The Dawn of The New Selling Professional - MpS Leads The Way - Sales X.X

Not Sales 2.0 - Call it 

"Sales X.X"

2011

“Business Acumen” is a cool way to say, “been there, done that…got three years' financials to prove it” – I admit, it is a big word, does it scare you?

From Merriam-Webster:

Acumen: keenness and depth of perception, discernment, or discrimination especially in practical matters.

Practical Matters.

Lots of salespeople don’t think they have acumen, or that there is some special process that goes with acquiring the skill of discernment. Worse, some employers don’t believe their employees possess keenness – more than a few sales managers feel their salespeople lack depth of perception.

You know I’m right. You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, we’ve all been there.

What to do?

Stand back, there is something going on here, something new; The New Age of Selling. It has nothing to do with the Mayan calendar although "The New Age" calls upon the collective selling skills of the past 25,000 years.

Woah, heavy.

I know it’s difficult to see, but the current economic “Charlie Foxtrot” will someday be in our rear view mirror. When the recovery does start, for real, the new selling professional will lead the way. I believe that our industry, our sales people, in the trenches, will be examples of success, role models.

The New Way demands more from you, the Selling Professional:

1. Expertise – be an expert in something, anything
2. Collaboration – be open to working with everyone, yesterday’s rivals could be today’s partner
3. Engagement/Intent  – work with your clients, partners, peers at a deeper level, with High Intent
4. Growth – thrive on change, bring change, be the agent for change

The New Way also exists in a new environment, a business context that has never existed:

1. Information is everywhere – Content and data are universal and will permeate
2. Power is shifting down – from the OEMs to the cube farms, personal power is increasing
3. Technology is mundane – your refrigerator will talk with your toaster
4. “Citizen Mobil” – brick and mortar is dead. Smartphones, tablets, wireless and G4 networks, you, your clients, and clients’ family and kids are processing business everywhere. Think Cold Calls from the beach.

Eight simple observations.

Still, you will need to know Strategic Selling, VITO, closing techniques, prospecting, how to marshal resources on your team, monitor your funnel, and manage your manager. You still can’t be afraid to pick up the phone.

You must correctly present and follow up – to build trust. This may be new, but you still need to handle your shit. The basics – I won’t say ‘blocking and tackling’ – I loathe clichés, but I just did, didn’t I?

The times are different and personal acumen is more relevant, you are much more relevant, and in context.

One more thing:  There are No Academic Experts.  We're making this up as we go - and because this is all new, dynamic, and changing every 30 days, formal, teaching experts are simply rehashing history - not projecting

The New Selling, not Sales 2.0 or 3.1, let’s call it, Sales X dot XX - “Sales X.Xx"

Acumen, again. MpS Purity, again. Intent, again.

Just ideas on a screen - but ideas are bulletproof...

Sell on.

The Shift is Happening - Not Only in MpS...

 

  "Voila!

In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi now vacant, vanished.


However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.


The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.


Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that its my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V."

The 2011 Global Managed Print Services Conference - Pictures of You.

My Current reflection points, and material for the future:

1. Philosophical discussions - this is bigger than MPS

2. Change or die, again

3. Innovate - now is the time

4. That MPS Insights Pro is better then I thought

5. This is Mainstream for the Smart People

6. Soylent Toner is People

7. MSP and MPS is difficult

8. It is about Content, not "Print"

9. Out of the Box - meaning so much more, I have never been more proud of my industry

10. Are you telling the Truth, or just stating a number

11. "I don't even use the phrase, MPS, with clients anymore"

12. Sheehan -" take a stand"

13. Sheehan - "not Paperless? Are you blind AND stupid?"

14. I swear, he reads DOTC

15. The Old Guys are coming back

16. I can't wait to see the first servers "ripped and replaced"

17. There is still a "P" in MPS

18. MPS is the egg in the cake, not the entire cake

19. The OEM's have Created Their Own Channel

20. This is an opportunity to remember the reason you got into all this in the first place

21. I have Pluto in my Seventh House

22. Ricoh is in - all in

23. Canon is finding herself

24. "Fire, Walk with Me"? - Greg has lost it...again.

25. MPS is a Process, not a Transaction

26. Fire and Ice, Cold Water

27. The 2011 MPSA Leadership Awards

28. Just like the chopper in Usama's compound, we must destroy MPS, before it falls into the Enemy hands.

29. YOU ARE NOT ALONE...WE, ARE NOT ALONE

Oh the fun we are going to have with all that...

DOTC

Tech-News: More Plastic Paper, Self Assembling MicroParticles and the Last Book Ever Printed

Yeah, I know, the electric paper trick has been around for decades.

Below is the latest:

"I think the greatest breakthrough was that traditional display devices usually require electricity to write, but our technology made it closer to how we would use normal paper," said John Chen, Vice President of the Institute and general director of the Display Technology Center.




The more interesting advancement revolves around micro-robots.

"Danger, Danger...Will Robinson..."

Peter Sheahan - "Rule The White Spaces"

"no, no, no..its THE Death of the Copier..."

Page Coverage.

In our little industry, one can live or die on the difference between 3% and 8%.  

The white spaces between the toner, Fact and Fiction, Vision and Reality.

Between all those Silo's.

I first saw Peter's presentation online,  from the MPS Conference in Barcelona.

My impressions were, "...who the hell is this guy? A shorter version of T. Robbins only from New Zealand?"

I know, its Australia...and everyone is shorter than Anthony Robbins.

I jest!

Peter's conversation was geared toward innovation, technology and miscalculations.  He talked about how our beliefs and more importantly, how our successful past, holds us back.  He talked about the silo's that keep us separated and how the cracks present the best opportunities.

That's cool.

"Hay Wire" - the female Jason Bourne?

And yes, the leading role, also played "Crush" on American Gladiator.

iPad-Head-Girl and Cosmo for Men

There is something here - a bit creepy, and yet..alluring.

It's a marketing stunt promoting the new iPad App for "Cosmo For Men" - Cosmopolitan for men.

Sometimes irony needs to hit you right in the middle of the forehead - but do you see it here? Or should I get the "2x4 of Awareness"?

It's an advertisement, on iPads, for an app, for what used to be, and still is, a print magazine...!

Full, flippin, circle.

And don't get me started on the more than apparent 'stealth' application...

"I love you, Miss. Robot..."

MpS: From Infrastructure to Customer Facing - Behavior Modification - BeMod

Years ago, software like PrintAudit, FMAudit, PrintFleet, and even the most expensive 'free' software you will ever own, WebJet Admin, was the cat's meow.

We assessed everything we could see, solving the problems our industry created and nurtured for decades.  It was like hunting big game, with a TriCorder.

DCA's, servers, pie charts, security concerns, volume and fleet analysis, proactive service and desk-side toner delivery, automated meter reads, remote monitoring, and Quarterly Reviews were all considered "new and innovative".

And then, suddenly, we all had a DCA:  copier dudettes, VARs, office furniture salespeople, the OEMs, STAPLES, etc. - Hell, who DOESN'T sell MpS?

Today, all those super-duper, whiz-bang, features are table-stakes; either you got them, or you're a provider of little substance.

For those of us who do, now what?

It's getting crowded in here and we're all starting to sound the same.  How can we temporarily separate from the pack and keep our eye on the future?

What's next?  Stage 3?  Really?  EDM packages like Documentum?  Half of us just today learned how to spell "MpS and now we need to understand Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS)?

How about our run-of-the-mill BTA guy, who finally figured out how to bill for Lexmark, HP, Brother, MICR, Oki, both connected and local, color and black/white, coverage from 3% to 80% - profitably?

Is the next stop Business Process Management -head to head with IBM or EDS?  Methinks not.

The answer?  "One-word kid, BeMod...BeMod" - is that even a word...??

WineHouse - WTF?

Sax, Violin, Gongs, Horns, and Leopard print, clad birds...

60's style, UK panache, underground DOTC book launch party...whadda say 'bout that?

Managed print Services Success - Individual Focus, Self-Actualization, Vision and Grosse Pointe Blank

Grosse Pointe is an affluent suburb of Detroit. Where the automotive executives lived - big houses, nice lawns, and teenage kids with IROCS-Z's, 'Stangs 5.0's and MOPAR's.

This movie takes place in Grosse Pointe. Its a story of self discovery, cloaked in a goofy, dark comedy about international hit men; a ten year class reunion as a backdrop.

It is a great movie, nice actors, guns and good music. Too cool.

So what is the MpS/Selling tie in?  Self-Actualization, Focus and the Integrated Real Life(IRL).

Visualize what, or in Martin Blank's case, who you want, know who you are and all interruptions will be ignored.  Those who seek your failure, will melt into the past.  Or end up wearing a TV party hat.

Its only 8 minutes long...turn down the volume, and let it rip.




"...organic connection between all living things..."

MpS, Selling, and You - Integrate.

Once you know who you are, the essence of you, it becomes easier to see your place in the world; even better, it is easier to make your place in the world.

Everything is connected, all the "components and processes associated with creating, moving, storing and presenting", yourself are inter-related, connected - you are the Nexus.

Do you know who you are?

Ghost Protocol: IMF Disavowed - "...I Won't Back Down..."

IMF - and MpS - It's a team building kind of thing. Undeniable Teams.

When MpS moves from fiction to fact, the firebrands, early adapters, and trail blazers will have outlived their usefulness.  Visionaries no longer needed.

Disavowed.

The establishment tolerates change once every 200 years or so.  After following the path of the explorers, those softly molded trails are paved over, stakes driven into the ground, a grand tent erected. Those who came before, only remind of past mistakes and short sight. Intolerable.

The establishment never makes mistakes.  The establishment brands forward thinkers as those out to "insight".

...how very interesting...


Click to email me.

Ricoh and U - MDS vs. MpS: "MpS is 10%, MDS is 90% of the solution..." - I love it.

It's the infamous, IKON iceberg. Won't this thing EVER melt?

When the MPSA struggled for months to determine the definition of MpS we stumbled and bumbled our way in the dark.

Each of us had different views and perspectives: OEM's, Independent dealers, toner reman's, parts suppliers, consultants, and end users.  Oh, and ONE VAR.(Jus sayin)

I was impatient - we needed something NOW and I had a definition ready to go.

My version did not include reference to hardware, but the MPSA had to include 'devices'.

I didn't want the word 'print' but quickly acquiesced agreeing that 'print' allowed the concept to be easily identifiable.

Here is what we, the MPSA came up with:

"Managed print services is the active management and optimization of document output devices and related business processes." - MPSA, July, 2010

Here was my definition back then:

"...the act of managing components and processes associated with moving, saving and presenting information in the form of documents..." - DOTC, March, 2010

And here is my current definition of MOS(MpS):

"...the act of managing the optimization of resources and processes associated with information ..." - GRW, 5/9/2011

Why would I be so insistent about leaving 'hardware' out of the equation?  I don't want to be pigeon-holed, I don't think real MpS has anything to do with hardware or even PRINT.

Most importantly, I didn't want those who felt like I,  to find this weakness and project above the MPSA definition.

Well, guess what?  Ricoh and MDS, that's what.