Top 5 WTF Issues with Copier & MFP Salespeople

This topic has been on my mind for awhile and I wanted to share with others the time that it takes each week to complete sales activities.   Salespeople  have many metrics that we need to meet on a weekly basis, but I wanted to focus more on the time that it take to complete the basic set of metrics. Here I'll focus on my metrics cause I'm not sure of those who emailed me.

• Minimum of 120 phone calls a week:  Over the years it seems if I want to make quality calls, I average about 15 calls per hour, keep in mind that making the call is only part of the equation I still have to enter every call, close every call, post a follow up call and then enter the notes into our sales CRM program.  This takes 8 hours
• Minimum of 30 emails each week (new net business):  Whew!  This can take some time to set up the campaign, schedule the email, create the email,  send the email, log in to the CRM program, schedule the client for a return call, and research the email address if you don't have it.   I can spend up to 2 hours here per week.
• Sales Paper Work for the month:  For some reason we are not automated with our support paperwork for each sale, thus when I finally get the lease doc, sales order and maintenance agreement I could have another 10 or so forms to process.  On the average this can take 45 minutes for each sale.  I average about 7 sales per month.  This process alone takes about 1.3 hours each week.
• Appointments by the Week:  Schedule 8-10 appointments per week an usually schedule these for Thursday and Friday, easier for me and easier for the customer.  I will spend both days in the field for a total of 16 hours.
• In house Weekly Meetings: Usually around 4 of these per week and done with our call days. Takes 15 minutes each and 1 hour per week.
• Email Follow Up:  These can consist of customer follow up emails and internal emails and I'm guessing here with about 2 hours per week.
• Helping others with Product & Sales Questions:  I guess since I've been there the longest when I'm in the office I can get many questions about products, services, support of follow up sales. I'm going to give this 2 hours per week.
• Proposals: 7 sales per month would equal 7 proposals, we present quality proposals, from start to finish I'll give these 45 minutes each or another 1.3 hours per week.
• Mailers:  I try to send at least ten mailers a week, letters of introduction, brochures etc. 2 hours per week
• Enter Sales Appointments in CRM:  Enter notes, close appointments, schedule follow up, about 30 minutes.
• Research: Includes looking up specs for hardware, software, talking with our support people and going to any resource I have to find additional information so I can move the dealer or solutions forward. I'm putting 4 hours on this per week.
• Follow up Reports:  Especially commission reports, deliveries, installations, and can include getting additional paper work from the customer.  1 hour per week.
• Close Sales: If I did not close the sale during the week this would be all of those follow up phone calls and work to either close of get a fix on where we are in the ordering process.  5 Hours per week.

I'm going to stop here because I'm at 44.8 hours for the week. I'm a big advocate of "Ours is not a 9-5 job", and if you have all of the resources it's not uncommon to put up to 50 hours per week.  However it's come to my attention through some emails that many reps are doing their part, but the companies they work for our not.  Here's a list of the top 5 issues that I've seen when reps email me.

• There is no lead generation program from the dealer or direct branch, the dealer or direct branch relies on what comes in from the manufacturer or a call in.
• Little of no demonstration equipment,  most reps are having to "book sell" thus it's almost a given that your product becomes a commodity.
• Sales Managers that sell and take the best leads for themselves and farm out the crap to the rep, I think we deserve a bone every now and then or if you wanted to build a better sales force stop selling, give your leads out and help the newbies to close the deals, they would be more apt to stay longer and who knows may become a lifer in the industry!
• Little or no Training on new equipment and services, with manufacturers and software companies refreshing systems ever 12 months or so, if you haven't had any training in 6 months, well you're behind the times and if you want to succeed you are doing this on your own.
• No Existing Account Marketing Program:  Hey, WTF besides the reps making the phone calls to new and existing accounts WTF is the Dealer or Direct branch doing for the existing base of customer to let them know about the new products and services? 

Now, I could list another 5 or so, but I wanted to keep it short and sweet for a lot of us.  The consensus is most of us don't mind working harder and longer hours if we have the support for the Dealer or Direct branch that we work for, however when we don't have the support, it just becomes a shit show of complaints and a negative sales environment.

-=Good Selling=-