Memoirs of a Copier Sales Person "Revenue Quota's Don't Suck"

"Who is the competition?", "What are they offering?", "Did you ask to see a copy of the competitive proposals?". These are all questions that I'll ask a new rep if I hear that they are having problems with securing the order. 

Believe it or not here are the answers that I received.

• I don't know
• I don't know
• No, I didn't think of the that

Focus

Many might say, well just focus on your companies strengths and everything else will fall in line. I say, that's hogwash! Most reps don't dig deep enough into the clients "needs". Most are not asking enough questions to see where the pain or problem is. Thus, what ends up happening is that most reps will the road of easy. Meaning they will quote equal feature for feature replacement or a copier that may be a little bit faster or slower. Most don't have a clue what their copier can do and what their competitors copiers can't do.

FAB still works (feature, advantage and benefit)

Quota

For those of us that have REAL quota's that are based on REVENUE & gross profit. We need to sell.  We need to figure out who is he price buyer and who is the value buyer. If you can't do that you won't last long in this industry. 

Make a decision, do you want the price buyer because you need the revenue? That's a call only the salesperson can make. Keep in mind that you/we can't sell everyone and every so often you do need to walk away. You can spend the same amount of time selling one copier or 5 copiers. Which one would you choose?

Opportunities

When you don't have squat in the opportunity column you're pretty much screwed and you need to take the price buyers. That's why it's so important to keep a pipeline that is three to four time your monthly quota. Those are deals that you think or will close in that 30 day cycle. Personal I keep a 60 day pipeline of my opportunities, then always adding and subtracting.

Revenue

For those of us that have revenue quotas, and most of us do, there's a certain amount of pride that you feel when you're reached your quota. On the flip side not reaching your quota always have you scratching your head and thinking what could I have done better? Those are the highs and lows of selling with a revenue quota. 

I've had a revenue quota for the last 12 years. Then another 31 years of gross profit revenue. At times I wish I could go back to a gross profit quota just to slow down a bit. On the other hand having a revenue quota always keeps me on my toes for continued prospecting. Yes, I'm the type of person that would rest on my laurels if I had a big gross profit order, and yes I would suffer the next month because I took a break and did not prospect. 

Been there, done that, I'd rather have a steady stream of orders because I need that dopamine rush every week or at least a few times a week!

-=Good Selling=-

I was all over the place on this blog. My apologies but had to get this out there. Sick and tired of lazy sales people, sales people that don't, people that think they are sales people and sales people that DON"T HAVE REAL REVENUE QUOTA'S

Consider this a special invite to visit my site, Print4Pay Hotel. Twenty plus years of threads, blogs, comments about the office technology business