In the office technology dealer space, a critical question arises in the hotly-contested employment landscape. With office dealers often competing against other industries that may offer greater flexibility when it comes to the ability to work from home (WFH), can it constitute a Read More

In the last 10-15 years, there’s been a huge marketing movement toward reinvigorating the lens through which customers view their providers. It’s a case of perception is reality, and history is replete with names (RadioShack, Blockbuster Video) of companies that went down with Read More

If there’s one telltale sign that you’re a perfectionist, it’s the attitude that you hate to lose more than you like to win. There is a difference between the two: winning is the expectation, and losing is the failure. While everyone in the business world experiences losses, the Read More

You might have noticed last week that we added a new feature to our newsletter, the Before You Go Poll. With all the negativity we’re hearing and reading from the mainstream media, we figured a light-hearted approach to polling would be a pleasant distraction from the talk Read More

How can one best understand just what makes Kate Kingston tick? For the answer to the motivation and the success behind the founder of Kingston Training Group (KTG), we offer a microcosm of the experience from the viewpoint of one of her students, a female sales executive from a Read More

Any time the prospect of venturing into a new discipline is broached, a dealer will have plenty of questions (and needs) addressed in order to move forward. And when it comes to advice, either slight or significant, insight from those who have already been down that road can be Read More

As much as she would love to wave a magic wand and make it disappear, Laura Blackmer knows the supply chain struggle confronting the industry isn’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future. That said, the recently promoted president of dealer sales for Konica Minolta Business Read More

There’s little doubt that Paul Hanna is an old-school sales guy. He comes from a generation of reps who made their bones by shaking hands and kissing babies, loading copiers into the back of a station wagon and demonstrating them in person, a.k.a., going belly to belly with the Read More

There’s little question that the Great Resignation is more than just a passing phenomenon ignited by the pandemic, causing millions of Americans (and workers worldwide) to take a hard, deep look at their occupational hopes and dreams. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Read More

Sarcasm alert: you may not have noticed, but the current economic situation entails high inflation, interest rates creeping skyward, $5-a-gallon gasoline, volatile markets (including intense hand-wringing in the cryptocurrency game) and general malaise regarding the economy. Read More

One of the challenges in dealing with ancillary products and services is that, depending on the category, it can diverge entirely away from the more traditional offerings in a dealer’s arsenal. Most salespeople are entirely comfortable with discussing the core products in their Read More

That Shane Nesbitt is a people person won’t draw any debate from those who work alongside or across the table from the ECMSI sales manager. There’s no carefully-crafted agenda lying just below the surface, either; he’s a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) personality who Read More

One of the best aspects of offering ancillary products and services is the lack of client objections. We’d insert the word “utter” in there, but let’s not get cocky. Every expenditure demands a raison d’etre, and in the current economic conditions, precious few end-users will Read More

A compliment can have the same impact as food. Sometimes, it’s a sweet, transitory experience that’s soon digested and forgotten. Other times, it can make one’s eyes light up, like a rich piece of chocolate, and stay with you for a long time (in the case of candy, that’s where Read More

In the dealer sales rep world, nothing beats a sale. Unless it’s a bigger sale. And one that brings in monthly recurring revenue (MRR). That monthly splash is the heartbeat of a dealer; not all items in a company’s product and service revenue lend themselves to service Read More