Xerox Still Making Their Reps Cold-Call
I was sitting in my office the other day, working on a cool new site for a client when I hear this timid rapping on the door. Immediately, I thought, “Salesman”.
I work in a small building in one of about 15 offices mostly populated by therapists and one or two man businesses. There is no security on the doors entering the building so it isn’t uncommon to get two or three cold-callers coming into the building on any given day.
Usually, I don’t mind it because it allows me to turn the tables by giving them my materials and sharing with them my ideas about prospecting without cold-calling. You can imagine that I often have a very receptive audience.
So, this guy came into my office yesterday and tells me he is the new territory manager for Xerox and he was just “reaching out” (don’t you love the jargon?) to introduce himself and what he had to offer. I was the only one in the office and after a quick glance around the room he begins peppering me with questions about our gear.
I love these situations because I used to sell office equipment so I can really feel this guy’s pain. In fact, one might say that I am the salesman’s worst prospect because I will sit through most pitches just to see what will come out. They can go back to the office feeling good that they ‘qualified’ me even though they know that I will likely never buy anything from them.
I listened to this guy’s pitch for a while (five minutes or so) before I finally stopped him and mentioned that we really didn’t have any need for anything at the moment. He did what every rep tries to do. Leave me his card and try to get one of mine. I didn’t have one (which was true) but I joked that I’d be happy to write a note to his boss indicating that Jamie had actually stopped by.
I asked what the deal was with Xerox. Did they still make their reps canvass for business or had they stepped out of the 80′s and began providing their reps with leads?
Nope. This is the deal. Jamie was required to make 30 calls per day. They could be made by phone or in person but (here’s the classic mentality) he had to prove to his manager that he made those calls. Hence, the request for a business card. He had a ‘pipeline’ that needed to be filled and he had to move prospects through the various stages to get to closing.
This is insane! We’re talking about Xerox here. A company that certainly has the dough to implement a decent lead generation system but they don’t. My guess is that they are still burdened by the old-school mentality that real salesmen cold-call.
The alternative is that they think that they are reducing costs by shifting the responsibility of prospecting onto well-trained sales reps. The fact is that this never works because reps simply realize that cold-calling sucks and they leave. The company loses more money in training and turnover than they could ever spend implementing a lead generation system that would keep those same sales reps happy and selling.
For Xerox’s sake, I hope Jamie’s superiors are just old-school thinkers.
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