We are all set.

Fellow document consultants may be able to understand this dreaded response that is so often heard when we initially market our services. Here is the scenario; you meet a President of a company that has 50 or more printers and copiers in his business. You ask him, 'suppose we could improve your printer fleet and reduce your costs associated with your fleet by 40%, what would you say?" And they respond with the dreaded, "We are all set" or "We have contracts for that stuff", etc, etc, etc.

Many of you are as passionate about your solutions and services as I am and are probably frustrated by these responses. Why the frustration? In my ten years of being in this business, I have yet to find a company that when completely open with me (trusts me) in regards to their printer and copier inventory and costs that I could not make recommendations that would greatly improve their fleet and recover cost. These great results are what cause us to be passionate about bringing our services to the market place.

So, when we here the 'all set' objection to our marketing we get frustrated. How to overcome this? I have come to the conclusion that most prospects have an initial distrust of us, because we are viewed as the dreaded sales person. Admit it, none of us love salespeople. Think about going to buy car, is dealing with the salesperson the favorite part of the transaction for you? Unfortunately, the bad feelings we naturally have for car sales people are probably what our prospects have initially for us.

I have been helped greatly in understanding this by a sales coach I hired over two and half years ago, Chris Socha with TEM Associates. If you are frustrated with your sales efforts or looking to sell more, you may want to have a conversation with him. Here is a link to Chris Socha.