Twelve Days of Selling: Day 2

national-lampoons-christmas-vacation-familyMele Kalikimaka is the thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas day! 

I heard this today while traveling to the office. I love this song and every time I hear it, I’m reminded of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Clark & Ellen Griswold, and Cousin Eddie.

Yesterday, yes it was Sunday saw me take about four hours to plan Monday and to send at least 25 e-mails to prospects. Believe it or not I had two replies on Sunday! Neither one was a sale, but the e-mail served as a seed planted and some harvesting in the near future. I updated my CRM with about 25 calls for Monday.

Six a.m. snuck up on me so fast. I guess that’s what happens when you get to sleep around midnight.  I finally left for the office around 6:45 a.m. and arrived at the office before 8 a.m.  When I get to the office early, that can only mean one thing, oh geesh, no traffic, means, well at least I was going to work.

I’m not sure where to start, it’s been a whirlwind the last few days, starting with the net new order I signed on Friday. I had yet another order this morning for a wide format MFP and an A4 MFP.  But, my best order of the day came as a surprise. It wasn’t a large order, nor was it for hardware, but it was for 40 hours of block time for professional services.  Finally, I think I may be on the verge of something really, really big.

Placing phone calls, writing orders, processing orders, following up on deliveries, e-mailing prospects, responding to e-mails, taking calls, crunching numbers, lifting a couple of machines (at my age I’m glad lifted all those sacks of potato’s as a young adult), and then contemplating whether or not I’ll get my number. Oh bother!

Early in the morning, I thought I had my number, however that elusive number slipped through my fingers when I realized I had put a $40K deal in for this month when it should have been a $19K deal. Oh the pain!

Thus, with one day of selling left, I find myself about $24K short of my goal. I just received an e-mail while I was writing for a small $1,500 order. While I may not hit my number for the year, I can hang my hat that this month revenue was almost 300 percent of quota and I’m thinking I can get to 166 percent for the quarter. Not bad, but there is still one day left and that’s still 5 percent of the month that is left!

Good selling!

 

Art Post
About the Author
One of the most recognizable salespeople in the office equipment space and a veteran of 40-plus years in the sales game, ART POST is also the creator of P4P Hotel, a rest stop for salespeople to catch up on the highs, lows and developments in office technology. The site also allows industry pros to touch base with peers and have an open dialog about the state of the industry. Post’s blogs number in the thousands, and his writing has appeared in numerous industry publications. He can be reached at arthurkpost@gmail.com.