Thursday, June 2, 2011

Selling Copiers and MFP Solutions

Times could not be better for reps that are in tune with technology solutions.  "How can you improve my work flow or efficiencies? is NOT a question we hear from our clients in the field.  Most Copier/MFP reps are selling boxes, selling price and are on gross revenue plans. 

There are many opportunities with third party providers to improve your customers work flow with paper and make then more efficient.  Over the years I've found that if I can offer a solution that enables a company to increase their efficiencies then most likely I'm going to be at the top of the pack when a decision is going to be made.  In most cases I'm the only one with this type of offering and that pretty much secures the order.  Selling a copier is not about speeds and feeds but more about how was document created, who created it, what happens with the document after it's been created, who else handles this documents are just a few of the probing questions.

Solutions that I like to focus on are ones that will have an immediate impact on ROI (return on investment).  I like Fenestrae UDOCX Cloud solution because if I find a user that is using MS share point we can give them a cloud based serverless solution for scanning. Now, not everyone is using sharepoint however UDOCX also has a cloud fax solution.  This is big.....no fax modem is needed in the MFP, plus you can have multiple cloud fax numbers.  This gives me the opportunity to know out the competition and also allows me to offer multiple cloud fax numbers at a low cost.

Another is Stethos,  I recently came across this solution that will enable customers to print their own forms on NCR paper. Basically the software will manipulate the print stream and allow for the printer to pull un collated NCR paper from each paper draw and then staple!  This is big too.....a basic two part pre printed form can cost as much as 25 cents each, do the math it's a home run and you can offer an immediate ROI to the customer.

Speaking about solutions brings me to Ricoh's new equill tablet, not to be confused with all of the other tablets on the market today. Ricoh's equill is designed to improve work flow and is basically replacing paper on the tablet.  Great for sales orders, insurance docs, medical forms, service tickets and much more.  This should be an awesome talk topic when in any account!

It's late I'm done, hope this helps!!

-=Good Selling=-

2 comments:

Stoney Tuckness said...

I could not agree with you more. Solutions provide and instant differentiator as well as create a "sticky" client. Much harder to remove you from the account if you are providing business critical process improvements.

Security and pull printing solutions are quick ROI solutions. It is estimated a customer can save between 10-30% on printing by implementing pull printing through the reduction of orphan print jobs and unintentional duplicate print jobs. The cost savings does not include the compliance risk reduction. With a pull printing solution in place, your client can be assured the document is being collected by the user printing the document. Immediate HIPAA compliance as well as other industry regulation compliance.

Add a job accounting solution to track usage and your customer can see up to another 30% reduction in print. When the user base knows the company is tracking what is printed, users will be less likely to print personal material at work. This insure the utilization of the printer is focused on revenue or business critical documents.

In addition to simple big brother is watching a client gains knowledge of the print environment. Is the duplexer is actually being used? How many copies are being made on MFP X? Did anyone print a confidential document? Having answers to these questions is the only way to improve your client's print environment and become that trusted advisor we all want to be.

A solution in this space is SecureJet from Jetmobile www.jetmobile.com.

Unknown said...

Thanx for the tip, I've had inquires about the features that you offer and had no place to turn.

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