Break Into Pharmaceutical Sales By Selling Copiers?

I found this article somewhat interesting. 

 From the article: "...The technology market including copiers is a very different type of sales environment compared to pharmaceutical sales. Since customers can often be one-time purchasers only, salespeople in technology tend to use a more aggressive form of sales in order to secure the orders..." -- Technology salespeople are more aggressive. 

Ok, well, it seems that almost everyone outside of the industry has got all of us salespeople inside the industry all figured out. I haven't looked at a possible client as a "one-time" purchaser in nearly 10 years. 

 More -- "...An overly aggressive drug representative can easily turn off physicians and even lose the opportunity to future appointments. I’ve actually seen this happen to some drug reps out in the field as doctors have candidly told me that they refuse to see certain reps because of their aggressiveness. 

Therefore, some pharmaceutical companies will not hire former salespeople who were in more aggressive selling environments unless they can prove that they can tone their styles down to adapt to the pharmaceutical medical scene..." -- Tone THIS down, I got you're TONE...right...here... "... whether one should try to get some experience selling copiers in order to break into pharmaceutical sales. 

The answer is all previous sales experience dealing with real customers is an asset whether it is dealing with copiers, rental cars, medical equipment, or even retail sales. 

 The key is being able to use these selling skills and adapt one’s style to fit in well with the pharmaceutical sales environment. In many ways, selling technology equipment can be a more challenging form of selling because in many cases, one doesn’t get the benefit of follow-up appointments with customers..." -- I think this guy just "dis'd" me... didn"t he? 

Well, I remember a few years back when a Pharm recruited all the USC cheerleaders for sales positions. It is a brilliant idea and one I would participate in, especially the interviews - but I digress. 

Check this funny blog post about Pharm-Rep watching. But how can anyone from an industry like that make judgments like this? Click to email me.

Printer Operations Group - Ed Crowley Brings them into the Light

This Post introduces POG but the real "gold" is in the white paper found here.

Go get it.

I was impressed. The ideas are good.

What I find most intriguing is that this represents yet ANOTHER definition and approach in Managed Print Services - specifically from the true, billable, Consultant side.

I will not break down the white paper - go get it.

But here some highlights from the White Paper:

- Billing for assessments

- Vendor Neutrality

- The Deployment Curve - 4 stages

- "Root Cause Analysis"

- Result of an assessment is a Road Map not a Proposal for Products

- Cultural Navigation

Bad Experiences with Leasing - Toshiba, IKON, Canon, Saxon

The copier industry has a self inflicted black eye

Here from a Church in Florida-

Leased Copier-The Final Punishment
By Kevin McCord

"...When renewal time came around last year I was interested in working with them again, but found their prices far too high. I was in a position to buy a machine outright. When they got wind of that, they pulled out the lease agreement. We were a few weeks beyond the 90 day notice for non-renewal. The lease agreement locked us in for 12 more months with a machine we didn't want to use. They were not interested in our future business enough to let us give written notice a few weeks late even though we had spent those weeks in negotiations with them..."

Here from a school I think near San Francisco -

Copier leases: A few experiences and thoughts
By Greg Beuthin

"...We had two major beefs with our current copier lease company:

1. Response time was supposed to be 4-6 hours, but we had increasing delays, up to 8 hours in some cases. And often what would happen is an agent would arrive, and 15 minutes later declare “Parts are on order, I’ll be back in X days.”
2. We had an per-machine copy quota system. On the simple b/w copier, our lease included 18k copies a year, on the large multi-use one, 380k However, because of location, the b/w copier was used far more than the other copier, and we got hit with massive overage charges - even though we were twice as much under quota for copies on the large machine..."

-- more --

"...It’s stories like this that are helpful to people when they are reviewing their final lease copy agreement. We got screwed by Canon similarly, but only for 3 months (our lease said we had to provide 90 days notice, so we had to pay for 3 extra months). Of course, had I not waited until the last week to finalize a contract with another company, I would have been better off..."

Here a bad experience -

Shame on you Toshiba Business Solutions

"...In order not to “auto renew” most copier leases have a very strict code of how, when and where to send your formal cancellation notice. And if you don’t abide you have just bought yourself another 2 years with an outdated copier, congratulations.It’s the equivalent of a current boyfriend or girlfriend denying your right to break up with them because you didn’t do so at the right time or place... "

In this post from a church -

I hate Ikon Office Solutions

"...After 3 years of leasing a copy machine from this company our contract is out at the end of the month. That is a good thing...since we own a machine now we don't need to lease one. The contract is out, we have to pay the remainder of the lease...which is right and fine. What is wrong is that they charge us to come pick it up!!! I lease a machine from them (Ikon)...which means it is theirs and DOES NOT belong to me (newpoint)...their words in their contract. So they send me to a company that will come pick it up...for $375!!!!! ..."
-------

Anecdotal, I know. But still - the story is repeated over and over.

Leasing is a difficult issue to understand and it should be simple. It should be easy to understand and easy to explain and Leasing should be explained and all the ramifications transparent.

I think the necessity of "contracts" does not over ride the