Selling: It Really is Simple

For over a year now, maybe longer, I have been following this small sales training firm, Caskey, in Indianapolis. Bill Caskey and Brian Neal present great stuff and I encourage everyone in sales to subscribe to their "Advanced Selling Podcast".

Check out "High Intent" and "Detachment" two of my favorites.

I have copied and re-posted a pretty good post - enjoy.


Complicated Strategy Not As Good As Simple Sales Advice

by Bill Caskey on March 30, 2009

As sales trainers, we get invited in to companies to help them solve some pretty complex issues. Yet, often, the answer to their sales frustration is quite simple.

I was watching the Michigan State ‘upset’ of Louisville last weekend. The camera / mic caught a frustrated Rick Pitino (Louisville head coach) as he was watching his team implode.

Despite all the complicated game plans and strategies I’m sure he implemented, his admonition to his players at that point in the game was, “Stop dribbling. Pass the ball!!!”

As an avid basketball observer that is one of the things that drives me crazy–a player dribbling but going nowhere.
Sales Is Simple Too, If We Let It Be

But in sales and sales training, the admonition we have for our clients gets very simple, too. Here are three instructions I would shout if they had their head phones in during a sales call.

1. Shut up and listen. Stop talking. Stop pontificating. Stop sharing all of your wonderful opinions of how great your service is. (OF COURSE YOU THINK IT’S GREAT–YOU’RE SELLING IT!)

2. Ask a follow-up question. Amazing too me how few questions sales people ask and how even more rarely they ask a follow up question after the prospect has answered the first. Think about how absurd it is for someone to answer a complex question and give you ALL of the relevant information on the first try.

3. Give some space. After someone answers a question, give it some space. Don’t jump right in and think you have to talk. This is an in-law to Shut up and Listen, but a little different in that it’s about “giving space.” In fact, that’s what our entire philosophy is built on ’space for the prospect to sell you on why he needs you.’ As long as you’re talking, you’re taking up space–not making it available for your prospect.

So, keep things simple–never as complex as they need be. And watch your sales effectiveness jump a notch or two.

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Why Now Is The Right Time for a Managed Print Services Association

Reprint of a good article by Ed Crowley.

Ed Crowley, CEO of the Photizo Group, Thought Leaders in Managed Print Services (MPS)

During the 2009 MPS Conference in San Antonio Texas, a formation meeting will be held for the Managed Print Services Association (MPSA). Forming an association is always a challenging, and somewhat daunting task. So why, in the midst of the current economic climate when we have so many other daunting business challenges, should we, as an industry, care about starting the MPSA?

I believe there are several good reasons for starting the MPSA. First, and foremost, our industry is in the midst of a growth explosion and the current economic environment is actually accelerating that growth. In the midst of layoffs, cost cutting, and increased environmental awareness, MPS offers customers the opportunity to reduce costs, reduce burdens on overtaxed IT personnel, and have a positive environmental impact with little to no upfront investment. At the same time, it provides MPS capable vendors with a compelling customer offering, which in return can help them retain their revenue base in the face of increasing competition and increasingly commoditized technology. This is a classic ‘win win’ scenario.
As any market grows the need for standards, development of best practices and credentialing also grows dramatically. The same is true for the MPS market. This is a market with multiple stakeholders including resellers / dealers, manufacturers, the end user community, software developers, consultants, and trainers. Each of these stakeholders will want, and has a right to have a say in the development of these standards, best practices, and credentialing.

One question that may be asked is why doesn’t another group (such as the Business Technology Association or COMPTIA) form an MPS Association. While this could be possible, I believe most of these groups have an existing constituency with their own set of pre-existing motivations, member preferences, and requirements. The MPS industry is unique in that it draws from a very broad base across the technology, reseller, and end user community. As such, I believe it would benefit from the formation of a new organization which does not have an existing charter or direction.

Already, we have been approached by the Printer Work Group (an IEEE group) regarding their interest in collaborating with the MPSA to define standards around MPS. At the same time, COMPTIA, an IT technology association has approached the group about collaboration in developing certification standards. This clearly validates the need for an association. However, from my perspective, the fact that no existing organization has taken the initiative to start this association is one more solid justification for forming a new association.

So what will happen in San Antonio? During this meeting I expect that we will have a discussion regarding the groups objectives, membership requirements, and form some committees to begin working on specific topics. This is certainly a unique opportunity to engage with many leaders in the industry and to have a voice in the formation of this group. Of course, the level of participation at the meeting will also be an indicator of the industry’s interest level and willingness to support this group. So I hope you are able to participate directly in forming the MPSA in April. If you are not able to attend in person, I do encourage you to submit your comments through this blog or through the MPS group on LinkedIn (aptly called “Managed Print Services”).

So please join us, in person, or through your electronic contributions, in the birth of a new and exciting association.
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Managed Print Services and IT Services Providers

I have been trying to get my head around this for the last 90 days - Why has it been challenging for some firms to engage and succeed at providing MPS?

Why are dealers trashing their young, MPS Practice?

"Struggling" as a description is too harsh, I think the current MPS situation falls more into the "growing pains" stage.

The opportunity is real.

And there is an awful lot of activity focused on those (dealers) who are at least interested in going for MPS.

From a 10,000 foot view, you can see this in the way the "MPS Experts" are scurrying out of the woodwork - about 3 times as many as there were when the Photizo Group started.

From the trenches, I see the hurdles, see the problems and I understand the challenges - there are basically two(today).

Selling and Buying.

Selling -

For me, it is becoming clear, again, that it is all about the Sale and selling - Selling cures everything.

If you want your manager off your back, sell something. Want a new car, sell something; a trip to Florida and Disney World, sell something.

If you want to penetrate the new MPS niche, sell something - and this is the rub. As we all know, MPS needs to sell to facilities, IT, end users, and C-levels.

These three buying influences have their unique decision-making criteria and process - they speak their own language.

Salespeople who address these levels address the unique issues contained at each level and find it a challenge to switch from one to the other. Facilities works with contracts and CPC; IT with network compatibility and ease of support.

Providers/sellers of good MPS programs consist of either copier/print salespeople, supplies/service vendors, or IT providers. These three sales models are all very different.

For instance, the IT provider is very good at pricing and delivery.

The selling process within most IT companies are supported by inside "account managers" and outside Business Development Managers(BDMs). The BDM's "maintain the customer relationship" as the account managers handle the quoting, and order processing on a day-to-day basis.

The BDMs are not hunters. The BDMs have had it gravy for a while. They zero in on the purchasing agents, try to placate or impress the IT managers and sell on price alone. Deal registration and back-end rebates are just a means to sell products at 3 points.

Three POINTS.

If a BDM sells a deal at 10 points or above - he gets a ticker-tape parade around the office.

I sincerely doubt any BDM with an IT service provider today even knows who the heck Glengarry Glenn Ross is, yet owns all of the Lord of the Rings movies. (not there is anything wrong with that)

A typical talk track of a BDM selling into their space may go something like this:

"Do you have an IT purchaser? Who is that?...you know, if I register you with CISCO, I can get you the lowest pricing available...Cost Per Copy? huh?...oh you mean printers, yes we can sell printers..."

I have seen this with my own eyes.

Almost as tragic is the Copier guy trying to sell to the IT influence. A typical talk track for the copier Sales Executive selling into the IT space -

"...all my machines connect to your network just like your HPs...Security? Sure, we can have your users log on to our machines using their already familiar network credentials...no, well actually, yes, we can service your HPs, until we consolidate your fleet into Ricoh...let me have you talk to my EDM specialist..."

I have seen this with my own eyes.

The second challenge I see is "Buying"-

Not a customer buying your product or services, but your executive management/ownership buy-in.

Again, there is no secret here either. Change is scary and equates to risk. The risk is bad today. We hear it from the highest office in the nation, the talking heads on cable, and the man in the street.

Unlike ownership, I have complete and total trust that good selling professionals can morph into Hybrid Selling Professionals.

These doubts I harbor revolve around the antiquated, equipment-centric, 30-day cycle, transactional views of some dealership owners - On both the IT and Copier side.

But - today, that is to say within the last 30 days or so, I have seen the excitement swirling around MPS drive more and more dealers from the "interested" stage into the "implementation" stage.

Also, I.T. departments seem to be willing to appoint people who talk Managed Print Services more than they are with the technology sales executive discussing data storage, blades, etc.

It looks like "Supply" may actually need to catch up with "Demand" - not a bad place to be.

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10 Questions to Ask Yourself and your Managed Print Services Provider: From HP

Edgeline!!

3/2009

Here are ten questions that Gary Tierney, country manager, Imaging and Printing Group, Hewlett-Packard, suggests.

These are not the only questions, but they are pretty darn good ones.

I cut and pasted them here from an article the Business and Leadership site, here.

I find the last question, number 10, very interesting and question #6 illustrates a more European interest.

What do you think?

As the potential benefits of an MPS strategy grow, so too do the stakes when selecting a partner. Here is a selection of questions that enterprises should ask themselves and their MPS suppliers before signing on the dotted line:

1. Why are you considering an MPS strategy? What is your definition of success and how will you measure it?

Consider if your MPS strategy is a ‘defensive’ cost-based approach, or is it driven by wider considerations such as reducing environmental impact, generating measurable performance increases, consolidating non-core operations around a number of key suppliers, integrating operations from a recently merged business, moving to a flexible working model from a branch-based network, or perhaps preparing for future expansion?

The business rationales underpinning your MPS strategy will determine these objectives and accompanying metrics. How open is your vendor to performance-based metrics? Is it prepared to be assessed against your business priorities, whether they are based on performance, environmental impact or cost reduction, or a weighted combination of these?

2. Do your service level agreements (SLAs) and payment models make business sense – for your business, not theirs?

SLAs can provide transparency and ensure wider business objectives are being met, but only if they make sense for your business. Same-day service in the event of a printer failure may make sense in an environment where print is time-critical and where backup devices are not available. However, it would make no sense to pay for such a premium service if redundancy could be built into the system in the event of a breakdown.

The majority of MPS contracts are based on a ‘cost-per-page’ model. In this instance, it is incumbent on the user to anticipate usage volumes and patterns, and negotiate accordingly. Alternative models are possible, such as ‘cost-per-seat’ with potential charges for maintenance and support. How open is your vendor to tailoring the billing model for your business? Is the vendor prepared to impose a ‘reconciliation-based’ model involving, for example, a fixed monthly fee throughout the first year, with a revised fee based on actual usage for the following year?

3. What is your business?

Just as no two businesses are the same, neither are those organisations’ printing and digital-imaging requirements. An enterprise’s specific requirements are defined by the nature of its business. Here are a selection of considerations that will impact your enterprise print profile and, therefore, the challenge facing your eventual MPS partner:

• What volume of documents are pre-printed, printed on demand?

• What volume of documents are internal, customer-facing?

• With what frequency and regularity are documents printed; is there likely to be any pattern?

• What proportion of documents will be confidential or restricted in nature?

• Is your organisation subject to certain compliance or data-protection procedures with respect to printed material?

• Is your organisation branch-based, do your staff work flexibly (from other branch offices, from home, on client or partner premises, from hotels?)

• Where is your headquarters situated?

In reality, most organisations would struggle to even estimate the volumes and type of print required by their staff beyond the overall costs for supplies, print hardware and maintenance.

Does the MPS vendor offer a comprehensive audit procedure to enable you to evaluate and assess your requirements, or does it simply apply a generic print/cost formula to all clients?

4. What is your print profile – 3pc or 103pc?

Ink and toner represents an essential component of any cost analysis, so it is essential to understand the type of documents being printed by your staff. The difference in terms of supplies provisioning and cost can be revealing: ink/toner required for a typical letter or memo printed in black and white would cover between 3–5pc of the overall page, but that percentage could rise to 100pc for a PowerPoint and even higher if printed in colour. In addition, the make and model of the printer can also significantly impact cost-per-page figures.

Ensure that you assess your print profile before committing to a price-per-page model, for instance. Why pay for a 100pc print ratio, based on one type of printer, when the majority of print jobs will be letters or memos based on an entirely different print platform?

5. How scalable and flexible is the contract?

Will the SLAs and conditions negotiated last year still make sense in the future? What contingencies are incorporated to accommodate evolutions to your business model, mergers, acquisitions, overseas expansion, new services and flexible working models? For an MPS strategy to be genuinely beneficial, your business context must be taken into consideration.

Reputable vendors should demonstrate a knowledge and experience of your sector, and be capable of accommodating its trends and future developments within the context of your contract.

6. Is the vendor genuinely international?

The genuine benefits of MPS become evident with scale, as new markets and geographies are added to the scope. What are your potential MPS partner’s international credentials? Can it provide a list of verifiable reference customers for these areas? Can it deliver and support all aspects of the MPS contract, from leasing to onsite support, to these geographies direct or through a partner? In the case of the latter, would these partners still be subject to the same terms and conditions and measurable against the same SLAs?

Using the above criteria as a benchmark, recent reports from both Gartner and Quocirca cite just eight MPS vendors that are genuinely global, so it is certainly advisable to pose this question to your vendor before committing.

7. What about integration – it’s not always as simple as it looks. What are your MPS vendor’s technology credentials?

One of Hewlett-Packard’s current MPS clients requires us to support over 4,000 different applications based on five operating systems across its disparate office locations. Each of these requires specific driver applications to ensure full print and digital-imaging compatibility. This complexity is multiplied when we consider that the client in question operates in the banking sector, where levels of control, security and compliance remain a priority.

This context is far from unusual within the enterprise sector. Your MPS vendor must be capable of implementing and administering all aspects of the print and digital-imaging process, from application integration to individual user access. Ensure that your MPS vendor can demonstrate practical experience of these environments before signing up.

8. What about web-based applications?

Software as a service (SaaS), application service provision and ‘apps on tap’ have become mainstream for enterprise applications such as enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, human resources and finance. There cannot be many enterprises that have not either considered or implemented such a strategy. What are the implications of web-based applications from a printing and digital-imaging perspective, and what should you expect from your MPS vendor?

One of the advantages of web-based provisioning is flexibility and scalability – any device, at any given moment, in any location. Such benefits would be undermined if they did not extend to the print environment. A reputable MPS vendor should ensure that printing and imaging services are similarly provisioned ‘on demand’, without compromising the integrity of the documents, the security of the enterprise or agreed compliance procedures.

Will this level of service be maintained for all web-based data sources, whether they are databases, presentations, written archives, graphics, images or other applications?

9. What about environmental considerations?

MPS is not just about reducing costs. By optimising the infrastructure and ensuring the most efficient use of resources – both energy and supplies such as paper and ink/toner cartridges – MPS can also make a significant contribution to reducing organisations’ environmental impact and introduce more sustainable business practices. As firms face increasing pressure from customers, shareholders and Government to reduce their carbon footprint, this will become an even more crucial component of the MPS approach.

As part of their wider MPS offering, vendors should be able to offer an assessment that analyses customers’ printing environments to understand current energy, paper and supplies use. MPS vendors should use this information to optimise fleets, better manage output and leverage change-management expertise to help you achieve the most environmentally sustainable document solutions strategy.

10. What about mobile?

What vision and practical support can your MPS vendor offer in terms of future trends and their implications for the print environment? The most pressing of these is the increasing use of mobile devices in the decision-making process.

This trend represents a particular challenge for printing and digital imaging in terms of drivers, image format (to ensure that the end result is legible and usable) and, of course, security (particularly with the advent of wireless printing).

Make sure your MPS vendor has a clear vision regarding mobility and other technology trends to ensure it is fully supported, and not actually constrained – by the print process.


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Want more?

Reach out to me... greg@grwalters.com

InfoTrends Announces Professional and Managed Print Services Consulting Service

Managed Print Services has a new Consulting Service - From InfoTrends, no less.

"...While the MPS opportunity is certainly a strong one, it is multi-faceted and ill-defined. Numerous aspects of the office equipment and IT channels must be considered; the unique importance of hardware, software, services, and supplies must be recognized; and new skill sets and software will be required for executing on providers’ MPS visions..."
- Jon Reardon, Group Director InfoTrends’ Office Document Technology services

PRESS RELEASE:

(Weymouth, MA) March 27, 2009 . . . Despite the economic downturn, there is significant potential for growth and profitability in the managed print services (MPS) market. While the economic climate presents challenges for vendors as well as document technology customers, MPS offer relief to both sides. MPS present increased revenues and margins for vendors and lower costs for customers.

In addition, the stages of MPS engagements define a clear path for hardware vendors to realize valuable services and solutions revenue while addressing customer requirements for security and compliance, environmental sustainability, and electronic document workflow improvements. As a result, leading OEMs, channel participants, software vendors, and others are energizing their MPS program development and deployment efforts in 2009.

Jon Reardon, Group Director InfoTrends’ Office Document Technology services, commented,

“While the MPS opportunity is certainly a strong one, it is multi-faceted and ill-defined. Numerous aspects of the office equipment and IT channels must be considered; the unique importance of hardware, software, services, and supplies must be recognized; and new skill sets and software will be required for executing on providers’ MPS visions. Ultimately, only vendors that can understand these facets and map them to internal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats will realize the true potential of their programs.”

InfoTrends has launched the Professional & Managed Print Services (PMPS) Consulting Service to help professionals in this market overcome challenges and take full advantage of this opportunity. This service will provide the ongoing market advice and analysis necessary to make effective short- and long-term strategy decisions. It will:

* Segment and profile the customers for managed print services
* Segment and profile vendors solutions
* Examine market size and structure
* Identify key industry players and understand their strategies
* Forecast the market managed print services by key product categories and customer segments
* Identify opportunities and strategies for technology vendors and service providers

The service features a continuous flow of information provided through forecasts, end-user studies, and other research reports and analysis, and clients benefit from ongoing, direct access to our staff of experts. For more information on this dynamic new service, please contact Scott Phinney at 781 616 2100 ext 123 or scott_phinney@infotrends.com.

InfoTrends, a Questex company, is the leading worldwide market research and strategic consulting firm for the digital imaging and document solutions industry. We provide research, analysis, forecasts, and advice to help clients understand market trends, identify opportunities, and develop strategies to grow their businesses. Additional information about InfoTrends is available on the Web at www.infotrends.com.

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D.O.T.C. impressions - The legitimacy of MPS is no longer in question. The definition of MPS is still dynamic - and for some mystifying. Where there is Mystery there is Margin.

InfoTrends recognizes the potential and is getting in - welcome to the games.

Want to know more? Check these out:

Managed Prints Services - That "Hot, New, Thing..." - Feb, 2008

Managed Print Services - Today's Lightning In a Bottle - Feb, 2009

InfoTrends - It's All About the Solution- Nov, 2008

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