Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Weekend Copier & Multifunctional Print4Pay Hotel Notes

Well.......I've been busy!!! Memorial Day kicks off my Summer Collegiate Baseball Season and I'm sorry to tell everyone we dropped both ends of the DH!!  Argggghh!  The first we dropped 3-1 and the 2nd game 9-6, and dam we were down in the second game 7-1  going into the 7th inning.  The guys could have quit however they didn't and I was impressed with one pitcher who pitched with a "tude" and brushed back a hitter who thought he owned the plate! It's a long season and we'll see how we do. 

So for all our Print4Pay Hotel Members and Members to be, here's some links of our latest and greatest threads.

Recent Document Uploads:
A Message to CFO's (Another Letter)
Are you aware of your printing environment?
Synopsis of business case for businesses
A Predator’s Guide to Selling

There's many more, just the latest from today!

Leads, RFP's RFQ's:
50 plus Copier Bid in California
32 MFPs up for Grabs in Southeast USA
13 plus MFP's in Mid Atlantic State USA
Color Copier RFP in Louisana
Lease of Production Copier in Mid West USA

Many more of these also!!!

Recent Interesting Threads from P4P'ers:
Rumor has it.....
MPS And Profit
question on powerline adapter
Fax Machines, let's have some fun!
KGB returns broken copier to United Civic Party's activists in Homyel

MFP Cloud Threads:
Print email from the cloud (Video)
Generic advantages and differences of UDOCX vs.in house installs
Toshiba Canada launches new Colour Line

These are just some samples of the threads from this week alone!! The Print4Pay has over 2,300 world wide members that are dedicated Imaging Professionals.  Take a trip here www.p4photel.com/eve (registration link, don't worry man, it's FREE) and become a part of the largest social group of Imaging Professionals in the work and the opportunity to discuss solutions, best practices, rumors, and make new friends  in the industry (it's nice to have a secure forum that's  not out there for the public, eh?)

-=Good Selling=-

Art Post

"One of the Top 40 Most Influential People in the Imaging Business"

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Ricoh Convergence "A Smash Hit"

It's late, just got back from the Ricoh party event at Universal in Orlando and to date everything has been awesome!  No one, has an event like Ricoh and that's not coming from me it comes from the dealer community!

From the Monday night reception, then the opening ceremony, the seminars, the tech expo and the night at Universal all is well in Ricoh land.

I got a chance to keep catch up many many P4P'ers, make some new friends and enjoy the comradery of others in the copier industry.  It was one big happy family!

I must say that Ricoh's commitment to the channel and the products that are coming in the future will keep Ricoh atop of the MFP industry and a major commitment to MDS will enable us to retain existing customer and attract new customers. 

It's late, I'll be posting more on the P4P forums, Youtube  in the near future.  BTW the way, the highlight of the night was Yoshi singing a Bon Jovi song. I thought I captured the whole video, however when I checked I only had the first 30 seconds, dam memory. If anyone has it please upload or send me a link, it was awesome!!

-=Good Selling=-

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Pennies from Ricoh

Thirty Two years in the down the street sales of copiers will teach you a few things along the way.  I tend to think that I've become an expert in many areas, not only am I an expert with copiers but I've also progressed to be an expert (professional) in others things.

Professional Directions Giver:  Where do you need to go in New Jersey?  With all my years behind the wheel who the heck needs map quest or one of those fancy GPS's.  I can get you from point A to point B with all the short cuts and no tolls.  When traveling with the wife there's no need for me to get lost or get off the beaten track because I'm embarrassed to ask for directions!

Professional Cold Caller:  Right, what the bloody hell, are companies going to shoot me or call me nasty names for calling them on the phone or stopping in. Over the years I learned what I need to get from a stop in, how to  track down Mrs. or Mr. Right, and been thrown out of more places than I can remember.  Full speed ahead!

Professed Expert with Ricoh Equipment:  With 13 years of selling the Ricoh product line, I know more than most and generally smarter than the average bear with configurations and what can and can't be done!

Professional Driver:  Over 20,000 miles per year for 32 two years is ..........(need the calculator for this one) for 640,000 miles travel in the beautiful State of New Jersey.  My wife tells me I'm a horrible driver, I tell her that....she needs to mind her own business and let me drive!  If I'm still doing this in 18 years I'll have a million miles under my belt and will be absolutely insane.

Professional Penny Counter:  Tell me, where else can you count pennies or tenths of pennies in your head and give the correct answer for volumes of 600,000 pages at .005 or .008.  Better yet add them up for 5 years and have the correct answer.  I've seen some really weird looks from customers when give them the numbers with out the aid of a calculator!  I'm always telling the wife and others that I'm in the penny business and make over six figures a year!!

Professional Finder of Lavatories:  When you're on the road as much as I am, you always have your fav spots for relief whether inside or outside!

Professional Lie Dectector:  Believe it or not, I can tell when your BS'ing me. I've learned to listen very carefully and can pick apart inconsistencies in your story, and your body language.  So, whether you're a potential client, sales person, or sales manager I know when your feeding me bull.

Just one other note, I named the blog "Pennies from Ricoh" because in the last 13 years of selling Ricoh products have been excellent years, and the popularity of customers who engage in cost per page maintenance agreements, again it's made me and expert in the penny counting business.  Boy, do those pennies add up, especially when you get a 1% overage on a cost per page of .008!

-=Good Selling=-

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Scan to the Cloud for eCopy & Salesforce.com

This is Hot!  Finally an ecopy connector for salesforce.com, I'm sure this can be an additional product for all of us to focus us.

Announcing the connector for Salesforce.com for Nuance eCopy Sharescan. Partnering with Nuance a company called 2112 http://www.scan-to-salesforce.com has announced they have released a “connector” for eCopy Sharescan that will allow users to scan documents directly into Salesforce.com accounts using an eCopy enabled MFP or scanner. Batch scan using barcode cover pages will allow users to scan batches of documents that will then be converted to individual PDF files and automatically uploaded to the correct Salesforce account.

Salesforce.com is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with regional headquarters around the world. Salesforce.com has its services translated into 16] different languages and currently has 82,400 customers and over 2,100,000 subscribers. The application runs in the cloud, so the user can access it anywhere through an Internet-enabled mobile device or a connected computer. The Sales Cloud includes a real-time sales collaborative tool called Chatter, provides sales representatives with a complete customer profile and account history, allows the user to manage marketing campaign spending and performance across a variety of channels from a single application, tracks all opportunity-related data including milestones, decision makers, customer communications, and any other information unique to the company's sales process. Other activities can be done on the Salesforce cloud. These include using the Jigsaw business data to access over 20 million complete and current business contacts from right inside Salesforce CRM, and designing and automating any process in Salesforce CRM.

VP Shashi Klamath “We see a great need in the marketplace to scan and store documents directly into Salesforce.com accounts leveraging a company’s existing infrastructure. This simplifies and automates that process saving companies thousands of dollars in paper document storage and labor.”
 
-=Good Selling=-

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Selling Copiers and MFP's "Ask Art"

I am looking for some good talk tracks that work, when dealing with non Xerox prospects. It seems like when I call every non Xerox customer is completely "happy" and no need to see me. Any suggestions?

This was a post on one of the forums of the Print4Pay Hotel today. I'm always more than happy to help someone new or someone in need in our industry.  The Print4Pay Hotel offers many forums for all manufacturers reps to discuss solutions, ask questions and get sales help!

Here's the repsone I posted on the P4P Hotel forums.

For starters, everyone is happy to say they are happy with their current provider to get you off the phone!



Believe nothing of what you hear and half of what you see is something my father always said, doesn't make much sense but he always said it!

Selling today is a lot more complicated than years ago. When I started, you would whip out the yellow pages, pick a type of business and just start making cold calls. The pitch was simple something to effect "Hi this is so and so, and I'm calling to see you have the need for a new copier". That was it, plain and simple and believe it or not you really, really wanted a no, so you could hang up and get the next dial in. Sooner or later you were going to find someone that would take a look at a demonstrator unit from you.


If I used that pitch today, I'm sure all of my answers would be NO, GO AWAY, and a hang up.


Today I find my self making multiple calls to find the "right" person, and then many calls to finally get the "right" person on the phone. I find that these words will help spark some interest:


We may be able to lower your costs
We may be able to manage your documents that will result in increased productivity.
Decrease the smount of pages copied or printed

Manage your printing to move prints to lower cost systems


These are just a few, it's a numbers game and you've gotta make the dials to find who is unhappy, who's looking to save, or who needs additional or new systems.


Look for these signs:


Companies moving
Companies hiring
Companies where the parking lot is overflowing
Companies that were awarded a major contract


Do these:


Join your locate chamber of commerce or networking club and attend the meetings
be involved (volunteer)locally for sports, politics and religious orginazations
Make 200-300 calls a week


It's not easy work, it's hard work and you have be dedicated. Hope this helps!

-=Good Selling=-

Sunday, May 15, 2011

MFP's & Cost Per Page Agreements

It's that time of year for me and my apologies!  I've been very busy trying to get my summer Collegiate baseball team ready for opening day.  We open Memorial Day Weekend and then play 30 games in 60 days.

I had an email the other day from a rep that was new to the industry.  I was asked "Can you tell me what information I can read to understand cost per copy to figure contracts for my customers for toner and service. "

The first thought that came to me is that this rep is really new and possibly there is nothing in place from management to help this rep sell. He may be the only rep, and he may be working for a small mom and pop that may be selling other things such as furniture, postage machines, shredders and office supplies.

Cost Per Page and Cost Per Copy, both mean the same.  Usually if a rep states a cost per page or a cost per copy it means that all consumables (toner, developer, drums), parts, labor and maintenance is included for that price.  Cost Per Page for multifunctional copiers (that's what we're gonna call it from here on in) for black pages can be anywhere from .004 (usually reserved for print production) all the way to .03.  Pretty much depends on the speed and volume of the unit. An average cost per page should be somewhere around .0125 for a black page. 

Since color multifunctional copiers are gaining more acceptance most dealers and direct that offer Cost Per Page Contracts have a separate charge for black like .0125 and then a separate cost for color (average color is in the are .075), again Print Production units will have the lowest Cost Per Page and the low volume Multifunctional Copiers will have the highest Cost Per Page. 

Most Dealers and Direct Branches will make you commit to an annual volume for the pages, and then bill monthly or quarterly.  The billing could be in arrears or in advance.  Overage charges apply when you've made more than your contracting volume for any month, quarter or year.

Lately, there's seems to be a growing trend to incorporate the copier lease and the Cost Per Page on the lease agreement.  What that means is that you have two charges from the leasing company one for the basic lease of the copier and then the Cost Per Page Agreement.  I'm kinda wishy washy about this, in one hand this type of agreement protects my customers from upgrades and  on the other hand my customer is contracting for all of the pages to be copied or printed upfront (there's no way of getting out of it), and then are automatic increases for the Cost Per Page built in every year.

One other side note for the newbie is that most manufactures have a wholesale Cost Per Page "fact" sheet, this information details the yields of the consumables, yield of certain parts and the estimated "meantime before failure" with that they then associate an average labor charge.  In essence the manufacturer is going you a delta at your cost and you can process from there.

In the end Cost Per Page or Cost Per Copy are two of the same.  There are hundreds of variations for cost per page agreements, make sure you read your agreement and understand your agreement.  From there you can consult with your customer for the best plan of action.

-=Good Selling=-

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Death of the Fax Machine "Finally"

I borrowed a line from Greg Walters from The Death of the Copier here.


It's my firm belief that the fax machine as we know it will cease to exist. Now, if you would have asked me three months ago, I would have told you never, ever, fax will always be here.

What's changed my mind? A few things, one I'm gonna keep to myself because I'm not sure if the person I spoke wants me to release that information to the public at this time. The other item would be emergence of "smart" MFP’s (multi functional product) that are capable of communicating to the "cloud".

In my way of selling and I'm always thinking about how to reduce a clients cost and how to get an immediate ROI so a decision can be made in a timely manner.

Here's my thinking with faxing when it comes to existing MFP's. Let's say I'm on an appointment for a new SMB (small to medium business) account, one of their requirements is that they need a fax option on the MFP. Depending on the cost of the MFP would also dictate the cost of the fax option. Most faxes for me are in between $995 & $1,375. We’ll take the middle of the road at $1,200; putting this on a 36 month lease we’d have a payment of $35.52 plus tax for a total of $38 even.

Since most fax lines in SMB accounts are dedicated and not VOIP (Voice over IP), typically the cost of the line, dialing plan, Federal Excise Tax, State Tax and other BS fees. An average fax line can cost $45-$78 (Verizon came in a $78 with unlimited local and long distance) per month. Here’s an interesting fact I found out when researching the “additional charges”, the Federal Excise Tax was passed in 1898 to fund the Spanish American War, and it’s not gone away. World War I saw the establishment of the Long Distance Tax and World War II saw in an increase in both Taxes and they’ve never gone away!!!

So, if you’re going to add a fax option to an MFP you have the monthly cost of the fax module at $38 and let’s call the monthly fee to have the line with $55.00. I think I’m being fair in calculating a total cost of $93 per month.

Let’s move onto a “smart” MFP, which is any MFP that can communicate through its browser with Cloud Services. The one that I have in mind is Fenestrae UDOCX Fax application. I’m mentioning them because I’m more familiar with that product than any other and at this time I don’t know of any other Cloud based Fax Solution.

The cost to buy the UDOCX fax application is $30 per month. For the $30 per month you don’t need the fax module for the MFP and you can do away with the fax line, thus a savings of $68 per month! Plus there’s a heck of a lot of additional features that are offered that can help improve any companies efficiencies. If you’re the Big Brother type and you want to see all inbound and outbound faxes, or send faxes and have notifications in your mailbox, then you’re in luck.

The main point I’m trying to make is that in today’s economy more clients want simple cost saving solutions. If you’re on the cutting edge of selling solutions, you can take this information and solution to bank. You won’t have to discount your hardware because you’re already $2,400 or so less the competition with a “smart” MFP Fax based Cloud Solution. So, I ask you who’s gonna get the sale, the rep with pick axe or the rep with the jackhammer?

There was a post on the Print4Pay Hotel forums many years ago, in the thread was this statement “Peter Drucker says, "Every business needs to prepare for the total abandonment of everything that it does."

Lastly, I had a conversation with someone today who spoke with a manufacturers rep and something to this effect was said “Why would we do this, we’ll lose all of our fax module revenue”. Pretty dumb huh?

Sell cost savings solutions, find ways to give a client and immediate ROI without sacrificing service, or productivity and increase their efficiencies, it’s a no brainer!!!

-=Good Selling=-

Friday, May 6, 2011

Top 40 Most Infuential in the Imaging Industry

The Week in Imaging just released their Top 40 Most Influential in the Imaging Industry.  Each week for the next four weeks they will be posting ten of the Top 40.  What a great way to get readers coming back, I like it!

So, who's in the first group of 10?  Well, it's pretty much the who's who in the Imaging Industry.  Mentioned were Frank Canata (President and Founder MRC Consultants), Ed McLaughlin, President, Sharp, Carlyle Singer, President & CEO, Katun Corp., Rick Taylor, President & CEO of KonicaMinolta USA, Bob Goldberg, BTA General Counsel, Art Post, Print4Pay Hotel & Print4Pay Hotel’s MFP Solutions Blog, Jerry Blaine, CEO, LDI Color Toolbox, Ed Crowley, President & CEO, Photizo Group, Frank Gaspari, CEO, FlexPrint, Jim Cerkleski, CEO, Clover Holdings, Inc.

The Week in Imaging also states that all of these Industry Guru's were nominated based on comments that were emailed to them others in the industry.  None of the top 40 new about be honored in advance.

For me, well.....I'm honored that my name was passed along to The Week in Imaging and I'd like to thank those that passed my name along with recommendation.  A lot of time and effort goes into the Print4Pay Hotel forums and the MFP Solutions Blog.  Countless hours researching, reading, and thinking of ways to improve the way we communicate as a group has always been a goal of mine. 

Take some time and read about each of the honorees, and I'll be looking forward to next weeks publication.

-=Good Selling=-

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Selling Copiers "Ask Art" Digital Duplicators Not Dead Yet!

I had this email from someone who read one of my posts on Print Planet.  Thought I would share this and also comment on the HQ9000.  Enjoy!

Good afternoon,



I have reviewed your comments on Print Planet and searched the reviews and am very interested in the unit. I am a single operator print shop. My son was operating my offset presses and now has moved onto a better paying job with better benefits. My husband, who founded our company, has many health issues and is not able to back up on the presses. Since I do not have a full time position for a press operator, I am at a real handicap and am looking for something more efficient and cost effective. My concern is the quality of print for text and screens (grayscales) in comparison to the offset press. We run about 15-20% 2-Color work and the rest as black only. We do a lot of Letter, Legal, Tabloid and NCR as well as a lot of envelopes with stock consisting of 20# Bond, 24# Bond, 60#, 70#, & 80# offset, carbonless, and 24# Envelopes from A-2 to #12. On the 2-color is the registration pretty accurate as well as the registration on 2-sided card stock (110# Index)?


I will do more research on your product.


If there is anything else you can offer me for advice and direction, it will be greatly appreciated. I now run (2) Ricoh printers. I have the AP3850C (about 8 years now) and recently purchased the Ricoh CL3500N. The AP3850C is having some color quality issues plus does not have the speed for smaller run booklets of 8-1/2 x 11 size. I was presently looking at the Xerox 7655 but was very concerned about the cost and consumables and efficiency so looking at other options. I am looking to have something in place within the next 2 weeks. We do have the Mac G3 (with OS 9.2) and a Mac G4 (with OS 10) as well as standard Windows XP and believe it or not the Win98.


I do look forward to hearing from you.


Thanks for your time and consideration!
 
My Response
 
As long as you have the PSIII print option you'll be able to control the dot size for the halftones. Everything else including envelopes and NCR should run very well!


There is a two color option called the TCII, that system will run two colors in one pass and will give adequate registration for printing in two colors.

I've had print shops run up to 12 point stock in the system with no issues. Keep in mind that this system has a press roller similar to a printing press. The only maintenance required on the unit is a feed roller to be replaced every 250k or so. I recommend the HQ9000 since it is 600 dpi and the HQ7000 is only 400dpi.

The cost of the consumables is very inexpensive, based on runs of 500 or more expect to spend .002 for black ink and then the cost of the master (plate), which I think is under $1.00. There's no heat, no pressure, to fix the image thus there are no consumables other than the ink and the master (plate), the image cylinder (drum) is designed for 1 million impressions and will cost around $1,200 to replaced or $600 or so to refurbish with a new screen.

You can't run coated stock, the ink just can't set up on that that of stock. Otherwise you can run almost anything and everything through the unit. As far as a maintenance agreement on the system, that's up to you, my recommendation is to take the 90 days parts & labor and see how the system runs. Odds are you'll see that one is not needed.

Each color requires a dedicated image cylinder (drum), one black comes with the system and most of my printers have a total of three on hand, reflex blue, red and black. You can get other colors but you'll need another drum for each one. Ink has a shelf life of about one year also.

Basically, you and I have the most concerning eye when it comes to quality of prints, the HQ9000 does an excellent job, it's not offset, however it's pretty darn close and your client will not be able to tell the difference in probably 85% of the media that you print.

You can't go wrong the system is easy to use, easy to maintain and does not require much service except for a cleaning every now and then.

-=Good Selling=-

PS  Digital Duplicators are a great fit for a print shop, especially since Pressman are getting harder to find.  I placed a call to a print shop the other day and they asked me if I knew of any pressman that could come in and run a job for them.  I offered up a trial on the duplicator, they passed, I guess they were afraid that they may buy something that could really help them out, save them countless hours and get jobs out quicker instead of finding a fly by night pressman!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Selling Copiers "Making Sense of the Madness" #3

WHOA!  I had a gigantic headache after I ended a call with an incumbent customer. If this customer did not have 20-30 units I would have told the guy to....  well you know and I know.

Making a long story short (here I go again), an incumbent account had an old 1013 Ricoh system. The system has over 145K on it and is about 10 years old. I tell you that Ricoh engine 1013/1515/171/201 is an excellent engine. Anyway, the 1013 has seen better days and the incumbent account is on a "break and fix" program. Lately the 1013 has more getting more repairs and calls. 

I get the lead from my service department, do some number crunching, mind you I'm familiar with the account, they can't see past the purchase price, however I'm a persistent person and ran a spreadsheet for them with the MP171 and a small inexpensive MFP (one for around $300), of course there was a huge savings with the MP171 because of the low toner price.  A few days ago I made a follow up call to the PA and then heard back from a different manager, he wanted me to quote a Ricoh 3400, now this is a low cost 30ppm system that uses and AIO cartridge and the cost per page is .033 for Ricoh toner and through Internet it was something like .021.  The .021 includes no parts, no service, no maintenance.

He stated his volume was 1,200 per month, my records indicate it's 1,500 per month, so I'm trying to tell him that this system is not for them.  This guy is thinking the system will never need service, it's faster and will be less expensive, well he was right to a point because I had a maintenance agreement in place for full coverage.  So, I went back to dropping the maintenance agreement and just showed the same consumables as the 3400.  He couldn't see the forest through the trees!    Even though the cost of the 171 was over $1,300 there was still some savings and a much more reliable system.

I sent him a different spreadsheet and I'm hoping he goes and buys one of those pieces of crap low end machines and  I'll  be praying that the machine fails a few times a year and they need service, parts and labor.

Penny wise, Dollar Foolish!!!

-=Good Selling=-

Monday, May 2, 2011

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 5/1/2011

Can you beleive it we've posted leads for over 2,500 copier in the Print4Pay Hotel forums!

What's Hot!!  Scan2Cloud, and Scan2Shorepoint MFP's!!  Click one of the threads below and learn how to turn your MFP into a "SMART" MFP!
Below are some of the threads that were posted for discussion on the Print4Pay Hotel forums. Enjoy!

Announcements & Discussions Forums:

Tohoku Earthquake Wreaks Havoc on Printer Industry Supply Chain

Average Monthly Page Volumes
Xerox Marketing Campaign April2011
List your favorite funny copier moments
The Office Copier turns 50!
Rumor has it.....
Invitation Webinar from UDOCX

Print4Pay Hotel's Document Library:

Sharp Dealer Meeting
MPS White Paper
Copier Security Booklet
HP Cost Per Page Chart
Toner Page Cover Examples

Print4Pay Hotel's Industry Proposals & Quotes:

Anyone have any contracts/pricing info for Ricohs new color A4s?
mp6501 c
Ricoh Aficio PRO C901 "Pricing on the Street"
Ricoh Pro 720S
KonicaMinolta bizhub 360
savin 9240SP lease n sales order

RFp's, RFQ's & Leads:

Copier Lease Agreement
76 plus MFP's in Southern Cal
School District
Arizona
HARPSWELL


Copier Stuff We Found on the Web:

Arkansas Politics Secretary of state lowers copy charges
Buonomo to collect pension while serving time
According to an article in “The Imaging Channel” magazine, Canon’s Precision, Chemica
In 2009, it refinanced that lease, providing new copiers and lowering the monthly
State Legislation to Address Privacy Risks of Digital Copiers


The Print4Pay Hotel forums are closed to the public and only accessible for industry professionals. To date we have over 2,300 registered members that consists of Dealer Owners, Dealer and Direct Sales Managers, Dealer & Direct Account Representatives, Manufacturers Direct Reps, and Industry Analysts. Log in here to become a member of the largest social group of imaging professionals in the world!

-=Good Selling=-