{"id":6534,"date":"2014-01-22T14:36:02","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T19:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theweekinimaging.com\/?p=6534"},"modified":"2014-01-22T14:36:02","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T19:36:02","slug":"its-time-to-teach-sales-reps-how-to-sell-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/feature-articles\/2014\/01\/its-time-to-teach-sales-reps-how-to-sell-again\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Time to Teach Sales Reps How to Sell Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"timid<\/a>What\u2019s wrong with these people? Sales reps I mean.<\/p>\n

If you ask Tom Callinan of Strategy Development, the industry has changed, but some sales reps haven\u2019t changed with it although he\u2019s not really blaming them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve turned our sales forces into financial sales people,\u201d opines Callinan. \u201cWhat I mean by that is most business owners and a lot of senior managers probably have 20 to 35 years in the business; when they went out and sold, you actually had to convince people to go with you. Most of the time you were a young company, you didn\u2019t have a big customer base, so you had to steal somebody else\u2019s customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the days of the Savins, the Konicas, the Minoltas, Xerox, Kodak, everybody was out there looking to steal their customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what tended to happen and often.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason customers would switch is number one, we weren\u2019t as good on the leasing side and didn\u2019t have service bundled in so there wasn\u2019t a lot of switching costs in terms of lease out,\u201d says Callinan. \u201cThey\u2019d send out a check with the remaining payments and the machine and take it back. \u00a0Now, both those aspects are gone. People bundle and the leasing companies won\u2019t take the lease back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other reason why customers could be easily convinced to make a change back in the day is that copiers broke all the time. \u201cThe end user blamed that on the dealer, but really it was the product, they just really didn\u2019t work well,\u201d adds Callinan. \u201cAfter awhile the end users figured out that it doesn\u2019t matter what vendor I have, these copiers break a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then copiers started getting more reliable.<\/p>\n

Once customers figured out that copiers broke a lot and it didn\u2019t matter who they bought them from, followed by them becoming more reliable, and the leasing companies not letting the dealer term the lease out and send the equipment back along with companies starting to bundle so they had a significant financial advantage of upgrade vs. leasing, the sales rep would get this new base of customers and just go in and flood leases.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019It\u2019s a five year lease, it\u2019s four years in, I can make the math work; you pay $330 a month now and for $330 I can give you a new copier; sign on the dotted line.\u2019 What\u2019s the sales skill there?\u201d asks Callinan.<\/p>\n

That was fine when hardware was flowing out the door, but as the copier industry has matured and the average selling price has declined along with a decline in units, growth is now coming from MPS, MS, and adjacent markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow all of a sudden you need sales skills, it\u2019s not flipping anymore,\u201d says Callinan. \u201cOur sales professionals don\u2019t know how to develop a business case; they\u2019ve been selling 100 percent financial.\u201d<\/p>\n

And forget about going in and telling a customer, \u201cI can save you money and increase your productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how you increase productivity with a copier because productivity is defined as output per something, whether it\u2019s revenues per rep or widgets per machine in the factory, so they\u2019re saying something that\u2019s illogical,\u201d argues Callinan. \u201cIt\u2019s not, \u2018tell me when your server goes down how does that affect your business? When that happens, how do you handle your customer relations issues? When your server is dead and you can\u2019t get information to your customers, how do you handle that, how much does that cost you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Callinan believes there\u2019s a need for seminars such as Strategy Developments\u2019 Advanced Enterprise Selling Skills, which he\u2019s offering in February 12-13 at the Hyatt Place Orlando Airport Northwest<\/a>.This course is designed to teach reps how to have intelligent business conversations with the customer.<\/p>\n

The key is to focus on what are the goals of the relationship between the sales rep and the customer or prospect. \u201cYou need to lay it out in the first meeting and do a good discovery,\u201d says Callinan. \u201cFind out the business case, why they should be talking to you and how you can help them. That\u2019s what Advanced Enterprise Selling Skills is. Teaching these folks how to go in and uncover business issues that would result in them selling their services or products.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can say Callinan and company are responding to a disturbing trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trend is these guys have lost their sales ability, they\u2019ve become financial sales people,\u201d he emphasizes once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s wrong with these people? Sales reps I mean. If you ask Tom Callinan of Strategy Development, the industry has changed, but some sales reps haven\u2019t changed with it although he\u2019s not really blaming them. \u201cWe\u2019ve turned our sales forces into financial sales people,\u201d opines Callinan. \u201cWhat I mean by that is most business owners and a lot of senior managers probably have 20 to 35 years in the business; when they went out and sold, you actually had to convince people to go with you. Most of the time you were a young company, you didn\u2019t have a big customer base, so you had to steal somebody else\u2019s customers. \u201cBack in the days of the Savins, the Konicas, the Minoltas, Xerox, Kodak, everybody was out there looking to steal their customers.\u201d And that\u2019s what tended to happen and often. \u201cThe reason customers would switch is number one, we weren\u2019t as good on the leasing side and didn\u2019t have service bundled in so there wasn\u2019t a lot of switching costs in terms of lease out,\u201d says Callinan. \u201cThey\u2019d send out a check with the remaining payments and the machine and take it back. \u00a0Now, both those aspects are gone. People bundle and the leasing companies won\u2019t take the lease back.\u201d The other reason why customers could be easily convinced to make a change back in the day is that copiers broke all the time. \u201cThe end user blamed that on the dealer, but really it was the product, they just really didn\u2019t work well,\u201d adds Callinan. \u201cAfter awhile the end users figured out that it doesn\u2019t matter what vendor I have, these copiers break a lot.\u201d Then copiers started getting more reliable. Once customers figured out that copiers broke a lot and it didn\u2019t matter who they bought them from, followed by them becoming more reliable, and the leasing companies not letting the dealer term the lease out and send the equipment back along with companies starting to bundle so they had a significant financial advantage of upgrade vs. leasing, the sales rep would get this new base of customers and just go in and flood leases. \u201c\u2019It\u2019s a five year lease, it\u2019s four years in, I can make the math work; you pay $330 a month now and for $330 I can give you a new copier; sign on the dotted line.\u2019 What\u2019s the sales skill there?\u201d asks Callinan. That was fine when hardware was flowing out the door, but as the copier industry has matured and the average selling price has declined along with a decline in units, growth is now coming from MPS, MS, and adjacent markets. \u201cNow all of a sudden you need sales skills, it\u2019s not flipping anymore,\u201d says Callinan. \u201cOur sales professionals don\u2019t know how to develop a business case; they\u2019ve been selling 100 percent financial.\u201d And forget about going in and telling a customer, \u201cI can save you money and increase your productivity.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know how you increase productivity with a copier because productivity is defined as output per something, whether it\u2019s revenues per rep or widgets per machine in the factory, so they\u2019re saying something that\u2019s illogical,\u201d argues Callinan. \u201cIt\u2019s not, \u2018tell me when your server goes down how does that affect your business? When that happens, how do you handle your customer relations issues? When your server is dead and you can\u2019t get information to your customers, how do you handle that, how much does that cost you?\u2019\u201d That\u2019s why Callinan believes there\u2019s a need for seminars such as Strategy Developments\u2019 Advanced Enterprise Selling Skills, which he\u2019s offering in February 12-13 at the Hyatt Place Orlando Airport Northwest.This course is designed to teach reps how to have intelligent business conversations with the customer. The key is to focus on what are the goals of the relationship between the sales rep and the customer or prospect. \u201cYou need to lay it out in the first meeting and do a good discovery,\u201d says Callinan. \u201cFind out the business case, why they should be talking to you and how you can help them. That\u2019s what Advanced Enterprise Selling Skills is. Teaching these folks how to go in and uncover business issues that would result in them selling their services or products.\u201d You can say Callinan and company are responding to a disturbing trend. \u201cThe trend is these guys have lost their sales ability, they\u2019ve become financial sales people,\u201d he emphasizes once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[82],"tags":[1134,152,1133,339,346],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6536,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6534\/revisions\/6536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}