Weekend Copier & MFP Updates for 1/29/2012

Superbowl week is upon us GO GIANTS!!
For those who delve deep into the forums, there is so much awesome content from the p4p members.Please make sure you read all of the new links and then pick and choose what interests you! For those readers that are not members please use this one time lifetime FREE registration link!

Print4Pay Hotel's Production Print Certification Testing!  That's right now posted on P4P U Certifications & Testing are the first five tests in a total of ten tests. There will be a new test posted each month for the next five months!

Please take advantage of the sales documents, quotes, proposals, rfp's, rfq's, uploads, leads, p4p library, downloads and all of the additional forum features that are enabled with a Premium Membership!

Recent Blogs of NoteRicoh A4 MFP vs Canon A4 MFP "Who Wins with Scanning"?
Selling Copiers & MFP's "First Contact"
Selling Copiers & MFP's "The Tax Man Cometh"
Selling Copiers & MFP's "Where's the Hard Drives?"
I Want My....I Want My..... SMART MFP

Interesting & Most Viewed P4P Forum ThreadsITEX 2012 OFFERS COMPREHENSIVE DEALER EDUCATION INCLUDING
Winning Proposal Generator for MPF's or MPS
Ricoh SP 5200 Series A4imageRUNNER 1700 Series
New Units from Ricoh 1st quarter 2012
Keyboard for Ricoh MFP's
End of 2011 Sales Quota Poll
Global Imaging Systems Names...
Lexmark and Anheuser-Busch ink MPS deal

NEW! Uploaded MFP Docs in P4P Document Library5 Tips 4 Using the Web4Prospecting the “First Contact
Reduce_Costs_through_Printer_Consolidation
Multifunction-Printer-
Ricoh Staple cost analysis
Ricoh Black Laser Cost Per Page Yield Analysis

Press ReleasesKyocera Mita America Multifunctional Products and Printers Named ...
Océ Outlines Five Key Attributes to Consider When Purchasing a Wide Format ScannerXerox Reports 14% increase in EPS on Flat Revenue
Ricoh is one of the world’s most sustainable companies for the eighth year
Konica Minolta to Exhibit Award-Winning Solutions and IT Services at LegalTech

P4P Poll QuestionsNew Color Cost Per Page Poll for 60 ppm plus
New Color Cost Per Page Poll for 30-44 ppm COLOR
New Color Cost Per Page Poll for 45 - 59 ppm COLOR

New Leads, RFP's & RFQ's Uploaded!Need a Lease of 62 Copiers in......
Copiers Need for Fort ______ School District
Health Support Services Needs Color COpier
200K copier Bid in Meid West USA
3-Year Copier Lease

Uploaded Pricing Proposals & QuotesKyocera 3500 Quote
"Pricing on the Street" Canon 3245i
"Pricing on the Street" KonicaMinolta bizhub423
"Pricing on the Street" Xerox WorkCentre 5150PTQ.pdf
Ricoh Production Print Cost Per Page "Consumables" Analysis

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh A4 MFP vs Canon A4 MFP "Who Wins with Scanning"?

In recent days I had the chance to get additional information about the Ricoh SP5200 A4 MFP and the Canon 1750if A4 MFP.  My last blog titled Ricoh A4 MFP or Canon A4 MFP "That is the Question" mentioned some of the plus and minuses for each system.  So, let's consider this as a follow up for the additional information I've been able to find out.

Scan Speed
Ricoh touts a scan speed of the SP5200 series over 30ipm at 200dpi, while the Canon 1750IF has a scan speed of 52ipm at 300dpi.  When it comes to scan speed we'll give the advantage to the Canon 1750IF since the Ricoh SP5200 will slow down even further when scanning at 300dpi.

Document Feeder
The Canon 1750if will hold up to 100 originals compared to 50 originals for the Ricoh SP5200 series. However, Ricoh does have a "batch mode" this is used when the user has more than 50 originals.  Thus you could scan 100 pages but would have to baby sit the scanner.  At this time I'm not sure if the Canon has a "batch mode" for scanning.   Advantage to Canon 1750IF again.

Searchable PDF
It's standard on the Canon 1750IF and searchable .pdf is not even an option on the Ricoh SP5200, you'll need to buy a third party solution. Canon  1750IF Advantage.

Scanning of Mixed Size Originals
Let me start with the Ricoh SP5200 series first, you can't load mixed letter and legal documents in the scanner and expect to have letter and legal size .pdf's when they are scanned.  We tried this at the office and they all scanned as letter documents when we opened them up with Adobe Reader. You would either have to copy all letter size and then make a setting change on the MFP to scan legal size.

Personally I see the market for these types of the devices the Canon 1750if and the Ricoh S5200 series for legal, title, mortgage, health and municipalities.  Why even bring a device to market that can't Scan mixed sized originals.  Seems Ricoh choose to use an inexpensive document feeder that is not capable of reading documents larger than letter size. Could this be directly related to the Ikon aquisition, meaning that Ricoh is not enabling R & D like they did before the Ikon aquisition?

On the other hand, I put this out there for a few Print4Pay Hotel members to see if the Canon 1750IF is capable of scanning mixed size originals and I'm waiting to hear back from them (we get all of our information from guys and gals on the street who are selling these devices).  However from viewing the brochure of the Canon 1750IF it seems that there is a sensor on the rear end of the document feeder tray.  Thus, the Canon 1750IF should be able to scan mixed size originals.   Major Advantage Canon! UPDATE!! I've heard back from two Print4Pay Hotel members and both stated that the Canon 1750if will scan mized sized orginals.

Scanner ease of Use
This is going to be a tough one, however I'm a big fan of "the bigger the better" and the Ricoh SP5200 series does have an impressive LARGE COLOR LCD user interface.  The Canon 1750IF has a monotone black/gray display and the LCD is half the size of the Ricoh SP5200 series.  Take if from me the large color user interface on the Ricoh is a pleasure to use.  Advantage to Ricoh.

Scanning is a large part of every day use of these types of devices.  Typically if I scan more than 50 pages every time I walk to the device, then I'd rather have a machine that can drop the documents in and then walk away.  Same with speed, under 2 minutes to scan 100 pages or over three minutes on the Ricoh device.  But there will be users that don't ever scan 50 pages at a time?  Thus the 100 page document feeder may not play a critical role in the assessment of the device.  The same can be stated for mixed size documents, there may be some companies that just scan letter and have no need to mix letter and legal.  And then how about searchable .pdf?  Yup, it's a nice feature, and yup I would like to have it, but what about the everyday user that just wants to save the image and will never ever do a search when they open the document.

When it comes to speeds and feeds the Canon 1750IF looks like a clear winner, IF the user has a need for all of those features. IF not, then both systems are a lot alike.  We'll need to sit down and see what's best for the user, what makes the best sense, will it be ease of use of features that are never used. You can then look at cost per page, and total TCO.

I had fun with this and I hope you enjoyed it also.

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers & MFP's "First Contact"

A Star Trek flick from 1996 had the crew of the Enterprsie travel back in time to undermine the Borg attempt to stop Earthlings from making "First Contact" with the Vulcans. 

The last few days I've been busy on the phone prospecting for new accounts, new opportunities, new upgrades and what else... more the "first contact" and more sales.  It seems every year it gets some what tougher to get a hold of Mr. or Mrs. Right, for those of us that consider ourselves Professional Prospectors we get used to these types of responses when we know the name of Mr. or Mrs Right:


"Sorry so and so just left for lunch"
"He just stepped out"
"So and so is on the phone right now"
"He or she is busy"
"We're not interested"
"So and so just stepped into a meeting"

So what are we to do, well as one Print4Pay Hotel member stated many years ago we need to be "smarter than the average bear". We've all heard these before but here's a few for a refresher:

• Vary the time that you call on that account
• Call early in the AM
• Call late in the afternoon
• Call on a Saturday
• Call on another employee in the company and ask to be transfered to the DM

It used to be that on-site Cold Calling used to work well, however at least here in the NY metro area it's hard to gain access to building since 9/11.  Doors are locked, security cameras are in place and sales people are left to other means to find out who the DM is.  By the way, why is it that when you make the call and ask who the DM is, it's seems like you're sentencing that person to ten or twenty lashes??

One such person got so nasty with me when I was being very polite and I asked for the name of the person that makes that decision (true story). I told that I had hoped that a camel would walk through her bed at night. It just came out....I should have been more professional, yup... however sometimes you get so fed up, hey we're just trying to do our job also.

The web is a wonderful place and I've found creative ways to seek out those first contacts when the gatekeeper does not want to give me any information.  So here's a list of resources I use for the web, if you'd like to know how I use each one to my advantage then send me an email, join the p4photel (it's free) and I'll send you in detail how I use each one. art@p4photel.com

Manta
Linkedin
Contact Us
Box Approach
Google


-=Good Selling=-

Daily Managed Print Service Industry Notes from Around the World!

Newport City Council (NCC) has cut its print-related costs by more than 25 per cent, resulting in nearly £90000 savings, by applying the same Managed Print Service (MPS) tools and techniques Xerox uses to save millions for large enterprises.

NCC is undergoing a major IT transformation initiative focused on improving technology infrastructure across its 50+ sites to increase business efficiency and support flexible working practices. Xerox’s managed print service is helping the council realise this vision and has also helped significantly reduce the IT support resources required and lower direct printing costs. you can read more here

Level Platforms, one of the pioneers of managed services in the channel, is expanding beyond its remote monitoring and management software products to include managed services delivered to and on behalf of its MSP partners.

As part of its upcoming multi-city road show and the release of its Managed Workplace 2012, Level Platforms is unveiling comprehensive network operations center and help desk services. The new offerings will provide Level Platforms’ partners with an outlet for offloading many managed services tasks and provide a new level of support within the vendor ecosystem.

Level Platforms has been developing its NOC and help desk services for more than a year, opting to build from the ground up internally rather than cobbling together off-the-shelf software and outsourcing management to a third-party provider. CEO Peter Sandiford calls the new services a natural evolutionary step in the development of Level Platforms’ product and service offerings. you can read more here

Jan 24, 2012 IRVINE, Calif. – Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc. (http://business.toshiba.com), announces the debut of the world’s first Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) equipped with proprietary wipe technology for multifunction printers (MFPs). This new Toshiba technology allows users to determine a range of security settings, including the invalidation of encryption keys and data invalidation when a drive is removed from its housing or connected to an unauthorized host system.

“As the needs of our customers constantly evolve, Toshiba is committed to remaining at the forefront of product innovation,” said Joseph Contreras, director, Product and Solutions Marketing, Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc. “Toshiba’s new SED security technology improves data security and reduces the risk of sensitive information stored on copiers and printers leaving your company. When the SED is removed or stolen from the MFP and installed into another device, the data is invalidated automatically. If the SED is returned to the MFP without being installed into another device, data will not be invalidated and is accessible.” you can read more here

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers & MFP's "The Tax Man Cometh"

I really, really hate this time of year, usually after the first of the year we'll start seeing the commercials for H&R Block, Hewitt, and Turbo Tax. This year started early, a week before Christmas I started seeing the tax adds! OMG, please no more reminders!!

Over the years there's some years were I win (get cash back) and some years where I lose (gotta pay up). Since the Great Recession, well, let's say it's been interesting to say the least.

For those of us that get spiffs from manufacturers these all come with a price tag, and it's hefty if you haven't planned for the tax man.  We forget about $150 here and $300 there and $50 here, and by the time you look at the statement, you're getting 1099'd for over $10,000!!!

There was one year in particular where I won a trip to Japan (on ricoh) and a super duper TV, surround sound, VCR, DVD, you name it and I got it (on ricoh), turns out I for 1099'd for all that stuff plus my spiff points, arrggh, I ended up owing a  mid 4's to the feds.

So, over the years, I created a list a must do's when it comes to paying my fair share of taxes.  I'm not going to post them here in an open blog, however log on the Print4Pay forums and see my ten points that can help you reduce your exposure....

So feel free to add to this discussion, but here's a few things that I do to maximize my take home pay (especially when it's commission time)and minimize my taxes. Go here to fill in the blanks.

First and Foremost:

I keep .....................

I keep an accurate.............

Instead of going to the office first thing in the AM,..................

Samething with on..............

I'll buy..........

I run...........

I join......

I have a.............

When I go to...........

Plus, I pay..................

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers & MFP's "Where's the Hard Drives?"

Almost 30 years ago, Clara Peller screamed "Where's the Beef?" to American and Canadian TV viewers.  "Where's the Beef?" was a popular slogan in the Eighties to lure hamburger eaters from the likes of McDonald's and Burger King over to Wendy's.

In recent weeks, Copier Dealers have been asking "Where's the Hard Drives?".  Severe flooding in Thailand has affected shipments of MFP's to the US.  The flooding from October 23rd left many hard drive factories under water. 

Pictures that were posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums showed massive flooding in several industrial parks.  Just about three weeks after the flooding almost 1,000 Hitachi HDD workers went on strike and further disrupting the supply chain. 

Later in the month of December came the announcements from many Copier and Printer Manufacturers that there would be disruptions to the supply chain.  There were some reports of disruptions that may last 3 - 6 months. In a recent post on the Print4Pay forums a Hitachi VP claimed that it will take almost a year for the Global Hard Drive industry to recover from the impact of the flooding.

"Where's the Hard Drives?",  seems that 4 hard drive manufacturers have 90% of the market, Western Digital, Seagate, Hitatchi and Toshiba. Almost thirty three percent of all hard drives are manufactured in Thailand.  Read more here

When I first heard about the floods in Thailand, I really didn't think there would be that much of an issue with MFP's in the US.  Goes to show you how much I know.  In recent weeks, I've been alerted to the back order of MFP's due to the flooding.  Again, I thought no big deal a few extra days here and there and it won't be a big thing.   The lasted is that we have four or five MFP models that are projected with 3-6 month back orders, one particular model had a June back order.  Dam, I had just sold 5 of these to one of my accounts!  "Where's the Hard Drives?" Now, I'm hearing from other reps from other manufacturers that they're now seeing additional MFP's  models placed on longer than usual back orders.

Even though Thailand manufacturers almost one third of the worlds hard drives it might be a good bet that they supplied at least or more than 50% of the hard drives to Copier manufacturers (this is just a guess) and that's the reason for the shortages.  Least we forget about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year and it seems we've had a perfect storm to really wreak havoc with the Copier Industry.

What good is a digital copier without a hard drive, it's like having a hamburger without the meat, it just doesn't work! Which leads me to this short story, many years ago, we had a local Jack in the Box (just like a Wendy's MickyD's or BurgerKing), however you had to drive up, place your order with a giantic clown head.  One night in particular, I placed my order, got my burgers and to my surprise all I got was the *&($#(* bun! 

-=Good Selling=-

Weekend Copier & MFP Updates for 1/15/2012

With the Giants game fast approaching I had to get this blog out early for everyone.  Some good stuff this week.

Stethos USA will be holding weekly webx on how to look for opportunities with their Enhanced Laser Printing Solution, I've got a couple in the works and it's a lot less than Planet Press, make sure you sign up for the webx, see if below on the links.

Another nice Blog form Vince McHugh titled "Who makes Xerox Copiers \ MFDs???", and then some awesome cost per page analysis that I did for assorted Ricoh hardware, you can check these out in the Print4Pay Library forums.

There's a cool link in the Premium Members section for a FREE Cost Per Page Analysis for Printers, and MFP's, we're adding more information as we go.

P4P Hotel's Production Print Certification Testing!  That's right now posted on P4P U Certifications & Testing are the first five tests in a total of ten tests. There will be a new test posted each month for the next five months!

Please take advantage of the sales documents, quotes, proposals, rfp's, rfq's, uploads, p4p library, downloads and all of the additional forum features that are enabled with a Premium Membership!

Please support our Advertisers by clicking their links and giving them a call! LCA Leasing Corp, Stethos USA, Jetmobile,  Polek & Polek, UDOCX, Print Audit, & Cybercon Dealer Services, sfSCAN

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Top Ten Copier & MFP Industry Predictions for 2012

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Ricoh Production Print Cost Per Page Analysis
Ricoh Wide Format Cost Per Page Analysis for Consumables

P4P Poll QuestionsNew Color Cost Per Page Poll for 60 ppm plus
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New Color Cost Per Page Poll for 45 - 59 ppm COLOR

New Leads, RFP's & RFQ's Uploaded!Large copier Bid in California
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State of North Carolina
200K Copier Bid in Illinois

-=Good Selling=-

Do You Trust the Cloud

Actually the thread that was posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums was "Can you Trust the Cloud"  which was derived from a Xerox white paper that was posted many months ago.   Below I'd like to post some snippets from the threads that we had posted.  This thread was one of the more popular threads on the forums and continues to be read and additional threads posted.

From SSG:  A good white paper from Xerox XGS.
xgs_whitepaper_cloud_computing.pdf

From SSG:  I am learning about scanning to the cloud from any MFP via email by opening a free account at www.box.net and....

From SSG:  A real interesting concept from Lexmark https://smartsolutions.lexmark.com/ssds/
You can basically upload dozens of free.....

From TXEAGLE:  If only they would offer this on their B2B laser MFP's.

From AP:  Most of my customers do not trust the cloud, those who do already have something working.

From Constanze:  You can even scan directly and securely to the cloud from your Ricoh MFP(to Microsoft Online, Office 365 BPOS, SharePoint). Just take a look at www.udocx.com or at our....

From CASHGAP:  This pretty much sums it up...http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-11-19/

Look forward, reason back. How many of us have big generators in the parking lot because we like to be in control of our own electrical uptime? Very.......

From JASONR: I totally agree, "not trusting" the cloud is an irrational fear.

From SSG:  I just watched a video from the investment website called Motley Fool. They are stating that Cloud Computing is the next big thing to invest in. http://www.fool.com/shop/newsl...rce=irbsitlnk0000141 and point out the big three .....

From ANON:  Buy an LG phone and get 50 GB of free Cloud storage on www.box.net .

http://storagenewsletter.com/n...l/lg-box-partnership

From SSG:  Is 2012 the begining of the end for File Servers as more companies move to Cloud Storage? http://storagenewsletter.com/n...-egnyte-file-servers "Forrester found that 41 percent of information workers surveyed were using.......

There's may additional replies to this thread.  According to the Xerox white paper the we're pretty much going to have to trust the cloud.  The white paper even spoke about intellegent documents that would update themselves with new content. 

Personally, I'd like to see more MFP's? Copiers have browser units in them that would allow us to use the MFP more open applications, meaning you would not have to use the "Ricoh, Xerox, Canon or KonicaMinolta" scan2cloud offerings.  You could use the solution that works best for your document workflow and one the fits your financial concerns. 

-=Good Selling=-

Copiers & MFP's "The Hidden Cost of Staples"

Have you recently bought a new multifunctional copier with a finisher/stapler?  If so, can you remember if the staples were included in the cost per page or not included in the cost per page. 

Very rarely have I ever seen staples included, and I never though much about the cost of staples and to tell you the truth neither did any of my customers.  I tell em staples are NOT included and they say OK!  No BIG deal right?  Heck what does a box of staples cost, I know it's cheap and you know it's cheap but how cheap are staples when you buy em at STAPLES.  A generic box of 25,000 staples will set you back a whopping $4.99.  Let's dig a little deeper, what is the actual cost per staple, well based on the yield and the cost, the price of each staple would be .0001996, let me see that's.......ah...ah well its not that much.  When we think staples we're thinking I could toss em in the garbage and it's no big loss.

Tonight was a lot like any other night and I needed to get some new information on the print4pay hotel forums for the members.  I make sure there is new information posted daily that is related to the industry. So, I decided to investigate the REAL cost of staples for copy machines.  To say the least I was amazed at the cost per staple when I did the math.

Let's take one of the BIG 4 Copier Manufacturers (Xerox, Ricoh, KonicaMinolta & Canon), and look at the cost of the more popular staple cartridges.  In this case this one particular staple cartridge will fit most of the models from 40 pages per minute to 90 pages per minute.  The cost for 5 cartridges which have a yield of 25,000 staples is $210.  So with 25,000 staples the cost per staple is a whopping .008426 per staple. Which is almost 500% higher than the cost of the staple that you buy at the Office Super Store.  That's a pretty step increase for a staple, but I'll say that most of the manufacturers present a fancy delivery system for the staple.  When using staples to make booklets the cost can be as high as almost two cents to staple the booklet.

I understand we're talking about pennies and fractions of pennies. But what about the high volume users who are stapling 10,000 booklets, did anyone tell them that cost of the staples alone would cost almost $173 per month. How about the church or school that staples 5,000 tests or bulletins or reports, was there a mention the staples would cost an additional $42 per month?   Heck, that's almost $500 a year in staples.

In addition the finisher/staplers don't come cheap. You can expect to pay anywhere from $1,000 to $6,000 per unit.  True story I was in a Municipality looking at some old equipment, in particular one copier had a finisher/stapler unit.  The cost of the finisher/stapler unit when they made the purchase was some $2,300.  Over the course of 5 years they only used the stapler 476 times (true most systems will give you a report of how often the stapler was used). In this case the it cost the Municipality  $4.83 cents to produce 476 stapled reports, and lets not forget the cost of the staple at .008. I recommended getting a new system without the stapler and keeping one nearby the system.

Something as mundane as staples, who woulda thought that the cost was so high, I guess it's the price we pay for ease of use and technology. Geessh, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel when I have to write about staples!

-=Good Selling=-

Weekend MFP & Copier Industry Updates

Just a few notes for everyone this week.

I wanted to put this out there for all members, if you're looking for a way to make any additional revenue for next year, please contact me.  I'm looking for a few good people to see if they would be interested in selling banner ads for the P4P Hotel.  It's a good way to pick up some extra cash and you may have some contacts that I don't have.  We can give a nice commission rate also and just think it would be a renewable income!

Take the time to set your goals for the new year, make a few that are short term and a couple of long term.  What I did last year was to super impose a picture of the number one rep in our office in a bullseye. Had it hanging up all year! I'll have all the numbers in a few days, point of the matter is that we all need to have something to drive us. For me after 32 years even I need to do this, and I'm making a point of setting my goals again for this year!

P4P Hotel's Production Print Certification Testing!  That's right now posted on P4P U Certifications & Testing are the first five tests in a total of ten tests. There will be a new test posted each month for the next five months!

Please take advantage of the sales documents, quotes, proposals, rfp's, rfq's, uploads, p4p library, downloads and all of the additional forum features that are enabled with a Premium Membership!
Please support our Advertisers by clicking their links and giving them a call! LCA Leasing Corp, Stethos USA, Jetmobile,  Polek & Polek, UDOCX, Print Audit, & Cybercon Dealer Services, sfSCAN

Recent Blogs of NoteWhy is single clicking an 11×17 on a “copier” legal?
Selling Copiers & MFP's "Add Value to You Web Site"
Selling Copiers & MFP's "3 Short Follow Up Stories"
Top Ten Copier & MFP Industry Predictions for 2012
Selling Copiers & MFPs "1 Awesome Way to Increase Profit through Knowledge"

Uploaded Pricing Proposals & QuotesX700XV Xerox
X700i Digital Color Press"Pricing on the Street"
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Xerox WorkCentre 5150PTQ.pdf

Interesting & Most Viewed P4P Forum ThreadsCompetitive Info Xerox Workcentre 7500 Series
End of 2011 Sales Quota Poll, End of Month, End of Quarter
Both HP and Lexmark increase prices Jan 01 2012
kyocera taskalfa 3050ci - What can you tell me about it?
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Ricoh MP2550B Shortage from Thai Floods
Got A Situation! What would ou do? (10 responses)

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NEW! Uploaded MFP Docs in P4P Document Library
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research-managed-print-service-for-government-agencies

P4P Poll QuestionsNew Color Cost Per Page Poll for 60 ppm plus
New Color Cost Per Page Poll for 30-44 ppm COLOR
New Color Cost Per Page Poll for 45 - 59 ppm COLOR

New Leads, RFP's & RFQ's Uploaded!Health Strm / Lease Color Copier
Printers/Projectors/Shredders/Plotters/Copiers
Countywide Multifunction Device Copiers/DUE DATE CHANGED TO 1/26/12/ADDENDUM
Lease of 389 copiers for.......
716 Copiers needed for.........

The Staff at the Print4Pay Hotel

Selling Copiers & MFP's "Add Value to You Web SIte"

More often your potential customers and current customers are using the web to do research long before you get a phone call.   They'll do much of the leg work on what they need or what they would like by searching google, reading blogs or going to web sites such as yours.  What's the problem with most web sites in the office equipment industry? There's no interaction for the for the potential new customer or the existing customer. Let's face it, your customer or potential customer will call you when they have questions that can't be answered by your web site, however if another site answers that question you may be losing opportunities.

Web sites need to have current information and something that they can interact with on a daily basis. There are some very nice office equipment web sites out there, and they incorporate a current blog, current press releases via feedzilla and there are those that have interactive polls along with widgets that can help a customer decide on what product would be best for them. Office equipment dealers that have web sites with these attributes will stand the best chance of having the customer call them and they are either ready to order or have some additional questions for the rep to answer.

I found a neat widget from the folks at Pahoda Imaging that will enhance your web site.  Best all of the widget is free.   You can get three different widgets that you can put on your blog and web site, these widgets will allow your customers to compare features and TCO for different manufacturers and models. 

1. Compare HP, Lexmark, and Xerox Printers
2.Compare HP, Lexmark, and Ricoh Printers
3.Compare HP, Lexmark, and Kyocera Printers

Keep in mind that these text link say printers however they also have MFP's in the links also.  What I like best is the ability have something that is quick, reliable and something that will help my customers understand that we are leaders in our market place and have the resources to educate them on the total cost of operation. I'm sure these widgets can be customized also, so you if you support Ricoh, Lexmark and Kyocera you'll be able to have a widget for that also (this may not be free).

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers & MFP's "3 Short Follow Up Stories"

1) Just a short story for everyone today. Back in December of last year I was asked to quote on a copier for a local company. Not a big unit or sale, but a 25ppm monochrome device.

The company new and credit was extremely hard to get approved, after six weeks of trying off and on, we finally got it done. I called the customer and they didn't have the time to wait and had negotiated with another company (sort of like a sub lease).

I had stayed in touch with them and called every four months as a follow up.  Just the right thing to do, even if you lose the sale right?

Almost two years had passed and I got a call from the same company that they had kicked out the old vendor and needed another system.  Just goes to show you that you need to persevere and still make the calls because anything can happen.

Numbers two and three are posted in the Print4Pay Hotel forums, take a trip here P4P Hotel, get registered (it's free) to read the rest and collaborate with your peers.

The 3 D's represent Desire, Dedication and Determination. Desire to succeed, Dedication to your profession by being a professional sales person and not someone who slings mud at either the competition or the other sales people, Determination to be the best at your craft and to always have the zeal to learn as much as possible!!

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh Innovates with Scan2iPhone & Scan2iPod App

I've had an iPod touch for awhile, but never had the chance to play around with it. Over the last week or so, I've been having some fun with all of the different apps and games. I'll have to admit I love some of the games but hate the fact that they give you the opportunity to pay for additional features. Whatever, the game cost .99 cents and I think I dumped $20 bucks or so on upgrades, kinda wish I had that opportunity with PACMAN when I use to sit at the bar for hours dumping quarters into the machine.

Anyway, I downloaded the app for Ricoh Innovations for scanning documents on my iPod touch and this will also work with the iphone, not sure about the new droid phones.

So, under some not so good light at my desk I used the app to scan some pages. It's easy!!! You open the Ricoh app, take the picture and you'll then have the opportunity to deskew the document, clean the document or keep as is. When you're done you can them export to all these Google docs, email, Evernote, Dropbox, or export to your picture gallery. When exporting to everything but your picture gallery you send as a .pdf or .jpeg.

Within a minute or less I had the document in my Google docs and then sent to my email account. One of the nice features that I noticed is that once the document is sent it's not deleted, this enables you to send the document to another if needed. It kinda almost felt James Bondish, being able to take a picture of the document and have it captured and secured with one of my accounts.

The image quality is good. Keep in mind that you can tap the screen of the iPod or iPhone and you'll be able to focus and then see the AE lock on the screen.  I did not have the chance to export as a jpeg to see that quality. Keep in mind it's more for documents, sketches and stuff like that. Once I opened the doc, of course it was readable, but the quality kinda reminded me of a poor quality fax (but, I then realized that the document I captured was printed via inkjet printer and it was taken from an image from the web, thus 72dpi). I printed the document to my printer and it printed exactly what I scanned.

I'm thinking a better quality document will produce much better results and I really didn't have the time to run out to the car to get some good originals nor did I want to print from the inkjet. When I'm back in the office I'll give this a shot with some clean documents.

So, I'm thinking this is an awesome app, especially for those of us in the field. Instead of using scan2email or faxing the documents to the office. I can take a picture of them and email them or upload to my Google docs (this way I always have a copy of the documents).

It's the sizzle that sells the steak right? I'll going to incorporate this app into my presentations, and I was just thinking a neat demonstration would be to have email2print setup at the office and then just email the scanned page to the MFP's email address. That would be the sizzle!

Dam, I couldn't wait till I got to the office so I went to the car and pulled a clean original and processed through the Ricoh app. You know it did a very good job, not A1 perfect, but good enough for FREE and good enough to read and process documents!!!

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers & MFPs "1 Awesome Way to Increase Profit through Knowledge"

What happens when you have no one to turn to about a specific solution on a piece of hardware? You know what I'm talking about, there always seems to a question or two that you know the exact spec or the workflow involved.

I'll give you a scenario, you were at the customers office and had a great meeting, however some additional questions came out of left field about an "xyz" solution.  You could tell the client was hot on this and if your system had the capability you would have a better chance to demo the solution, propose the solution and close the sale. To add fuel the fire the client wants the answer asap since they are making the decision within the next 24-48 hours.  Typically you'll call your manager, or someone within your organization first, and it's not uncommon that they won't be available (seems to happen all to often) or do not have the answer.  You'll then try the manufacturers dealer or direct channel rep, most times it can be a hot and miss here also especially with the recent reductions in staffing. Plus what happens when you need the answer the next day coming off a late afternoon appointment?

My golden rule is the more knowledge you have the better you chance to close additional sales and increase profit from your knowledge with hardware and solutions.

Let's face it, there are not that many guru's (docusultants) in the copier and MFP business.  These are the guys and gals that eat, sleep and breath the industry.  You could also refer to them as the "geeks" of imaging.

Back in 2003 I created a loose knit group of copier people within MSN communities,  probably eight or nine of us to start, and we grew and grew.  Today sees the Print4Pay Hotel forums as the only forum of it's kind that allows copier & mfp people to share information, discuss hardware, software solutions, comp plans, new products, price quotes, leads, new trends, new solutions along with daily threads on new products in a secure closed forum. There's a  "core" of copier and MFP guru's that help each other, with no strings attached.  There's also a handful of solution manufacturers that monitor the site and provide support through the forums.  The best part about the forums is that they are FREE. The Print4Pay Hotel has over 3,000 followers in the industry.

So, the one awesome tip is to click this link Register for the Print4Pay Hotel forums and get timely information on products and solutions that will help you add value, add profit and close sales.  Here's another link for our testimonial page. Enjoy and have an awesome New Year!

-=gOOD sELLING=-