The future of work

[Tricky]

Re: The future of work

as long as cuntry leaders.. and governors/mayor keep on the ' Lock down ' theories y'all will have to continue to worry about your paychecks.

Middle management seems to have been worst hit in the UK we had, or still have an engineer who progressed up the ladder that could do the talk and confuse his superiors, but I haven't heard from him for months.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

There's been a lot of talk about the U.S. experiencing a K-shaped recovery, with large companies and the rich recovering while smaller companies and lower-paid service workers struggle. But this divide also shows up in the way Americans are shopping.

July personal spending data confirmed a simultaneous boom in consumption of durable goods such as cars and refrigerators and a depression in spending on services. This is the exact opposite of what happened in the 2008 recession. But such a durable-goods boom is unsustainable, whether or not we ever get a vaccine for the coronavirus. When it ends, markets might be in for a period analogous to 2015-16, when a slump in energy investment rattled global markets even as consumer spending and employment kept growing.

Our weird pandemic spending ways could change soon - BNN Bloomberg

I am not sure what this means for the print industry as sales reps have to find new ways of finding new customers. The old way of knocking on 20 doors a day now seems socially unacceptable. If sales reps are not selling new/used copiers this puts service technician jobs at risk. The trend is accelerating as manufacturers are moving away from the traditional SRU (Service Replaceable Unit) to the new CRU (Customer Replaceable Unit) service model. The CRU model costs more but labour costs are reduced.

[Bix]

Re: The future of work

Thanks to Covid-19 many stupid operations are now carried out remotely. Before it was unthinkable, even though the instrumentation was already there.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Some members of multi-person households want to go back to the office because they can't get enough bandwidth or privacy at home to work.

Most people have regular or premium internet access at home. These same people never dreamed that in family of three or more people they would have to be compete for internet access for work or entertainment.

Things were fine for the summer when people where outside doing things. Now that school and post secondary classes are back in session, for many people, taking online classes is the only option during COVID-19. Lectures, moves, games, Teams/ Zoom video meetings all use a lot of data.

Often whole neighbourhoods or apartment complexes are competing for data and the local Internet Service providers are rushing to install more capacity to avoid drops in service.

With more people present in a house, spare rooms are no longer empty and family noises can filter into the background of business meetings. Sometimes rooms have to do double duty as a bedroom and office with the increased possibility of family members, sometimes embarrassingly dressed passing by in the background.

This unexpected lack of internet privacy and bandwidth makes some people want to return to the office.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The future of work

I am not sure what this means for the print industry as sales reps have to find new ways of finding new customers. The old way of knocking on 20 doors a day now seems socially unacceptable. If sales reps are not selling new/used copiers this puts service technician jobs at risk. The trend is accelerating as manufacturers are moving away from the traditional SRU (Service Replaceable Unit) to the new CRU (Customer Replaceable Unit) service model. The CRU model costs more but labour costs are reduced.

Knocking on doors (face-to-face) is a big waste of time, IMO. The telephone has always been more effective for office equipment. There is no magic bullet for sales in the corona virus era. Sales people simply have to work harder and make more calls and make more appointment.

The problem is that a lot of companies are hurting and aren't spending money. They scared. Not to mention that a lot of schools and churches aren't open. Those are 2 big markets for copiers.

In the end there is no new way to make sales. But if someone finds a new way to do it...let me know.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Knocking on doors (face-to-face) is a big waste of time, IMO. The telephone has always been more effective for office equipment. There is no magic bullet for sales in the corona virus era. Sales people simply have to work harder and make more calls and make more appointment.

The problem is that a lot of companies are hurting and aren't spending money. They scared. Not to mention that a lot of schools and churches aren't open. Those are 2 big markets for copiers.

In the end there is no new way to make sales. But if someone finds a new way to do it...let me know.

Knocking on door (cold calls) is a critical task that an outside copier sales rep has to perform.

Unfortunately, during COVID-19 that task is now more often met with rejection than in the past.

Copier dealers who can provide IT services is now the greatest source of new leads. Sending out bulk admail via the Post Office can produce some results.

Copier leases are still expiring and customers continue to require copier upgrades to keep up with the hugely popular Office 365. IT Server sales have greatly dropped off as a result.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

COVID-19 is causing a surge in lawsuits between employees and employers who were either infected by the virus while at their workplace, were asked by their employers to needlessly expose themselves to the virus because of financial or political beliefs or feel that they were laid off from work using COVID-19 as an excuse to reduce expense.

The families of employees who died because they think that person contracted COVID-19 while at work face difficulties in proving where the person was infected.

The USA faces the double whammy of being both the most infected country in the world plus having the most litiginous attitudes of any society in the world.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The future of work

Knocking on door (cold calls) is a critical task that an outside copier sales rep has to perform.

Unfortunately, during COVID-19 that task is now more often met with rejection than in the past.

Copier dealers who can provide IT services is now the greatest source of new leads. Sending out bulk admail via the Post Office can produce some results.

Copier leases are still expiring and customers continue to require copier upgrades to keep up with the hugely popular Office 365. IT Server sales have greatly dropped off as a result.

I hear all the time that door to door sales is critical but I haven't done it in years and I make more sales for it.

For starters, you're walking up in an office unannounced and asking to speak to an owner/manager/purchasing agent. How much time, if any, do you think they're gonna have for you? While they're doing all of that door to door calling, I've called 100 offices in a day and set several appointments.

That's not to say there's no value in door to door calls. If I have an appointment and there's a company close by that I've stayed in touch with, I may drop by.

In the end, I simply have too many sales leads that I've developed over the phone to be doing face to face. Just my opinion.

EDIT: As far as bulk mail using the postal service, I think your'e better off putting the letter in an envelope and throwing in the trash can yourself and saving the price of postage. Most folks throw that stuff right in the trash like most of us do when we get it. Will you make the occaisonal sale? Yes, but my time and money is more effective elsewhere. Nothing beats the phone.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

I hear all the time that door to door sales is critical but I haven't done it in years and I make more sales for it.

For starters, you're walking up in an office unannounced and asking to speak to an owner/manager/purchasing agent. How much time, if any, do you think they're gonna have for you? While they're doing all of that door to door calling, I've called 100 offices in a day and set several appointments.

That's not to say there's no value in door to door calls. If I have an appointment and there's a company close by that I've stayed in touch with, I may drop by.

In the end, I simply have too many sales leads that I've developed over the phone to be doing face to face. Just my opinion.

EDIT: As far as bulk mail using the postal service, I think your'e better off putting the letter in an envelope and throwing in the trash can yourself and saving the price of postage. Most folks throw that stuff right in the trash like most of us do when we get it. Will you make the occaisonal sale? Yes, but my time and money is more effective elsewhere. Nothing beats the phone.

Pre Covid-19, if you make 20 cold calls a day you would be surprised how often you get to talk to a buyer in person.

99% of bulk admail fails. 1% does work and that is all you need to make the effort worthwhile. You would be surprised at how some people will hang onto your flyers for many months until they need a copier and then give you a call. Also, as you repeat an admail campaign over seven times, the success rate increases. I add 10-20 new customers per year because of it. An uptodate website is required as well that preferably allows you to add blog posts every few weeks to improve SEO.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The future of work

Pre Covid-19, if you make 20 cold calls a day you would be surprised how often you get to talk to a buyer in person.

99% of bulk admail fails. 1% does work and that is all you need to make the effort worthwhile. You would be surprised at how some people will hang onto your flyers for many months until they need a copier and then give you a call. Also, as you repeat an admail campaign over seven times, the success rate increases. I add 10-20 new customers per year because of it. An uptodate website is required as well that preferably allows you to add blog posts every few weeks to improve SEO.

It's all good. Different strokes for different folks. Keep doing what's working for you.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The future of work

Just to follow up on face-to-face vs. telephone prospecting.

Copier sales has always been a numbers game and it will always be a numbers game. Unlike some other products, the vast majority of copiers are under lease. If you get in your car and visit 20 businesses, and lets say you're fortunate enough to talk to 25% of the decision makers for said 20 businesses. What you're gonna find out is that 95% of those machines are under lease. That means 95% of the those businesses aren't in the buying window and that means no sale. The numbers aren't in the salesman's favor.


Here's what I do.

I have a person and all she does is qualify/disqualify sales leads over the phone. She normally makes about 100 phone calls per day and her only goal is to gather information. She finds out the following:

1. Make/Model of machine
2. Under lease or no and the lease expiration date.
3. Number of copies per month.
4. Who's the decision maker.
5. Color or B/W.

From there all this info is entered into a sales data base and I follow up on the qualified leads that are in the buying window. And I have all of the lease expiration dates that are 1-year out. 2-years out, ect. and I follow up with them when they reach the buying window.

When I say I follow up on the qualified leads, what I mean is that I call and ask for the decision maker and set up an appointment rather than walk in his office unannounced. I want them to set up a block of time to where I'm not rushed and can make an effective sales pitch.

In my humble opinion this is a much more effective way of selling.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

The purpose of cold calls is not to expect to walk in the door and sell something. As leases expire on average every 60 months, if you make 20 cold calls a day, there is a 1 in five chance that a salesperson will enter a business that has a lease expire that month. Over five days, if you can maintain that pace, you will get 2-3 opportunities to quote a copier per week. As you say, it is a numbers game that goes into a sales funnel of potential opportunities.

The purpose of cold calls is to gather the same information you described in your previous post while attempting to build some personal familiarity/ empathy with both the gate keeper and the decision maker that a telemarketer will never acquire.

It is not uncommon to have to make six or more return calls on a gate keeper before you get to see the Decision maker each time building up a little more information on the account plus people in an account can often change over five years.

It is great that you have an effective telemarketer working for you. Most dealers do not.

Of course, because of COVID-19 this well established sales practise has now been turned upside down for many copier sales people so they have to focus on alternative ways to prospect and find new customers.

For many industries well beyond copiers, COVID-19 has turned their sales process upside down which has resulted in the entire economy contracting.

It is now extra difficult for new sales people to get started in the copier business and earn enough income to support themselves. Besides all of the product knowledge required, few young people have a personality that allows themselves to be rejected up to 100 times per week.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The future of work

The purpose of cold calls is not to expect to walk in the door and sell something. As leases expire on average every 60 months, if you make 20 cold calls a day, there is a 1 in five chance that a salesperson will enter a business that has a lease expire that month. Over five days, if you can maintain that pace, you will get 2-3 opportunities to quote a copier per week. As you say, it is a numbers game that goes into a sales funnel of potential opportunities.

The purpose of cold calls is to gather the same information you described in your previous post while attempting to build some personal familiarity/ empathy with both the gate keeper and the decision maker that a telemarketer will never acquire.

It is not uncommon to have to make six or more return calls on a gate keeper before you get to see the Decision maker each time building up a little more information on the account plus people in an account can often change over five years.

It is great that you have an effective telemarketer working for you. Most dealers do not.

Of course, because of COVID-19 this well established sales practise has now been turned upside down for many copier sales people so they have to focus on alternative ways to prospect and find new customers.

For many industries well beyond copiers, COVID-19 has turned their sales process upside down which has resulted in the entire economy contracting.

It is now extra difficult for new sales people to get started in the copier business and earn enough income to support themselves. Besides all of the product knowledge required, few young people have a personality that allows themselves to be rejected up to 100 times per week.

I disagree with your numbers that you're gonna make 20 cold calls per day and find 1 in 5 businesses that are in the buying window. But lets assume that's true. You're only making 20 face to face visits per day. And you said these 20 calls are fact finding missions.

Instead of driving from business to business, wouldn't you be better served spending your time in front of qualified buyers? You can gather all of that information over the phone. I didn't always have a person gathering the info. for me. I did it for years myself. Then I figured out that time is money and that it's more effective if I hired someone to gather information for me while I concentrated on actual sales.

As far as building rapport with the prospect....that's all done on the appointment that I set with the decision maker.

Every sales strategy has it's plus and minuses but no company I ever worked for sent their sales force out on 20 face to face colds calls per day. Nope. They set us down in front of the phone and said get after it.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The future of work

PS - The only face-to-face cold calls I do works like this:

Before I go to an appointment, I print out a list from my CRM (Customer Relation Management Software) for all the prospects that I've talked to that are close by the appointment that I'm going to. I'm armed with the DM and gatekeepers name. They know who I am from speaking with them on the phone.

And I wouldn't even call them "cold" calls. They're warm calls.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

It does take a determined effort to make 20 calls in a day. New sales reps are expected to make 30. These people are usually motivated because they want/ need to earn a higher income, much higher (X2+) than a copier technician.

You go to one area and walk from business to business.

You can complete this prospecting task by early afternoon and focus on other tasks later in the day that might require driving.

Sales reps develop what I call "emotional armour" that they put on every morning to help them get past 100 no's to find that 1 yes.

Often a sales call will only be 1-2 minutes but you can learn a lot being inside a lobby and just looking around and asking only a few quick questions identifying who you are, what kind of copier they have, if they are happy with the service and when they might next be in the market for a copier.

What is key is to keep good notes after each call and database those notes end of day.

These 1-2 minute calls are followed up with a return visit approx every six months. Gate keepers are trained to say no to everyone who comes through the door as they know most sales reps will not come back. The ones that do come back they might give a chance if the need to replace their office equipment is within six months.

Most dealers give their sales reps some part of their database that corresponds to their territory so that they have some idea where to go if a lease will expire that year. Upgrading copiers early in a lease is not uncommon.