Selling Copy Machines "Going Green"

As a rebutal to my last blog and also to hop on the "Green" Band Wagon, I developed this for my cleints to read!

Want to Go Green!


· Eliminate your Fax Machine with a Fax Server: A fax server will eliminate the need to print faxes, which will reduce paper costs, reduce maintenance costs, and reduce toner costs along with hardware. Fax servers will also keep an digital copy of all inbound and out bound faxes (you’ll never lose another fax)

· Multifunctional Systems: These systems can print, scan, fax and copy in color for pennies and eliminate the need to have four different devices in the office. Multi-functional systems have a very low cost per page when compare to standalone fax machines, copy machines, laser or ink printers. Consider this the average laser printer and fax machine has a cost of .03 per page. Multifunctional Systems have a cost of .0125 per page. That’s a savings of over 50%! Where else can you cut your costs by over 50% these days? If you’re printing color documents on a laser printer, your savings could twice as much!

· E-copy: Easy to use software that will allow you to convert documents to pdf’s, along with the ability to markup documents (circles, arrows, lines, notes, signatures). You can even fill in text on a pdf document, along with having OCR capabilities. This software eliminates the need to print documents, add notes and re-delivery the paper document. Everything can be accomplished with out printing paper!

· Print Management Software: We all have them the inexpensive printers that we bought for a few hundred dollars. Did you know that printing in color on these devices can cost as much as 60 cents a page for ink jet and 20 cents a page for laser? Print Management software coupled with a Multifunctional System takes the guess work out of printing (which device will save me money); the software will monitor and redirect the print job the lowest cost system on your network. This inexpensive software can save thousands of dollars!

Comments are Welcome!!

"Copy Machine Sales" Copier Manufacturers Confuse Me

Question: How do copier companies make money? Answer: By putting ink or toner on paper. Very simple right?

In a recent press release by Xerox, "more than 70 percent of Xerox total revenue comes from sales of supplies and services -- also known as "post-sale."


A recent press release by Ricoh in Europe made this statement: Chief executive Nigel Palmer revealed that printers now account for about half of Ricoh’s revenue and he told resellers that a move towards selling them should be a priority.“If you are not already doing it, please do it quickly. Within two years, three quarters of sales will be printers,” he said.





The Big Lie?


I have an issue here, I keep reading all of the hype about "Going Green" saving paper, do more scanning, print two sided more often and the latest craze is "Print Management Solutions"

Hey, if you're in the business of putting ink or toner on paper then why are manufacturers such as Xerox, Ricoh, Canon, KonicaMinolta, Sharp, Kyocera, Oce and Toshiba pushing scanning solutions such as Document Management Software? Scanning documents and not copying them should decrease paper usage, save trees, save oil, and other resources right??? Well, not entirely true from what I've heard, in fact scanning solutions may actually increase the amount of paper you use! Fact is most people who need to review a document will print it first and then make notes or markups on the document.


Most of these pages will be printed to low cost printers that are located next to the user and have a higher cost per page than multifunctional copiers and almost all of the low end printers use AIO cartridges (All in One, toner, drum, developer unit), its estimated that half of these end up in the landfills. So, if we're using more paper, more ink and toner, and more cartridges how the heck are we "Going Green" and how are we saving resources?


I have a current customer that scans every document they receive, they then index and archive the documents. Before they started scanning their monthly volume of copies and prints was about 25,000 pages. One year later, their volume is now 34,000 pages per month!





"Going Green"


Here's a thought, most manufacturers have reclamation facilities that will accept spent cartridges. You can ship the empties back at no charge, why not implement some type of credit to the end user for returning all of the spent cartridges, the drum kits, and fuser kits. Once at the reclamation center, they can be rebuilt or recycled! Manufacturers may be able to capture more of these cartridge's and decrease the amount going to landfills.

Remember the first two statements? 70% of Xerox revenue if from supplies and service, Ricoh states that three quarters of sales will be printers.

Scanned documents migrate to lower end printers with a high cost per page. Whats the answer, Print Management software can re-direct print jobs to more efficient printers that have a lower TCO, and paper will never go away!





-=Good Selling=-

New Lease or Re-Lease Tis the Question

I've spoken to many p4p members in the last two weeks and have also placed a few calls to leasing reps that I know. Pretty much the general agreement is "business is stagnate".

What's alarming is lease upgrades, where most clients could be upgraded 12-18 months prior to the end of the lease we are now seeing these clients going deeper into the end of the lease, waiting until the last few payments and even customers that are in renewal are waiting too long to notify the leasing company of their intent. Can't say I blame em, seems everyone is just trying to wait it out for a recovery.

Which brings me to the question of re-leasing the equipment that the customer already has. There are some opportunities out here. Consider this, a client leased a system for 36 months for $10,000. The system is in good shape, the leasing company wants $2,500 to buy the equipment. At this time the customer can't cut a check to own the system or just wants lower payments and they would like to keep their present system.

Here's where you can step in and re-lease them the same equipment for a shorter term and save them money on the existing lease payments. First and foremost get the buyout figure from the leasing company, add your sales cost to the base of the machine and then present (in the case above) a 24 month lease with a $1.00 purchase option. Where the client had lease payments of $289.00 per month you can now re-lease the equipment for $243.00 per month ($1.00 purchase option). No machines to order, no out of stock situations, the existing system works fine and has all of the features you need. You could even extend the term to 36 months and save them more on the monthly payments. Also, keep in mind that the recent economic stimulus package allows the customer to write off the entire lease amount ($1.00 purchase option) that year!

Since almost every leasing company has a "roll over" clause, the key is to get in as early as you can. If anything this is just another avenue to venture down when considering a customers options if they do not want to explore a new piece of equipment or need to lower payments.

Would appreciate any comments on this.

-=Good Selling=-