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Center for Business Innovation Profile: Meet the New Breed of Dealer, Not the Same as the Old Breed of Dealer
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Thursday, December 9, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
We've moved!
Thank you for following Imaging Industry Information, Strategy Development's blog.
Today, Strategy Development launched a new website, at a new address and incorporated the blog.
Please sign up to follow us at our new location: www.strategydevelopment.com/blog.
New Strategy Development website: http://www.strategydevelopment.com/
When reaching out to the Strategy Development team, please update your address books as our email addresses now end in strategydevelopment.com.
We hope to see you soon!
Today, Strategy Development launched a new website, at a new address and incorporated the blog.
Please sign up to follow us at our new location: www.strategydevelopment.com/blog.
New Strategy Development website: http://www.strategydevelopment.com/
When reaching out to the Strategy Development team, please update your address books as our email addresses now end in strategydevelopment.com.
We hope to see you soon!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Strategy Development Schedules Award Winning BTA MPS Back Office and Sales Training Classes for December in Philadelphia
We are conducting our award winning BTA Managed Print Services (MPS) Operations and Service Workshop on December 8, concurrently with BTA MPS Sales Workshop on December 8-9, in Philadelphia. These courses meet the training requirements of the Kyocera Certified MPS Dealer Program.
BTA MPS Sales workshop teaches sales leaders (dealership principals, sales managers, vice presidents of sales, and print specialists) a systematic and proven methodology to establish and maintain a profitable MPS program. Uncover new revenue streams, significantly increase the quantity of captured prints, lock in customers, enable differentiation from competitors, and, ultimately, sell more hardware.
Tom Callinan and Ed Carroll will lead this course. Topics covered in the workshop include: understanding the print space (the opportunity, IT's involvement, the sales approach and target markets); getting the appointment; presenting a value proposition; how to conduct an assessment; developing a strategy and tactics; how to build a print management proposal that sells; pricing a print management contract; how to expand the opportunity after the sale; and preparing for quarterly business reviews.
Become your customer’s "single source" for optimizing printed pages and the hardware used to produce them. Your customer enjoys eliminating the need to deal with multiple vendors and invoices, leveraging the benefits of a holistic view of their entire document output fleet, saving time and money, while improving efficiencies.
Jackson Jordan of Advantage Business Systems attended this class in New Orleans last week and said, “Great workshop! Straight forward, easy to understand approach to MPS. They give you the tools needed to implement a profitable MPS program. Thank you Strategy Development!”
Mike Woodard of Strategy Development created and instructs BTA MPS Operations and Service workshop, a course designed to jump-start your understanding of how to set up and manage all operational and service aspects of a MPS agreement. MPS is a go-to-market strategy that allows companies a robust and profitable relationship with your customers that generates a recurring revenue stream. Learn what you need to know for after the contract is signed that results in the added complexity to your back-office operations and to your service department.
Matt Mawby of Professional Business Systems said, “As a copier guy, this gave me an excellent service perspective on MPS. It was great to see the positive impact MPS brings to our service and operations."
Ron Fuhrman of Liberty Business Systems, had this to say, "This workshop helps to alleviate the angst of starting a successful MPS program and brought the project down to a simplistic, manageable process. The process, pricing and implementation ideas are well thought out."
The instructors have not been taught the material; they developed it, and lived it firsthand. When not in the classroom, they are consulting for clients, so the content is always in proper alignment with current and impending trends.
Click here for links to more information on the course, instructors, and to register for class.
BTA MPS Sales workshop teaches sales leaders (dealership principals, sales managers, vice presidents of sales, and print specialists) a systematic and proven methodology to establish and maintain a profitable MPS program. Uncover new revenue streams, significantly increase the quantity of captured prints, lock in customers, enable differentiation from competitors, and, ultimately, sell more hardware.
Tom Callinan and Ed Carroll will lead this course. Topics covered in the workshop include: understanding the print space (the opportunity, IT's involvement, the sales approach and target markets); getting the appointment; presenting a value proposition; how to conduct an assessment; developing a strategy and tactics; how to build a print management proposal that sells; pricing a print management contract; how to expand the opportunity after the sale; and preparing for quarterly business reviews.
Become your customer’s "single source" for optimizing printed pages and the hardware used to produce them. Your customer enjoys eliminating the need to deal with multiple vendors and invoices, leveraging the benefits of a holistic view of their entire document output fleet, saving time and money, while improving efficiencies.
Jackson Jordan of Advantage Business Systems attended this class in New Orleans last week and said, “Great workshop! Straight forward, easy to understand approach to MPS. They give you the tools needed to implement a profitable MPS program. Thank you Strategy Development!”
Mike Woodard of Strategy Development created and instructs BTA MPS Operations and Service workshop, a course designed to jump-start your understanding of how to set up and manage all operational and service aspects of a MPS agreement. MPS is a go-to-market strategy that allows companies a robust and profitable relationship with your customers that generates a recurring revenue stream. Learn what you need to know for after the contract is signed that results in the added complexity to your back-office operations and to your service department.
Matt Mawby of Professional Business Systems said, “As a copier guy, this gave me an excellent service perspective on MPS. It was great to see the positive impact MPS brings to our service and operations."
Ron Fuhrman of Liberty Business Systems, had this to say, "This workshop helps to alleviate the angst of starting a successful MPS program and brought the project down to a simplistic, manageable process. The process, pricing and implementation ideas are well thought out."
The instructors have not been taught the material; they developed it, and lived it firsthand. When not in the classroom, they are consulting for clients, so the content is always in proper alignment with current and impending trends.
Click here for links to more information on the course, instructors, and to register for class.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Sales Education Focus
Sales education can help your sales force achieve greater success. To be successful in our industry or any industry, our salespeople need to be more than just subject matter experts on products and services. Whether they are just learning basics or getting back to them, a good foundation is a pre-requisite to success in sales. Without the proper balance of training, your sales people are at risk of failing on the job. Sales people who don’t know the fundamentals of selling are more likely to burnout, get frustrated, lose confidence, quit or worst – you fire them.
Going into the 4th quarter and on into 2011 there will be those that only “think about” improving sales effectiveness, those will be the companies that lose ground vs. those that act upon it. Companies that hunker down and cut investments in their sales teams’ effectiveness will watch the tail lights shrink in the distance of those competitors continuing to invest and improve.
2011 Sales Organization Goals
1. Increase sales professional revenue productivity
a. Increase sales revenues
b. Increase market share and share of wallet
c. Improve customer retention
d. Increase sales effectiveness
2. Reduce sales turnover
3. Improve access to key information
4. Revise or implement sales process
5. Improve margins
6. Decrease expenses
Surely companies will need to control expenses and wring out excesses (if any remain); but the answer, as with all aspect of a successful life, is balance. Initiating programs to increase your sales teams’ productivity and effectiveness is needed now more than ever. If you have recently evaluated and invested in your sales people’s education then you’re ahead of the game. But there is still plenty of room for improvement ahead. Recognize that whatever you have done until now has been enough to get you to here, but likely will not be enough to get you to there: there being where you want and need to be in twelve months.
There are many areas to measure when reflecting on how sales forces perform specific selling task during the sales cycle to educate the prospect, align solutions to needs, and win the business. Year over year, companies invest in sales training to teach sales executives the ability to understand the customers buying cycle.
A question many companies ask me when discussing sales education needs is the following “If I understand how my customers buy, can I sell with less effort?”
My research this past year shows that we at Strategy Development see some level of advantage attained in reducing the number of calls to close a deal through better understanding of buying trends. The real advantage though, is seen in the outcome of those sales opportunities. We see that sales executive win rates by companies who excel, or are adequate in this area are 12% higher than those companies that need improvement.
Taking the time to really understand how customers buy from you or a competitor seems to be well worth the investment. Buying processes can morph dramatically based on the changes in a customer’s industry. Take for example, the fact that some computer firms who generated a noticeable percentage of their revenues from financial institutions, they saw sales from those clients decrease in 2008 because of the subprime loans. Or consider the impact on pharmaceutical and health insurance firms with universal health care. If clients businesses change dramatically, the firms selling to them will see major changes in how they buy.
More than ever, there is a real payoff in acquiring marketplace knowledge (business acumen) about the customers upon whom your teams are calling. Figures from a recent CSO Insights survey show that if sales reps have been trained in marketplace knowledge (business acumen) and are willing to take the time to research accounts and apply what they’ve been taught (to speak about a customer’s industry), we will be able to impact their productivity through quota achievement and impact their ability to achieve income goals which directly ties into the ability for companies to retain personnel and reduce turnover. Companies focused on these areas of sales education see development in confidence for sales in analyzing customer needs and positioning products and services within the context of a buyer’s financial drivers and strategies. Armed with better business acumen, they demonstrate financial literacy in sales situations; engage in more strategic discussions with prospects, and open doors at higher buying levels. When sales training initiatives target marketplace knowledge (business acumen), sales personnel become better in offering products and services within the context of a customer’s real business needs. They become trusted partners as they develop long-term customer partnerships.
Strategy Development is a management consulting and advanced sales training firm with a focus to helping companies in the imaging space. Strategy Development advises companies on how to defend existing markets, assess entries into new ones, develop growth strategies, control costs and profitably invest resources. For more information on our strategic sales skills workshop and sales coaching consulting please contact me at ramos@strategydevelopment.org
Thursday, October 14, 2010
When the Going Gets Tough, Somehow or Other Perry Corporation Gets Growing
By Scott Cullen
Forget the doom and gloom and crying about the economy. You’re not going to see any of that at Perry Corporation in Lima, Ohio. No sir, Perry Corporation is rocking and rolling from every conceivable angle. Consider that its traditional MFP and service business is up about six percent over last year. How many dealerships in this day and age can lay claim to that? Meanwhile, the solutions division, which mainly sells archiving and workflow software is up 64 percent over last year. The goal was to grow this segment of the business by 50 percent, so things are even better than expected. And speaking of better than expected, managed print is up 321 percent, well above the 200 percent that was budgeted.
Perry Corporation services a wide variety of customers although they concentrate on certain verticals, notably education, healthcare, manufacturing, and local government.
Why do customers choose Perry Corporation?
“A lot of different reasons, but primarily because we have the cash reserves to fund them internally so there is no third party leasing company or bank involved, which gives us a ton of flexibility,” says Barry Clark, president. “We make it real simple for them. It’s a one-page contract, not 27 pages of terms and conditions. It’s just a simple, easy to understand, straightforward concept that we sell.”
It’s a new business environment and Clark concedes that customer expectations are changing, especially when it comes to dealerships like Perry Corporation who do more than just move boxes.
“If you’re still a box company, customer expectations have pretty much been the same, ‘I want a great price and great response times, etc., etc., etc.,’” he says. “As you broaden your product offerings, the bar keeps getting raised higher and higher.”
That higher bar means that with more complex product offerings, Perry has had to raise the level of competence and skill sets among its employees to better support their customer base.
“When you’re supporting someone’s network infrastructure for example, if that goes down it’s a lot more damaging to a client then when their MFP on the third floor is not working,” he explains. “Not only is a higher degree of care required because you’re getting into more mission critical areas of the organization, but they also looking to get the most out of what you’re providing them. The other big thing is adoption, they all want help in getting their employees to adopt the new technology.”
While some of those competencies and skill sets are home grown, Clark isn’t shy about searching elsewhere to acquire them, including strategic acquisitions that complement their core business.
Perry Corporation has acquired three companies in the past five years, including an IT firm.
“We’re diversifying more and more so we’re not dependent on one revenue stream for our growth,” explains Clark. “That was the reason for the IT acquisition.”
The acquisition of an IT company was a smooth move for an office technology company, particularly one that traditionally connects devices to a customer’s network and is responsible for supporting them as well. What Clark found was a company that designs, implements, and supports the IT infrastructure.
“It made sense to me since that’s a piece of the pie we want to provide,” says Clark. “There’s a lot of synergies and then again there’s not a lot in a sense. For example, in the IT world, the sales cycle is much longer. The due diligence, the surveying, whatever you want to call it, is much longer. Everything is longer and you might win a big deal and it might take you six months to complete the install. There’s really no lease expiration dates on an IT infrastructure.”
Besides the differences from a structural standpoint, there’s a whole different culture in place from a personnel perspective as well and that’s another reason why an IT acquisition fit the bill.
“When you try to meld a copier rep with an IT rep they have different objectives and goals,” notes Clark. “The way we’ve gotten around that is assign a highly specialized team that’s led by the VP of the copier division and VP of the IT division to big name accounts because that’s a more long-view strategy to approach those accounts compared to, ‘they have a lease coming due in three weeks, let’s see if we can go in and talk to them about their IT infrastructure.’
Having an IT element helps sets Perry Corporation apart from its competitors although the big boys like HP and Xerox now have that capability too.
“Ironically, we did that two years before they did,” says Clark.
With all the transitions that have taken place in the office technology business over the past 20 years—analog to digital, connectivity, solutions, MPS—which was the toughest for Perry Corporation?
“I think they’ve all been fairly difficult,” reflects Clark. “I’d be hard pressed to say one was harder than the other because with each one you have to develop a new business model and people have to get out of the box they were in.”
One of the plusses for Clark with any transition, including the most recent into managed print services is he has what he calls a ‘forward-thinking management team and forward-thinking employees.” That’s something not every legacy office technology dealership possesses. He also hasn’t been shy about going out and bringing in extra help, like Strategy Development, to help with not only the transition to MPS, but in identifying acquisition target to grow the business.
Strategy Development has also assisted Perry Corp. in putting management and sales operations processes in place to grow equipment revenue. Clark sought their expertise about a year and a half ago as hardware sales began declining.
“We were fortunate,” says Clark, “I know some dealers who lost, 20, 30, 40 points of percent of revenue. We didn’t decline that much, but we said, ‘most of our folks had never sold in a recession so let’s make sure there’s not a better way we can do this and Strategy Development showed us. It’s a lot of stuff we already knew and were already doing, but they were able to tie it together for us so it made more sense and became more of an executable strategy.”
Without giving away the store, one of the things Perry Corporation did was realign their individual sales territories. That was based on a Strategy Development MIF (Machines In Field) study and the notion that a rep needs a certain percentage of his territory to be existing customers to make a reasonable living and reduce turnover.
“It also helped us identify those reps that needed more help,” explains Clark.
MPS had been on Perry Corporation’s radar screen for some time, but they began taking it seriously in 2006. The acquisition of the IT company was not only part of their acquisition strategy, but their MPS strategy too. MPS is now Perry Corporation’s most profitable area.
“We’re up more than 300 percent from last year, but the net income is phenomenal,” beams Clark.
It’s not like moving into managed print was a walk in the park for Clark. He firmly believes it’s something that needs to be totally supported and communicated from the top down.
“You can’t just hand it off to a lieutenant and say ‘go make this happen,’” he says. “The executive team of the Perry Corporation was behind it 100 percent day in and day out. The second piece was we found the right person to run it. We didn’t think we could take one of our MFP sales managers and quickly get where we wanted to be, so we went out and found some new talent.”
A lot of the success is because Perry Corporation begins with the MPS message at C-level.
“When you start at the C-level, they get interested pretty quickly,” says Clark. “If you could throw around numbers like 25-30 percent savings over what they’re paying today, you can make a pretty compelling argument about the fact that you can reduce their costs without them having to buy anything—at least up front.”
Perry Corporation won’t pursue the engagement if they can’t get to that C-level person.
“We need their buy in, we need them to open the door, we need them to corral the troops to get the information we need to make a good presentation back to them,” says Clark. “We spend a lot of time and money on training how to get to a C-level person.”
Outside help from the likes of Strategy Development has provided Perry Corporation with strategies for reaching C-level executives as well as guidance on compensation plans. Without turning this into an advertorial for Strategy Development, it’s been a big help.
“We would certainly have taken much longer to get where we are today if we had not consulted with them two years ago,” reports Clark. “They’ve seen enough MPS accounts and have enough clients that do MPS, and have been for some time, they can steer you and you don’t have to do so much trial and error.”
Meanwhile, Clark expects MPS to continue to be the company’s fastest growing book of business.
“In the next five years we’d like to have 25 percent of our total revenue coming from MPS contracts.”
Now that his MPS business is booming, what does Clark know now that he wishes he knew when he started?
“I wished we would have started earlier,” he laughs.
Scott Cullen has been covering the office equipment industry since 1986. Scott is Publisher/Editorial Director for Imaging Solutions Reseller; Editorial Director/Managing Editor for OfficeSOLUTIONS and OfficeDEALER; Editor for PC Solutions; and a contributing writer and Editor for Independent Dealer, OFDA, Mercer Business, ENX, BERTL’s iTchat, Repro Report.
Forget the doom and gloom and crying about the economy. You’re not going to see any of that at Perry Corporation in Lima, Ohio. No sir, Perry Corporation is rocking and rolling from every conceivable angle. Consider that its traditional MFP and service business is up about six percent over last year. How many dealerships in this day and age can lay claim to that? Meanwhile, the solutions division, which mainly sells archiving and workflow software is up 64 percent over last year. The goal was to grow this segment of the business by 50 percent, so things are even better than expected. And speaking of better than expected, managed print is up 321 percent, well above the 200 percent that was budgeted.
Perry Corporation services a wide variety of customers although they concentrate on certain verticals, notably education, healthcare, manufacturing, and local government.
Why do customers choose Perry Corporation?
“A lot of different reasons, but primarily because we have the cash reserves to fund them internally so there is no third party leasing company or bank involved, which gives us a ton of flexibility,” says Barry Clark, president. “We make it real simple for them. It’s a one-page contract, not 27 pages of terms and conditions. It’s just a simple, easy to understand, straightforward concept that we sell.”
It’s a new business environment and Clark concedes that customer expectations are changing, especially when it comes to dealerships like Perry Corporation who do more than just move boxes.
“If you’re still a box company, customer expectations have pretty much been the same, ‘I want a great price and great response times, etc., etc., etc.,’” he says. “As you broaden your product offerings, the bar keeps getting raised higher and higher.”
That higher bar means that with more complex product offerings, Perry has had to raise the level of competence and skill sets among its employees to better support their customer base.
“When you’re supporting someone’s network infrastructure for example, if that goes down it’s a lot more damaging to a client then when their MFP on the third floor is not working,” he explains. “Not only is a higher degree of care required because you’re getting into more mission critical areas of the organization, but they also looking to get the most out of what you’re providing them. The other big thing is adoption, they all want help in getting their employees to adopt the new technology.”
While some of those competencies and skill sets are home grown, Clark isn’t shy about searching elsewhere to acquire them, including strategic acquisitions that complement their core business.
Perry Corporation has acquired three companies in the past five years, including an IT firm.
“We’re diversifying more and more so we’re not dependent on one revenue stream for our growth,” explains Clark. “That was the reason for the IT acquisition.”
The acquisition of an IT company was a smooth move for an office technology company, particularly one that traditionally connects devices to a customer’s network and is responsible for supporting them as well. What Clark found was a company that designs, implements, and supports the IT infrastructure.
“It made sense to me since that’s a piece of the pie we want to provide,” says Clark. “There’s a lot of synergies and then again there’s not a lot in a sense. For example, in the IT world, the sales cycle is much longer. The due diligence, the surveying, whatever you want to call it, is much longer. Everything is longer and you might win a big deal and it might take you six months to complete the install. There’s really no lease expiration dates on an IT infrastructure.”
Besides the differences from a structural standpoint, there’s a whole different culture in place from a personnel perspective as well and that’s another reason why an IT acquisition fit the bill.
“When you try to meld a copier rep with an IT rep they have different objectives and goals,” notes Clark. “The way we’ve gotten around that is assign a highly specialized team that’s led by the VP of the copier division and VP of the IT division to big name accounts because that’s a more long-view strategy to approach those accounts compared to, ‘they have a lease coming due in three weeks, let’s see if we can go in and talk to them about their IT infrastructure.’
Having an IT element helps sets Perry Corporation apart from its competitors although the big boys like HP and Xerox now have that capability too.
“Ironically, we did that two years before they did,” says Clark.
With all the transitions that have taken place in the office technology business over the past 20 years—analog to digital, connectivity, solutions, MPS—which was the toughest for Perry Corporation?
“I think they’ve all been fairly difficult,” reflects Clark. “I’d be hard pressed to say one was harder than the other because with each one you have to develop a new business model and people have to get out of the box they were in.”
One of the plusses for Clark with any transition, including the most recent into managed print services is he has what he calls a ‘forward-thinking management team and forward-thinking employees.” That’s something not every legacy office technology dealership possesses. He also hasn’t been shy about going out and bringing in extra help, like Strategy Development, to help with not only the transition to MPS, but in identifying acquisition target to grow the business.
Strategy Development has also assisted Perry Corp. in putting management and sales operations processes in place to grow equipment revenue. Clark sought their expertise about a year and a half ago as hardware sales began declining.
“We were fortunate,” says Clark, “I know some dealers who lost, 20, 30, 40 points of percent of revenue. We didn’t decline that much, but we said, ‘most of our folks had never sold in a recession so let’s make sure there’s not a better way we can do this and Strategy Development showed us. It’s a lot of stuff we already knew and were already doing, but they were able to tie it together for us so it made more sense and became more of an executable strategy.”
Without giving away the store, one of the things Perry Corporation did was realign their individual sales territories. That was based on a Strategy Development MIF (Machines In Field) study and the notion that a rep needs a certain percentage of his territory to be existing customers to make a reasonable living and reduce turnover.
“It also helped us identify those reps that needed more help,” explains Clark.
MPS had been on Perry Corporation’s radar screen for some time, but they began taking it seriously in 2006. The acquisition of the IT company was not only part of their acquisition strategy, but their MPS strategy too. MPS is now Perry Corporation’s most profitable area.
“We’re up more than 300 percent from last year, but the net income is phenomenal,” beams Clark.
It’s not like moving into managed print was a walk in the park for Clark. He firmly believes it’s something that needs to be totally supported and communicated from the top down.
“You can’t just hand it off to a lieutenant and say ‘go make this happen,’” he says. “The executive team of the Perry Corporation was behind it 100 percent day in and day out. The second piece was we found the right person to run it. We didn’t think we could take one of our MFP sales managers and quickly get where we wanted to be, so we went out and found some new talent.”
A lot of the success is because Perry Corporation begins with the MPS message at C-level.
“When you start at the C-level, they get interested pretty quickly,” says Clark. “If you could throw around numbers like 25-30 percent savings over what they’re paying today, you can make a pretty compelling argument about the fact that you can reduce their costs without them having to buy anything—at least up front.”
Perry Corporation won’t pursue the engagement if they can’t get to that C-level person.
“We need their buy in, we need them to open the door, we need them to corral the troops to get the information we need to make a good presentation back to them,” says Clark. “We spend a lot of time and money on training how to get to a C-level person.”
Outside help from the likes of Strategy Development has provided Perry Corporation with strategies for reaching C-level executives as well as guidance on compensation plans. Without turning this into an advertorial for Strategy Development, it’s been a big help.
“We would certainly have taken much longer to get where we are today if we had not consulted with them two years ago,” reports Clark. “They’ve seen enough MPS accounts and have enough clients that do MPS, and have been for some time, they can steer you and you don’t have to do so much trial and error.”
Meanwhile, Clark expects MPS to continue to be the company’s fastest growing book of business.
“In the next five years we’d like to have 25 percent of our total revenue coming from MPS contracts.”
Now that his MPS business is booming, what does Clark know now that he wishes he knew when he started?
“I wished we would have started earlier,” he laughs.
Scott Cullen has been covering the office equipment industry since 1986. Scott is Publisher/Editorial Director for Imaging Solutions Reseller; Editorial Director/Managing Editor for OfficeSOLUTIONS and OfficeDEALER; Editor for PC Solutions; and a contributing writer and Editor for Independent Dealer, OFDA, Mercer Business, ENX, BERTL’s iTchat, Repro Report.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
How Do We Help Our Sales Force Become More Effective?
I recently read a great article in B to B Magazine titled “Been there sold that.” It wasn’t that a single sentence of the article was new information—as a member of a consulting and advanced training firm that spends a lot of our time helping technology companies improve their sales effectiveness we have great visibility into the sales practice—but the fact that the article focused on selling to CMOs and the advice from these CMOs to sales professionals was the exact same that we provide adds credibility to what we see:
• The number one frustration of the CMO was that the sales professional did not know their company
This is a common issue we find in our industry as well, with sales professionals at all levels of success. They simply do not take the time to get to know their customers and prospects. Decades ago all sales professionals were taught to engage in conversations on pain areas with the prospect but that was before the internet, and the plethora of information available to research. Take the time to understand your customer and prospect and how your offering will help them achieve their goals. The article, which is focused on the CMO, does quote an IDC survey of senior technology buyers that states sales professionals are “somewhat prepared” or “not prepared” 54% of the time. So more than half the time the sale is dead before it starts.
• Not listening during the sales presentation
This issue manifests itself in many forms. We see sales professional giving value propositions as a presentation rather than as a talking point, where the prospect spends at least 50% of the time talking. It is also common for the sales professional to speak about the benefits to their offering areas where the prospect has already said they adopted what the sales professional is selling—the sales professional doesn’t adjust.
• Buyers are looking for a sales professional that provide value and understand the customer’s need and the general environment of the vertical
The bottom line here is that buyers aren’t looking to get pitched; they are looking for sales professionals that understand their business and their problems and that can demonstrate how their product or service can help the buyer address their pain points.
• Buyers try to minimize meetings with sales people
A person in a position of authority is constantly asked for meetings, both internally and externally. If an senior manager or executive cannot manage their calendar they will absolutely fail, so getting a meeting is difficult. The number one approach to getting on that meeting is through networking. Build and leverage your network.
• Have relevant material available
Case studies specific to the industry you are calling on are critical.
• Going above the buyer in the organizational structure
I’ll simply take the sentence directly out of the article to demonstrate a point we try to emphasize all the time in our training. We learned this from two perspectives: The SD team are all former senior managers and executives, and we have been involved in a significant quantity of large complex sales. “Often the CEO is the approver, not the buyer. If you usurp the buying organization, they you have made enemies of the actual buyer.”
I also think the article does a great job in summarizing the points so I’ll simply give credit where credit is due and use the words of Mark Wilson, VP-corporate marketing at Sybase, Inc, “The most effective salespeople understand what our company does. They come in with an idea of how they can solve our problem. They are good at listening, and they continue to evolve how they can solve our problem in the meeting. They have a number of case studies, and they pick them intelligently for companies that face the same problems that map to ours.”
David Ramos developed a strategic sales skills workshop and I have to say his program is right on the money. It was developed using his significant experience in working with sales professionals in the technology industry but it is clear that there is nothing unique in our industry: sales professionals simply need an opportunity to learn how to sell in a complex environment. You can contact David to get information on his program at ramos@strategydevelopment.org
• The number one frustration of the CMO was that the sales professional did not know their company
This is a common issue we find in our industry as well, with sales professionals at all levels of success. They simply do not take the time to get to know their customers and prospects. Decades ago all sales professionals were taught to engage in conversations on pain areas with the prospect but that was before the internet, and the plethora of information available to research. Take the time to understand your customer and prospect and how your offering will help them achieve their goals. The article, which is focused on the CMO, does quote an IDC survey of senior technology buyers that states sales professionals are “somewhat prepared” or “not prepared” 54% of the time. So more than half the time the sale is dead before it starts.
• Not listening during the sales presentation
This issue manifests itself in many forms. We see sales professional giving value propositions as a presentation rather than as a talking point, where the prospect spends at least 50% of the time talking. It is also common for the sales professional to speak about the benefits to their offering areas where the prospect has already said they adopted what the sales professional is selling—the sales professional doesn’t adjust.
• Buyers are looking for a sales professional that provide value and understand the customer’s need and the general environment of the vertical
The bottom line here is that buyers aren’t looking to get pitched; they are looking for sales professionals that understand their business and their problems and that can demonstrate how their product or service can help the buyer address their pain points.
• Buyers try to minimize meetings with sales people
A person in a position of authority is constantly asked for meetings, both internally and externally. If an senior manager or executive cannot manage their calendar they will absolutely fail, so getting a meeting is difficult. The number one approach to getting on that meeting is through networking. Build and leverage your network.
• Have relevant material available
Case studies specific to the industry you are calling on are critical.
• Going above the buyer in the organizational structure
I’ll simply take the sentence directly out of the article to demonstrate a point we try to emphasize all the time in our training. We learned this from two perspectives: The SD team are all former senior managers and executives, and we have been involved in a significant quantity of large complex sales. “Often the CEO is the approver, not the buyer. If you usurp the buying organization, they you have made enemies of the actual buyer.”
I also think the article does a great job in summarizing the points so I’ll simply give credit where credit is due and use the words of Mark Wilson, VP-corporate marketing at Sybase, Inc, “The most effective salespeople understand what our company does. They come in with an idea of how they can solve our problem. They are good at listening, and they continue to evolve how they can solve our problem in the meeting. They have a number of case studies, and they pick them intelligently for companies that face the same problems that map to ours.”
David Ramos developed a strategic sales skills workshop and I have to say his program is right on the money. It was developed using his significant experience in working with sales professionals in the technology industry but it is clear that there is nothing unique in our industry: sales professionals simply need an opportunity to learn how to sell in a complex environment. You can contact David to get information on his program at ramos@strategydevelopment.org
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
BTA MPS Training Classes Scheduled for November in San Francisco for Operations & Service and Sales Professionals
Strategy Development is conducting the award winning BTA Managed Print Services (MPS) Operations and Service Workshop on November 3, concurrently with BTA MPS Sales Workshop on November 3-4, at the San Francisco Airport Marriott Courtyard. These courses meet the training requirements of the Kyocera Certified MPS Dealer Program.
Mike Woodard of Strategy Development created and instructs BTA MPS Operations and Service workshop, a course designed to jump-start your understanding of how to set up and manage all operational and service aspects of a MPS agreement. MPS is a go-to-market strategy that allows companies a robust and profitable relationship with your customers that generates a recurring revenue stream. Learn what you need to know for after the contract is signed that results in the added complexity to your back-office operations and to your service department.
Matt Mawby of Professional Business Systems said, “As a copier guy, this gave me an excellent service perspective on MPS. It was great to see the positive impact MPS brings to our service and operations."
Ron Fuhrman of Liberty Business Systems, had this to say, "This workshop helps to alleviate the angst of starting a successful MPS program and brought the project down to a simplistic, manageable process. The process, pricing and implementation ideas are well thought out."
BTA MPS Sales workshop teaches sales leaders (dealership principals, sales managers, vice presidents of sales, and print specialists) a systematic and proven methodology to establish and maintain a profitable MPS program. Uncover new revenue streams, significantly increase the quantity of captured prints, lock in customers, enable differentiation from competitors, and, ultimately, sell more hardware.
Industry veterans, Tom Callinan and Ed Carroll, will lead this course. Topics covered in the workshop include: understanding the print space (the opportunity, IT's involvement, the sales approach and target markets); getting the appointment; presenting a value proposition; how to conduct an assessment; developing a strategy and tactics; how to build a print management proposal that sells; pricing a print management contract; how to expand the opportunity after the sale; and preparing for quarterly business reviews.
Become your customer’s "single source" for optimizing printed pages and the hardware used to produce them. Your customer enjoys eliminating the need to deal with multiple vendors and invoices, leveraging the benefits of a holistic view of their entire document output fleet, saving time and money, while improving efficiencies.
Jerry Ehrhardt of TLC Office Systems recently attended this class and said, “This is a good training class with educational substance. The instructors were very informative and knowledgeable. It has provided me a process I can implement with ease.”
Rich Fryman of ABS Business Products commented, “Tom and Ed didn’t waste time on worthless information. They were able to recognize that some information was good to have however did not need to go over it, which saved time to cover and stay on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the class.”
The instructors have not been taught the material; they developed it, and lived it firsthand. When not in the classroom, they are consulting for clients, so the content is always in proper alignment with current and impending trends.
For more information on the course, instructors, or to register for class, please click here for BTA MPS Operations and Service workshop or click here for BTA MPS Sales workshop.
Mike Woodard of Strategy Development created and instructs BTA MPS Operations and Service workshop, a course designed to jump-start your understanding of how to set up and manage all operational and service aspects of a MPS agreement. MPS is a go-to-market strategy that allows companies a robust and profitable relationship with your customers that generates a recurring revenue stream. Learn what you need to know for after the contract is signed that results in the added complexity to your back-office operations and to your service department.
Matt Mawby of Professional Business Systems said, “As a copier guy, this gave me an excellent service perspective on MPS. It was great to see the positive impact MPS brings to our service and operations."
Ron Fuhrman of Liberty Business Systems, had this to say, "This workshop helps to alleviate the angst of starting a successful MPS program and brought the project down to a simplistic, manageable process. The process, pricing and implementation ideas are well thought out."
BTA MPS Sales workshop teaches sales leaders (dealership principals, sales managers, vice presidents of sales, and print specialists) a systematic and proven methodology to establish and maintain a profitable MPS program. Uncover new revenue streams, significantly increase the quantity of captured prints, lock in customers, enable differentiation from competitors, and, ultimately, sell more hardware.
Industry veterans, Tom Callinan and Ed Carroll, will lead this course. Topics covered in the workshop include: understanding the print space (the opportunity, IT's involvement, the sales approach and target markets); getting the appointment; presenting a value proposition; how to conduct an assessment; developing a strategy and tactics; how to build a print management proposal that sells; pricing a print management contract; how to expand the opportunity after the sale; and preparing for quarterly business reviews.
Become your customer’s "single source" for optimizing printed pages and the hardware used to produce them. Your customer enjoys eliminating the need to deal with multiple vendors and invoices, leveraging the benefits of a holistic view of their entire document output fleet, saving time and money, while improving efficiencies.
Jerry Ehrhardt of TLC Office Systems recently attended this class and said, “This is a good training class with educational substance. The instructors were very informative and knowledgeable. It has provided me a process I can implement with ease.”
Rich Fryman of ABS Business Products commented, “Tom and Ed didn’t waste time on worthless information. They were able to recognize that some information was good to have however did not need to go over it, which saved time to cover and stay on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the class.”
The instructors have not been taught the material; they developed it, and lived it firsthand. When not in the classroom, they are consulting for clients, so the content is always in proper alignment with current and impending trends.
For more information on the course, instructors, or to register for class, please click here for BTA MPS Operations and Service workshop or click here for BTA MPS Sales workshop.
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