the phone 4 hours a day. So don't miss the goals. Tip recommend the sales manager stay with you after hours until maybe 9 or 10 pm 3 times per week to coach you and help you get better, in an email with...
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Re: 6513 volume
Re: Color Volumes on Aficio 6513 ricohaficio (43/M/Highlands, NJ) 7/16/01 5:23 pm Thanx for the tip, you really got to the meat and potato's of what we need to know. I have two 6513's in the field and both are doing well except for some minor problems (one with overscoring on the drum and the other printing a dark box at the end of the page) will keep you posted.
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Re: Soaring
We have had several meetings on it and was supposed to be on board by now but back-to-back-to-back bad months put things on hold. Are you operating on OMD or La Cross? The real power is the relationship this can have with your service and sales records. If you are looking into this seriously, I would like to maintain an open dialog as we tip toe down this path together. jim@cbs-digital.com
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Re: Help!
cool, thanx for the tip, do you have web link for them? We can keep it in our links section. Art
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Re: Ricoh Rumor!! New Strategy?
We just brought in a MFX-4550 for evaluation. I printed off all the comments on this page and gave them to my service manager, and he thanks you for all the good insight. We have a tip to share back, and Ryan and Art will be glad to hear this. That annoying "confirm page size" screen that you get every time you open a paper drawer? You can turn it off. Go into the Machine Set-up/Admin Set-up screens, and poke around and you'll find it. We'll let you know how the rest of the evaluation goes.
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Re: Sales Tips
"They're likely to offer a pat answer about price or prior loyalty, but if you probe a bit you might find your way to a more substantial reply" Art Post You know Art, the answer, I think, is likely in the last sentence of your sales tip. Far too many reps don't "peel the onion". Pat questions that receive pat answers to put together a pat proposal. Einstein once said that the definition of insanity... doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And yet most reps...
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Re: Sales Tips
Rules of thumb...sell nothing but the need for an appointment on a phone call or initial call. Also never "sell" during your fact-finding for several reasons: 1.) The fact-finding process gets interrupted or stopped. 2.) You come across like a dog salivating over fresh meat. 3.) You tip your hand and lose some of the thunder you will get from your proposal. 4.) You inspire additional questions and thought processes that the prospect will then discuss with competitors. 5.) You may be...
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Re: Ricoh & Oracle
The problems I wrote about on this board were the mere TIP of the iceberg. When I think about the times it took me more than an hour to input a simple one-machine order because of that blasted !@#$!%^^&* Oracle system crashing...!!! Sure, the implementation is the source of the problem, but who guided the implementation? Surely Ricoh didn't do it on its own. Then, who didn't fix anything when their system wasn't working?
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Re: Tips on Buying Your First Color Copier
First of Six Tips to the customer: Tip #1: Buy a system that can handle 2 to 3 times the volume you'll think you'll do. Odds are, your color volume will grow and grow! Tip #2 When printing photo's make sure you know the print speed in the 1200 dpi mode! Tip #3 If you can get a duplex option, get it right away. Nothing is finer than a two sided proposal or quote in color! Tip #4 Understand your consumable yeilds and the average color coverage that the manufacturer quotes. Tip #5 Max the RAM...
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Re: KonicaMinolta Lease
thanx for the tip, I had one from about three years ago and sent off to customer!
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Re: Notice to All Copier Employees
Subject: Redistribution Experiment Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed. Once in the restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" tie, and again I laughed as he had given away his political preference -- just imagine the coincidence. When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I...
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Re: Notice to All Copier Employees
Thanks for the laugh Art. Your last statement is priceless....
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Re: Panasonic Dumps Dealers, Keeps all but a handful!!!!
this is going to be just the tip of the iceberg. I doubt that in 5 years there will be more than 6 manufacturers out there
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Re: MPC 7500 Coated Paper Settings
I suggest asking your technical department. Glossy paper is not recommended for the Ricoh products. Try using a silk paper it works great. This tip came from a printer friend of mine which uses the Ricoh's in a pay for print environment.
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Re: Good Tip for You All
great tip, Art. sometimes it's the simple things that you don't think of that can help the most.
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Re: Aficio 240W & Plotbase, is it possible.........
Jason: Thanx for the tip, I'll give this a try on Monday! Art
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Re: Plotting in Black and White vs. Grey Scale
Well, Since I'm alone on this one I'll answer my own question in case anyone else does come across this. Apparently the 2 shades in vector graphics under the plotter settings is the fix. For the life of me couldn't figure out what the "black and white" button does because it didn't change a thing? Tip my hat to Ratio for making things easy!
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Re: 1022 Scan/Print
Jim - they don't have any - thanks for the tip. Any other ideas? Thanks Brad