Frankfurter SaaSages

One of our hottest markets is the office products industry so my business partner Paul Black and I headed off to Paperworld in Frankfurt last week ....the largest global event in office products....to evangelise about our revolutionary SaaS (Software as a Service) sales acceleration concept.

The Costa Coffee queue at Birmingham airport at 5:00 am included a number of industry characters....protected by the ‘let’s talk later – it’s too early defence shield’ appropriate to the ungodly hour.

We shared a cab from the airport with Aidan McDonough the new MD of Integra, the UK’s largest office products dealer group. The driver was clearly intent on replacing Michael Schumacher as the fastest German on four wheels so we were grateful to exit the vehicle with our lives in tact, even though it was at the wrong hall of the vast Frankfurt Messe Exhibition centre.

We walked for what seemed like 10 miles through Christmas World and a million and one different types of seasonal decorations to reach the office products event. Following the male tradition of never looking at a map for directions we decided to hit the floors of the show without buying the overpriced show guide...a decision that probably caused us to walk many unnecessary miles but we had the satisfied glow of saving 30 euros.

The European Office Products Awards dinner was that evening– and sales-i was sponsoring one of the prizes – “Established Vendor of The Year”. The shortlist included the big names: 3M, Avery, Fellowes.....with the winner being the German pen manufacturer...STABILO. As you can see from the picture the STABILO executives are big lads – next time I’ll stand on a box for the photo opportunity.


We shared a table with Ron Wotherspoon and the team from ECI² the leading accounting system provider to the industry and some Dutch guys from Alpha International – who were over the moon to win an award and celebrated with a round of beers rather than the champagne favoured by the more corporate winners...my informed guess is they were owners of the business rather than managers on an expenses jolly.

Steve Hilleard and the team at Office Products International put on a great show – full details will be in the next issue of OPI magazine and on their new look website. Good to catch up with old friends in the bar...including Peter Birks (ex Acco and Office Depot) who is enjoying life as a shopkeeper...running Staples UK. The main talking point in the bar afterwards was the cabaret – OPI had booked a German comedian (from my ancient memories of schoolboy English lessons I understand this is an oxymoron...like a ‘friendly tax inspector’)...unfortunately he reinforced the stereotype of the German lack of humour....and insisted on completing his 45 minute set without raising a single smile in the audience never mind laughs. Must remember to book him for my funeral...at least I won’t be the only one that died.

Kevin McGirl

Selling; Is it an Art or a Science ?

Welcome to my first and probably my longest blog..

My days are typically consumed with talking to sales people and sales managers about smart ways to reel in drifting customers, cut product leakage, fill gaps in their range, and spot cross and up-selling opportunities in an instant - all this while maximising their share of customer spend, enhancing client relationships and retention, and boosting profitability.

There is a constant debate as to whether a good sales person is born or made - and whether selling is an art, or a science. Whichever side you come down, I am sure about one thing - that even the sharpest sales people miss opportunities because they direct their customer conversations based on assumptions rather than facts. And so the content for my first blog came to life.

A good example to support my belief is the typical approach to so-called milk-round visits, designed to maintain relationships with long-standing clients. These can be the source of many missed opportunities, because the salesperson hasn’t gone into the meeting armed with the right information.

Think about how often you’ve found yourself shifting comfortably from the usual patter about sport and the weather into a confirmation of repeat orders. Perhaps you’re used to measuring your success on the numbers of visits made, relationships kept ticking over, and the level of repeat business secured?

Refocusing the pitch

But what if you had a way of refocusing these activities, by identifying in advance the customers whose purchasing has dropped off or changed over recent months? This is where ‘science’ can have a useful application in sales, on the basis that knowledge is power. If you know before starting a day’s visits that two customers on the list have altered their buying behaviour recently, perhaps reducing orders of one product, or buying fewer higher-margin products, you’d be able to prioritise these clients and go in with a strategy designed to redress the balance.

Unfortunately, many sales people rely on their memories, notes and assumptions or, equally common, arriving unprepared for what they assume will be a standard catch-up meeting, expecting to ‘wing it’. Yet, unfortunately, this is particularly dangerous in the high-volume manufacturing and distribution sectors, where subtle changes in purchasing are harder to spot due to the sheer number of customers.

Woods & trees

As Jon Banger at Chippenham-based Woods Business Services commented after changing the way he approached sales preparation: “With more than 350 customers and a product range in excess of 20,000, I used to struggle to get real visibility of the buying patterns and behaviour of many of my customers. So I relied on manually sifting through information and at best could only do this properly for a handful of key customers.”

This experience is far from unusual, which is worrying given that high-volume businesses typically experience 22% customer leakage during the course of a year (meaning they need to grow sales by 22% just to stand still).

Large businesses with the budgets to invest in sophisticated business analysis tools don’t get into this mess. Regular monitoring of sales figures quickly shows up errant customers so that sales teams can target them before they defect. Unfortunately, for many sales teams, such sophisticated tools are an ill-afforded luxury. They are the toys of middle managers and accountants – expensive to buy, time-consuming and complicated to set up, and difficult to use without a degree in maths.

Thinking differently

Yet that is changing, with the availability of technology solutions that have been developed more with the sales person in mind, providing focused, easy-to-digest sales information, flagging up purchasing trends and changing buying patterns among a particular customer base.

Given that the cost of sale to an existing customer is a fraction of the cost of bringing in new business, being prepared to adopt new approaches to selling is vital if sales teams are serious about growing their revenues – and profitability.

With timely insight into the buying activities of individual customers, you’d have the option to innovate, too, by applying special offers strategically and by cross-selling additional products, boosting margins as well as the total revenue per customer.

As Jon Banger of Woods Business Services has found: “I now have quick and easy access to all of my customers, what they buy, what they don’t buy, how profitable accounts are and the margins we make. This qualitative gap analysis allows me to make informed decisions regarding opportunities and approach each sales call proactively and creatively.”


Sharper promotions

Accurate targeting also improves the effectiveness of promotions. If your team has 2,000 customers and wants to promote toner cartridges, say, this might traditionally involve mailing 2,000 people at a cost of £1 per mailing, requiring a high percentage of large sales even just to break even. With better information to hand, you might instead selectively target only the 50 customers that have bought toner previously, but not in the past two months, increasing your chances of a decent return. By applying this kind of small yet timely, personal and relevant promotion every day, you stand to achieve high hit rates, nibbling away at your rivals’ share of customer.

As it turns out, then, the gift of the gab, sharp suits, fast cars and expanding waistlines from excessive customer entertainment may not be the best indicators of a good sales person. In reality, the best in your profession are probably good listeners, empathise with their customers’ pain points, and win respect by their actions rather than their words. By being well informed, they make intelligent choices about how they focus their time.

While no one could claim that sales is a science, performance can be enhanced by achieving the right blend of pure sales drive and talent with a better knowledge base.

Kevin McGirl, co-founder, sales-i