Brian Behrens (center) of ProCopy Office Solutions and family.
Name: Brian Behrens
Title: Business Development
Company: ProCopy Office Solutions, Inc., Tempe, AZ
Years in industry: 15 years
New business revenue: $1,630,000
Gross revenue: $2,175,000
Units placed: 278
What they’re saying about Brian: “We refer to Brian as the Michael Jordan of copier sales,” says Mike McGuirk, president of Pro Copy Office Solutions. “A typical month for him will be 26 machines to 18 different clients. His average gross profit margin is the highest on our team and his sales were at book price for service 98 percent of the time. His paperwork is always accurate and clean and he is the in house “Excel” expert and has often created forms to streamline the paperwork and commission process. His client retention rate is almost 100%. I can think of one client he has lost since he joined ProCopy and less than a handful he has lost in the 12 years we have worked together.”
One dealership’s loss was another dealership’s huge gain. That’s what happened when Brian Behrens joined ProCopy two years ago after leaving the dealership where he’d spent his formative years in copier sales prior to and even after acquisition by Global Imaging.
Behrens started in sales in 1999 after graduating from college. He still recalls the prophetic words of his Marketing 101 professor who told the class that even though they were all expecting a creative marketing position after college, the reality was that most of them would end up in sales.
“That was a shock to my system because I thought I’d be doing something cool—high-end marketing or design,” notes Behrens. “When I realized it was pretty much all about sales I embraced that and interviewed for different sales jobs before moving to Arizona.”
Of all those interviews, it was the interview with the copier dealer that truly opened his eyes. “That was the only interview where I was told you make your own hours and if you work really hard you can make really good money, and that’s pretty much the job.”
That first sales job was with a Canon dealership. There was a lot to learn at the beginning, especially since those first couple of weeks was when the dealership first started selling the Canon imageRUNNER 330’s and 400’s. “It was a lot more technology than I was ready for,” concedes Behrens.
After six months he had settled in, learned the products, and found a career. “I felt this is where I need to be and this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life,” says Behrens.
He remembers his first big sale well—a $30,000 deal with a trucking/freight liner dealership. “It was my quota for the month and my first multiple machine install. I was 21 years old.”
Working in a field rooted in technology has been anything but boring and even though the Canon digital copiers was new technology to Behrens, it was also new to existing clients and prospects. “It was fun to go out and tell people we can give you all this great new technology and it doesn’t cost that much more that what you’re doing now. It was an easy conversation and there were a lot of excited customers, which made me feel good.”
The best part of being in sales for Behrens is the interaction with clients and the relationships he’s built with people over the years. The flexibility of the job has also been an asset, particularly for someone with young children.
The biggest challenge of working in sales for Behrens is that things don’t always happen as quickly as he’d like, which he acknowledges is something that anybody in any industry who sells can relate to.
“Clients have other priorities and the reality is that copiers and printers are generally not people’s number one priorities unless there’s a problem and when there’s a problem, then you get moved up the scale. I’m a task guy, but I realize that most people don’t operate the way I do so my expectation of timelines and decision-making processes doesn’t always line up with the reality. After 15 years I still struggle with it.”
Behrens is detail oriented, a skill that has helped him throughout his career as has his knowledge of Excel. “I learned early on that Excel could be my best friend if I learned how to use it well,” says Behrens. “I figured out how to use formulas and put together pricing spreadsheets so that I could make changes easily and it would all recalculate itself.”
That’s a skill that hasn’t gone unnoticed at ProCopy. He’s worked for Mike McGuirk when both were at a Arizona Office Technologies, the dealership that was later acquired by Global Imaging. “All 8 years he was one of the top 10 reps in all of Global, finishing as high as third in the country,” says McGuirk. “When Xerox acquired Global, he never missed a beat. Then when he came to ProCopy he honored his non-compete and never called on an existing client for one year and still produced over $1,500,000 in net new business. It is a truly a pleasure to work with Brian and in my 30 years in the industry, he is the one in one thousand sales rep that you dream about landing on your team.”
