efi fiery Selling through Channel partners

The Printing Industry in the UK, comprises of some 10,500 companies employing around 140,000 workers in mainly small and medium-sized companies.

UK Printing industry is the World's fifth largest producer of printed products with a turnover of £14.3 billion.

For the last 20 years efi have played a significant role in the digital printing world.

efi product lines include Fiery® Digital Print Solutions, VUTEk® Digital Inkjet Solutions, Rastek™ Digital Inkjet Solutions, Jetrion® UV lnkjet Systems, business automation software, and corporate, enterprise and mobile cloud solutions

The Printing world has been going through tough times yet efi have managed over 35%  growth in a tough market.

Not only do efi invest in technological research to strive ahead but also in their most important asset - their people - such as their Sales and Technical teams.

Meeting in  the  suites on the 37th floor of Canary Wharf's No 1 Canada Square building Abbey Business Centre / Regus the Northern Europe sales team of efi  met to hone their sales skills for the challenges that 2012 will bring.

View to the east from the 37th Floor of No 1 Canada Square from the Office Suites run by Regus The Shard already the focal point as  London/s tallest building to be !

View to the north from 37th Floor of No1 Canada Square , Canary Wharf Olympic Stadium at Straford getting ready for London Games 2012

We set the scene by splitting into syndicate teams to put together some horizon picture thoughts ( inspired by the views from the 37^th Floor no doubt)

One team considered what  the current  and future Attribute, Skills and Knowledge of efi ( Technical and Sales) to partner Channel Salespeople should ‘look like’

The second syndicate team considered the pertinent  difference and similarities of selling tangible products and service that make up the efi offering. The third team  reviewed the strengths of the efi offering to both selling through and in partnership  with  Channel  with whom the collaborate and the end users (printers) .

Hugh Alford coaching at efi Partnership selling skills workshop

 efi partners with the likes of  Xerox, , Canon  , Oce ,  Konica Minolta and Ricoh .

Next we worked the importance of a flexible Selling Style as reviewed skills in client personality and behaviours and how best to matched and work with them.

To the nature of the complex sell of the business we produced a workable , adaptable practical and flexible Sales Process based on the  TACK International PROPAYBACK ™ Sales Model.

The team next worked on Communication Skills session and considered the real world challenges to effective communication in today’s printing business environment

Focusing on the quality of questioning skills we reviewed not only the various types of questions and their purpose but also how to drill down for the underlying opinions, needs wants, attitudes concerns and issues that client have.

These were then were then practised live in 5 bespoke case studies where key pieces of information had to be elicited from the ‘Buyers’.The cases were based around genuine situations but with the names changed for confidentiality. So the sales team enjoyed role-playing the spoof buyer pseudo names like Hugh Mann-Leeg, Tom St Twins, Hugh B Forte, Owen Billions and Hugh Mark Mywords

The  3Ms Matthew, Morgan and Mark reading their Buyer and salesperson briefs for the Case Studies to fine tune their investigation skills



Dave , Andy and John practising their Buying and Selling skills

We then simulated a presentation to revise what makes a good presentation using part of the  efi Fiery Suite of printing solutions.

The final two modules were centred around handling and dealing with resistance on such issues as Justifying Value, Resistance to change, Technological protocols etc.

Finally we looked at how summarise and work seamlessly with the channel partner to offer end users the best solutions

After a full and stretching day  we took our last last view of London from the 37th Floor and descended to ground level .

View south across the Thames from the 37th Floor of No1 Canada Square  former Royal Naval College Greenwich and the Royal Observatory and the Meridian Line from which GMT is calculated  

View to the west from the 37th Floor of No 1 Canada Square with the O2 / Millennium Dome and the Thames Barrier further down river.

 and a few well-earned beers Corona Extra and Negra Modelo. This we followed with some delicious Mexican street food at Wahaca http://wahaca.co.uk/html/1_restaurant3.html .

 Our conversation ranged from what the Eurozone crisis might mean to convivial chat about  the merits of Crystal Palace FC to the training challenges of gun dogs.