When Do You Look the Prospect in Eye and Say "No"?

From a question posed on LinkedIn - 

For me, selling every single day B2B, I believe that it is about Qualifying on a continuous basis- explicitly with the customer and internally on your own checklist. 

One approach I have found is to mention this right up front, on the first call - "...Mr. Prospect, if at any time during our journey, either of us sees that there isn't a fit, if, for instance, you notice that my process doesn't mix with yours, or if I see that my recommendation isn't in your budget, either one of us can decide to part ways. 

No hard feelings...does that sound(look or feel) fair?" 

Ok, maybe a little old school on the Fair Trail, but you get the point. Make it ok for your prospect to tell you no - AND make it easier for you to say no. But you gotta have 'it' - the Cheddar, the confidence, the testicular fortitude, the knowledge that you have something that others will want...simple as that. Selling is different nowadays (no it isn't but people feel better thinking it is). 

There is no reason that any selling professional should be any prospect's "whipping boy" unless we let them treat us like one. Or perhaps you're into that sorta thing, I don't judge. And that is the real problem. 

There are too many amateur salespeople, working for cheesy sales organizations being taught "the pencil sell", "puppy dog close", F.U.D. and techniques, it makes our job more difficult than it should be. 

As for how to tell a pain in the butt prospect that you don't want his business...simply tell him he deserves different and give him one of your competitor's business cards... wait for it...wait for it...those of you with the 'cheddar' know why -

The 22 Year Old Grudge - Randall, Wisconsin Population 3,510 - Snubs Toshiba

“There are questions of security involving this organization,” Randal town supervisor Robert Gehring said, referring to Toshiba,

“This outfit should not have been allowed to continue to do business in this country.”

Oh boy.

Small town. One Copier. Evil doings and politics...

Published September 12, 2009 | 11:07 p.m.

Randall dumps Toshiba copier in lease


BY JILL TATGE-ROZELL
jrozell@kenoshanews.com

RANDALL — It’s not the fact the town will get a new copier that is newsworthy. It’s why the town is getting one that raises eyebrows.

The board voted unanimously Thursday to lease a new color copier for an amount of money not significantly different from what it had been paying. While it does have some added capabilities compared to the copier it had been leasing, a need for those new features is not what prompted the town to get six different copier bids.

The town needed a different copier, supervisor Robert Gehring contended when he offered to explore other options, because the one they have was manufactured by Toshiba. As a matter of principal, Gehring disagrees with the lease or purchase of any product of Toshiba.

“There are questions of security involving this organization,” Gehring said when the product’s lease agreement came up for discussion last month. “This outfit should not have been allowed to continue to do business in this country.”

Gehring’s opinion stems from an incident in 1987, when Toshiba Machine, a subsidiary of Toshiba, was accused of illegally selling machinery used to produce quiet submarine propellers to the Soviet Union, which was allegedly in violation of an international embargo.

The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal also involved the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrik, strained relations with Japan, and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two senior executives.

Top government officials contended that providing technology to make the USSR’s submarines harder to detect created a significant threat to America’s security.

For Gehring, this is enough reason to boycott the use of any equipment made by Toshiba, which is also responsible for the invention of radar, microwave ovens and the technology used in MRI exams. It is why he voted against the copier lease under a different town administration and brought up the issue again.

This time he prevailed in his quest, though other officials cited the new copier’s functionality and price comparison as the reason behind their vote to lease a different copier.


Full article Here.

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Indeed, Toshiba Machines and two executives were found guilty of selling technology to the Soviet Union - violating Japan's Foreign Trade Control Law

From the L.A. Times, March 23, 1988 -

"...The court fined Toshiba Machine 2 million yen--about $15,700.

Ryuzo Hayashi, 53, former director of Toshiba Machine's foundry department, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and Hiroaki Tanimura, 51, former deputy director of the company's first engineering department, received a one-year sentence. But both sentences were suspended.

A Foreign Ministry official said the sentences appeared to be light because the violation was a first offense for the defendants. He added that Hayashi and Tanimura did not act for personal gain but in the interests of the company..."

22 years is a long time when grinding axes...

New Movie: "Surrogates"...TheMatrix Meets SecondLife Meets DieHard - A World For No Paper

What is the way to reduce paper output costs to zero?

No paper at all.

Paper is the perfect medium, for now. It's static, portable, abundant and common. Easy to use and universally excepted, paper is the ultimately simple, graphic user interface. The basic transportable transfer of information.

The "Holy Grail" - the Paperless society - will need to somehow transcend this basic need, the simple, constrained manner in which data and information is collected and presented to others - we would need to skip the solid medium all together.

Connecting directly into the mind.

Sure, just like Johnny Mnemonic, right?

In this movie, much like The Matrix, real humans are physically safe and sound at home, connected to the "machine". "Surrogates", extremely good looking and capable droids, live out their physical lives - much like Second Life.

Life controlled remotely, with the mind.

Enter some science fiction and some science fact.

Stay with me here, recently as seen on 60 Minutes, scientists have now been able to a) implant sensors onto the brain, reading electric impulses triggered by thought and b) manufacture a cap that detects the same type of brain/mind activity - the result - controlling a mouse or ANY OTHER DEVICE.

It's called BrainGate and it is just the beginning.

So I'm thinking, not only would we be able to program TiVo or order Chinese by just thinking - we will be MindFax'ing each other.

From text books to FaceBook - instantaneously and in hi-def.

No keyboards, no dual-monitors, no printers, ink cartridges or toner deliveries and no paper.

Yes, a fertile imagination...

Imaging Industry Information Looks at The Managed Print Services EcoSystem

One of my common themes with MPS is "how can any manufacturer get behind pure MPS when the goals of every engagement should be the reduction of both MIF and volume?

How can a dealer use MPS as a "marketing" scheme to leverage more hardware placements?

It just doesn't reconcile.

It seems GMTA - one of the Old Guard(no offense meant)Tom Callinan, has a great description on this subject. He says,

"...one of the long-term goals of MPS is to reduce the number of devices used by a company. What does this mean? It means that the industry players—those that depend on an already shrinking revenue pool—are going to deliberately accelerate that revenue decline..."

Tom has a good grip on the conundrum. Read the entire post here.