(above) A.D. or no A.D., that is the question?
Actually, it doesn't matter, unlike many other competing products, you don't need AD to use this!
He Came, He Told, He Sold
It was the mid 90’s and I had just endured a rather horrific Monday morning sales meeting. Thankfully I had (just) made my targets, so another weeks stay of execution, but the less successful souls, were made to suffer the embarrassment of having their desk and chair taken away and having to work on the floor. The boss used to say that even though they worked on 100% commission, sales people still cost him money to ‘run’, such as the cost of their desks, phones etc. So in sales, you had to make a certain amount of profit to ‘pay for your desk’. If you didn't do this by Monday, it was simple. He took it away. After a while, there were too many sales people and not enough space put all the desks, so he made them stand on their desks instead – until they sold quota, then they could sit down.
There was one person however, who absolutely loved Mondays. Paul. I sometimes wondered why they even bothered to use rub out whiteboard pen for the top slot on the sales leader board. Just use a sharpie, and stick Paul's name up there for ever. It just seemed like whatever Paul would do, he would get an order. Take a phone call. Order. Make a phone call. Order. Listen to a voice mail. Order. My voice mails would be full of irate customers complaining about missing couriers, or asking why there was a half eaten sausage roll inside their computer system. Paul would log into the CRM, hit play on his phone, and tap the orders in one by one. You can imagine how infuriating this would be to the desk-less or desk-standing lot, who would have to watch Paul processing orders with an almost mundane 'oh not another' shrug of his shoulders. Then to rub salt into it, just when he was done his order reciting, the red VM light on his phone would come back on. A new order had been left whilst he was keying the last lot! Oh just stop will you! I just couldn't figure out how he did it.
Until one day, I needed to call Paul, and got his voice mail instead. I listened to his message and suddenly realised that Paul wasn't a actually a sales magician, he was a sales genius. Unlike everyone else in the sales team, Paul would record a brand new VM message every morning before he started work. In it he would calmly tell his customers not only what he was doing that day, but also everything that was on special. When there was nothing on special, he would just make it up. He’d turned his voice mail into an advertising hoarding. He was just great at telling, which made him the best at selling. By miles.
Fast forward 20 years (has it been that long!?) and I find that with so much email use, people tend not to leave that many voice mails anymore. They phone & if they don't get hold of you, they email instead. I'm absolutely certain therefore that if Paul is still out there selling (surely he would have retired by now?) he would have spotted a gap, a white gap that is, at the bottom of every email he sends out. Paul would make his email signature sell.
At ACC Yotta we work very hard to research and test the best & most innovative hardware and software products, and wherever possible use them in house before imparting on customers. This makes us experts in not just the products we sell but also in the companies behind the products. We are testing suppliers just as rigorously as the products they make and that’s really important to us. Recently however, we purchased a product solely for our own needs, but it was so impressive, we thought we just had to take it on as a product, and it’s already working a treat for us.
The Sign Of A Great Company Is A Great Sign Off!
If your company does not have a communications policy for the coordinated deployment of email signatures, then I urge to you consider taking Fast Track Automation Studios software for a quick trial. The benefits of a uniform email signature system is far greater than your organisation coming across as a professional and cohesive unit. You are missing out on a valuable opportunity to impart potentially valuable information to your customers!
Fast Tracks Outlook Signature edition enables the rapid deployment of a uniform look and feel across your entire workforce, using easily designed WYSIWYG templates, and in our tests, somehow the solution is able to render even quite complex designs on many different types of email client with highly impressive uniformity. But remember it’s not simply about imparting your contact details – this system is so easy to use, one person (sales team leader for example) could tee up a ‘signature of the day’, be it a special offer, an event or perhaps notification of a new blog item on the company website.
Please check out the link below for more information on Fast Tracks Outlook Signature solution, with a comparison chart to the even more capable Enterprise version:
https://www.accyotta.com/fasttrack-automation-studio/outlook-signatures
If you are keen to get cracking, you can download your free trial from here:
So go ahead and stick a subliminal message on the end of your email – your customers might thank you. I'm sure (hope) that Paul would agree, that It’s great to tell and sell, but actually the best way to sell, I have found, is not actually to ‘try’ to sell at all!
(above) what better place to inform customers of Outlook email signature software, than on your Outlook signature!
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