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Likes: 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.Originally Posted by Phil B.
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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.
When you think you have made a procedure idiot proof your company employs a better idiot.
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.
Thanks to Covid-19 many stupid operations are now carried out remotely. Before it was unthinkable, even though the instrumentation was already there.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's all good. Different strokes for different folks. Keep doing what's working for you.
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