Art Williams - Just do it - you Do it and Do it and Do it until the job ...

All set...

Sometimes in my daily prospecting efforts I will engage in a brief conversation with a business owner or executive and they will quickly say something along the lines of "Thanks for calling, but we are all set." Now it is my belief that this is highly unlikely to be an actual TRUE statement.

So am I saying that the person that I am contacting to see if we can have a open conversation to determine if my firm may be able to help them is LYING? Well yes I am, however I understand why they are lying. We all are bombarded daily with messages from sales people, TV, radio, newspaper, Internet, etc that we should change something because we are spending too much or do not have the correct 'stuff'. And well after hearing "that if we just gave some insurance company 15 minutes that we could save $100's" for about the 1000th time I think we all become a little worn out. So we defend ourselves and just immediately say "We are all set".

When this happens to me, I genuinely feel bad for the person that says it to me. I understand they are probably just so sick and tired of hearing the message "hey your a dope you are spending too much on your (blank)...you should talk to us and we can fix this." So my question to myself is...How should I handle this from now on? Well I have set out over past couple of months and examined some different ideas from different sales gurus and have heard some ideas that are downright scary until finally I stumbled upon a tactic suggested be Dave Kurlan, author of Baseline Selling.

So from now on when a prospective client tells me they are 'all set' before we have even had an open conversation I respond with the following. (Bold is prospect. Italic is me.)

"Tom, thank you for the call but we are all set."

"Mr. Prospect, sounds like you're extremely happy with who your currently using."

"Yes we are. "

"So you know you are not spending a penny more then you should be. The documents that are vital to your business are managed perfectly. You are certain that the documents that you create in house and end up in your clients and customers hands portray your organization's image perfectly. You have no doubt that this area of your business is optimized. You know it would be an absolute waste of time to even have a conversation about this area of your business. "

As of yet, I have not had a business owner that has actually heard this and agreed with me...typically they will open up a bit and say "Well I wouldn't go that far, maybe we could use some work in that area." And to me that is a fair and truthful comment. To which I will ask them in what area. And if they expand on some area that is a problem, I will simply ask the two following questions, which help us both know if it makes sense to spend more time talking or not..."Is this a problem?"(Question 1)..."Do you want to fix it?"(Question 2). Answer Yes to both then we should speak more, answer No to either then it likely doesn't make sense to talk more.

Will's Wisdom

Here is a video I saw today over on my friend, Nealon Hightower's blog. He has written a great book on weight loss...but it is really applicable to any area of ones life that we are looking to improve. Any way this video I found very powerful.

Smile and Move

Shocking survey results...

Better Buys for Business just surveyed 175 office equipment purchasers and found that 32 percent plan to make a purchase or lease within the next 12 months.

And what did those surveyed say they look most for in their printers?

Answer: Price (46%), cost of ownership (27%), service guarantee (21%), networking and interfacing capabilities (20%), first-hand experience with a brand or product line (19%). Brand reputation (12%), feature set (10%), speed (4.5%).

It drives me nuts that most buyers look at price almost twice as more then they do cost of ownership...this is not logical to me at all. Suppose you are going to go buy a car and you go to your local Ford dealer and he has two cars for sale. Both cars have the exact same features, bells and whistles...the only differences are in the price of the car and the rated MPG for the vehicle. vehicle one costs $5000 and gets 1 mile to the gallon of gas and vehicle two costs $20000 and gets 38 miles to the gallon of gas. For most people, the more economical decision would be to buy the $20,000 vehicle because over the course of owning the car they would be far ahead of the game due to the 38 mpg!!! Now if the car is going to be driven 100 miles a year, I guess the $5000 car makes more sense...

My advice to office equipment buyers is this make sure you pay attention to your total cost of ownership. I have seen it numerous times where a buyer goes to Staples and buys a $300 multi-function printer and within a month they spend over $300 on supplies for the machine. Yet they think they got a great deal because they did not buy the $3000 machine that would have cost $30 a month to operate...simple math shows that within a year the $3000 purchase is ahead of the game...

Fortune Magazine Most Admired Technology Company...

My Xerox Application Engineer, Jeremy Thompson, sent me this info...Here is a link to the article from Fortune magazine that ranks Xerox as the "Most Admired Company" in the computer industry.

Want a Greener Office?

Good news about Xerox..."Xerox is the first technology company to be named a Performance Track Corporate Leader by the U.S. EPA, one of only five companies to ever receive this distinction."

Here are 7 tips from Xerox to Green your office...

One
Go digital – read, send and
store digital documents.

Two
Use paper wisely.

Three
Recycle the paper you use.

Four
Reach for ENERGY STAR®.

Five
Replace stand-alone office products
with multifunction systems.

Six
Return print/copy cartridges and
supplies for recycling.

Seven
Seek office equipment designed for
remanufacturing recycling.

Thanks to Damian Garafalo, Xerox Account Manager, for this info.