Tough week, today was the end of the month and I had booked five appointments with my first appointment at 7:30 a.m. (really, did I need the deal that bad?). Up at 6 a.m., back to bed at 6:05 a.m., finally up and at em at 6:15 a.m. Made my way downstairs to walk the dog and watch the sky turning orange over the ocean to the east.
I made it to my first appointment at 7:32 a.m. I knocked on the door (because it was locked and thought what a way to start the day). Forty-five seconds later the owner came to the door and we wrote the order for a small MPC305SPF. As of a few days ago I was hoping to get the wide-format system (CW2200SP) and the smaller color system, however, the customer wanted to wait a few months on the wide format since they are in a seasonal business and the year just started for them. I made sure to mention that we could offer a seasonal lease on the wide-format system. I left with a promise that I would follow up before the end of the new month about the wide-format system.
Into the car and I realized I left my cell phone at home. A quick 25-minute ride north along the ocean and I was home to get my phone. Powered up the laptop and updated my CRM software. I had a teleconference appointment for 8:45 a.m. and went over the specifics for a rather large secure print proposal that I’m still working on. After 30 minutes we were done and I made my favorite trip of the day to the best little coffee shop in Bayshore. I spent 30 minutes with my favorite paper, favorite cup of coffee, and an egg and cheese sandwich.
I had another appointment at 11:00 a.m. to write an order for two A4 systems at an existing account. We had placed a system in for trial a few days ago. I had already negotiated price and closing date a few days ago. Along with that I checked in on the system on Friday and all was well. I met with the CFO and he stated he needed another day or so because one of his other “people” from another location did not have the chance to see the system yet. With that I set another appointment for later this week to meet and finish up the order. This appointment lasted about 35 minutes.
Next stop was five miles away, however, I had more than two hours to kill. So what does a good rep do for more than two hours and 45 minutes away from the office? Go to the nearest park and take a nap? That was the best idea. I took to cold calling the area, but wanted to go to an area I hadn’t been in quite a while (I do most of my cold calling by phone). I was able to hit about eight places, but I was picky, I only visited offices where the parking lots were full. To each receptionist I gave an excited “Hello, how are you today?” and then introduced myself. By the way, I did not walk in with my bag, nor a brochure, or folder, just me and my business cards. I was happy with my effort since I got five out of eight contact names for ‘who would take care your Managed Network needs.’ I made no mention of copiers or imaging systems. I’ll follow up in the course of a few weeks with my box approach, which is a mailer, an e-mail, and a phone call.
Before you knew it 2 p.m. had arrived and my next appointment, which was to discuss cloud backup with the office manager and the operations manager. Once there I was informed everyone was pulled into a meeting and the day was very hectic for them, but I hung around long enough to get 10 minutes with the operations manager and we scheduled another appointment to not only discuss cloud backup, but also a wide- format system.
My last stop of the day was for a system that was just delivered today for a demo. This ride to South Jersey took me almost an hour. The appointment/demo didn’t go that well, the quality was off in the duplicator due to a print driver issue, however, I demonstrated how the duplicator works and let the owner tell me more about the 100-ppm KM system, the 6-ppm color KM system, and the 5-ppm color Canon system he has. We left on good terms and scheduled a tentative appointment to meet again once the issue is resolved. Walking out the car, I e-mailed service and gave them a big WTF is going on!
Got home about 5:45 p.m. and I was exhausted. I finished up my day by taking my dog out for a walk and then settling in with the wife as we spoke about the wonderful day we each had at work. BTW, in the course of the day I read over 20 e-mails, sent 15 e-mails and made about a dozen calls.
Good selling!
