Tom Callinan

As a seasoned poker player, Tom Callinan has become well versed at calculating odds. Knowing when to muck your hand is at least as important as knowing when to go all in. It entails recognizing when your opponent has a strong hand or is bluffing. The ability to read people can Read More

People despise being micro managed yet many in the imaging industry seem to excel at this approach.  Why this obvious dichotomy when most managers are fairly intelligent people?  My belief is poor training, lack of analysis, and a desire to change things quickly.  As a person who Read More

“If we had more opportunities at bat we’d sell more” is a comment I commonly hear from dealer principals. It is true that all else being equal if you had more appointments you would generate more revenue, so the question to be asked is “Why don’t we have more appointments?”  Some Read More

If you’ve been around this industry long enough you get to know people or you get to know names if not the actual person. That’s the way it’s been for me. One subset of the document imaging industry that’s always fascinated me is the sales consultants. Some I know personally, Read More

It’s a good bet the old adage, ‘Those who can’t do teach’ doesn’t apply to your average document imaging industry sales consultant. Sales consulting and training has become a cottage industry as folks who were once out in the field selling day in and day out or running Read More

I interview hundreds of professionals from all segments of the document imaging industry every year. Some days I do as many as three or four interviews a day. Sometimes it’s only one. Rarely is it none. More often than not, these interviews are informative and insightful. An Read More

The front line sales manager is one of the most important yet undeveloped positions in a company.  Many of these individuals are promoted out of a sales role where they excelled. The belief is that since they were successful sales professionals they can turn others into Read More

What we discovered when putting together the May print issue of ENX magazine, which focuses on the Difference Makers in the document imaging industry, this industry is chock full of people who are making a difference. There’s more than we could fit into a print publication. As a Read More

In the first part of this article I discussed changes in how paper is (not) being used, focusing on G&A expense reduction in your business, looking at service revenue that is unsustainable, and growing market share.  In this article I’m going to focus on sales processes. Read More

I was driving to Atlantic City last Friday with a buddy that owns a technology company and he asked me that question.  This guy is no dummy: Wharton MBA, has owned his technology company for 25+ years, so he has had to reinvent himself numerous times, owns 50+ rental houses and Read More

Last Friday GE announced that they were selling most of GE Capital.  As a GE shareholder (I had one of those well timed “feelings,” combined with some research reports that made the stock look promising and I bought more GE shares last Monday to add to those that I already owned) Read More

Last week, in part one of this article, I reviewed for you the areas that would concern me with a sales manager: If they lacked tenure on their team that matches the efforts to add sales professionals If the productivity per sales professional is less than $550,000 If the team Read More

If your initial thought is that you hope he is in the field then watch your caller ID for “It’s the 80’s.”  I agree managers need to spend time with their sales professionals in the field, and I’ll get to that, but “being in the field” is not a proxy for being a good manager.  Read More

The past three years we’ve asked an assortment of players from the document imaging industry to share with us the trends that will be affecting their businesses in the coming year. Often, there’s a consensus on those trends, which often leads to a lot of repetition.  This ye Read More

(Editor’s note: This column ran a year ago in The Week in Imaging. It’s still just as relevant today as it was then.) The nuns at St. Rose Grammar school would be smacking my knuckles with a ruler if I made that statement, but the poor grammar is meant for emphasis. Read More