Network Setup of Print & Scan Drivers "Who Pays" ?

From time to time we'll post some polls on the Print4Pay Hotel forums.  One poll from last year asked "Who pays for Network Setup of Print & Scan Drivers?

Here's how our Print4Pay Hotel members responded:

21% My company includes it @ no extra charge.

25% My company charges me back per device.

7% My company charges me back and has a flat rate for multiple units.

7% The customer pays for all print and scan drivers to be loaded.

39% I setup the print and scan drivers and do not charge the customer.

Why is it that sales people are wasting time setting up print and scan drivers? Is it because the dealership does not have the resources to accomplish this? Or, could it be that the dealership charges their sales people too much to have an SE on site. I think our time is much better spent selling than loading print and scan drivers. It should also be included in a sales persons base price.

-=Good Selling=-

"Do you think Sharp will sell the MFP division"?

Back in early November I posted a poll on the Print4Pay Hotel forums. We asked "Do you think Sharp will sell the MFP division"?  The response was a simple yes or no.

If you're a new reader, please let me give you a little background about the Print4Pay Hotel. The short and sweet of the Print4Pay Hotel is that we started a web forums for imaging industry people back in 2003.  To date we have close to 2,000 registered members, we also cull the membership to keep our email list up to date (since many in our industry come and go).  It's my belief and I've heard this from many others, that the Print4Pay Hotel members is a conglomerate of the best of breed sales people, managers and dealers owners from around the globe.

If you've not been hiding under a rock for the last six months then you know that Sharp, Japan has been overburdened with debt. This debt was accumulated from large losses, the mortgaging of almost all of their properties and recent titanic bank loans from Japanese banks.  Lately, Sharp is in somewhat of a small rebound due to the recent yen declining against the US dollar, a small investment from Qualcom (small compared to the debt that Sharp owes) and the recent statement that Sharp expects to turn a profit  for the last fiscal quarter of this year (ends March 31st).

Some recent threads that were posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums were this:

Canon & Oce "Was this a good deal or a not so good deal?"

Back in January of last year (2011) I posted a poll on the blog titled Canon & Oce "Was this a good deal or a not so good deal?" It's been  a little over a year and I thought it's time to close the poll and start a new one.

Since I'm not that well connected with Canon and Oce I can only report on what is posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums and what people have emailed me.  I've read threads on the forums that suggest OCE is practicing the art of "dumping" MFP systems (not production print systems) at ridiculous prices here in the US. In some cases Canon dealers with the same box have not been able to match pricing or won't match pricing (I can't blame them for that).  Oce unlike Ikon has it's own product line of Production Print systems, I was able to see one of these systems in action a few weeks ago at an in plant facility. The system was astounding, using large rolls of paper and processing speeds of 800 - 1,425 images per minute.  I guess when you use roll paper you don't process speed by pages but by images.

I think the acquisition for Canon was a great move, especially with recent Kodak bankruptcy filing. Plus the fact that Canon now has access to arguably the best wide format technology in the world.  However, how long can they keep operating two separate units?  I think in the near future we'll see the move in the US to migrate them into one unit, just my thoughts here and nothing I've heard or read.

Back to the poll.  We had a tremendous amount of votes, as of today there were 475.  Here's how our readers responded to Canon & Oce "Was this a good deal or a not so good deal?"

Good Deal		183	39%
Bad Deal		208	44%
Not Sure		84	18%
475 votes total

-=Good Selling=-

Please fell free to chime in and leave a comment!

Selling Copiers & MFP's "P4P Hotel Members Are Quota Busters"

In a year when the economy stunk, credit was denied more than it was approved.  Add the fact that a Tsunami, Earthquake, Nuclear catastrophe (all in Japan), horrific floods in Thailand that affected MFP supply lines. 

Print4Pay Hotel Members (we sell multifunctional copiers, and solutions) were at the top of their game and blew out their quotas!

I for one can attest that 2011 was tough, mentally tough as well.  I left more than 150K on the table that could not get credit approved. 

2011 saw almost 64% of those polled rolled in with 100% of quota or better!  What was more astounding is that 32% posted 150% or better and 5% broke the bank with 300% of quota for 2012!  But, you know what that's what I would have expected from this group.  Over the years I've found that Print4Pay Hotel Members are a breed apart from the rest.  They have the Desire, Determination and Dedication to be the best, and they are the BEST MFP & SOLUTION Reps in the World. 

Take a gander at some of these numbers.  For the month of December 57% were over 100% of quota, and 26% were 150% or better. A whopping 52% were among the top two reps at their company!

For those of you that are not familiar with the Print4Pay Hotel, the Print4Pay Hotel is a forum based web site that allows members from all over the world to collaborate with others in a secure forum.  In order to be a member you'll need to get registered (no cost) and within minutes  you'll see thousands of threads related to our beloved copier industry.  We cover all topics and leave no stones unturned when it comes to sales, solutions, share files, share prices, share quotes, stories, what works and what doesn't work.  You could be a poster or a lurker (just read), you could be in sales, marketing, direct sales, dealer sales manager, direct sales manager, product manager, dealer owner, COO or CFO.

Here's some other numbers from Print4Pay Hotel members.  These are 4th quarter results for 2011.

	(5%) 300% plus
	(16%) 200-299%
	(5%) 150-199%
	(10%) 125-149%
	(26%) 100 -124%
	(16%) 75-79%
	(21%) 50-74% As you can there's some pretty awesome numbers. You can become a member here Print4Pay Hotel registration BTW, Who said Copiers were dead? Or the death of WHAT? Some forget that it WAS copier reps that first started the Managed Page thingy many many moons ago. Heck, I started replacing laser printers and faxes with MFP's, when Managed Print Services was just a pimple on someones butt!  -=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

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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
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Lease of 389 copiers for.......
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The Staff at the Print4Pay Hotel

Copier & MFP Color Cost Per Page Poll

Over the years the Print4Pay Hotel has conducted many "secure" polls that are only available to registered members on our forums.

Just yesterday we started our Second Annual Color Cost per page poll.  Within the forums we allow our members to click the Color Cost Per Page that they are charging end users. The poll is anonymous so no one knows who clicked what cost per page and what monthly volume.  After two days we've already posted 156 page views.

It's essential that we as sales people, Dealer Owners, and the Direct Channel can get a view of what is being charged for the Color Cost Per Page.  Here you can see the average cost per page, the low cost per page and the high cost per page, plus you can match them with monthly and quarterly volumes.

In recent days 67% of our members stated that the Color Cost Per Page on a 50 page per minute color MFP doing 5,000 pages per month is below .........yup gonna have to be a member to get that information.  Membership is FREE, you just gotta put up with a weekly email of updates on the latest industry threads from our members.  Keep in mind that our forums are secure, no end users, no bs registrations. So if you can take a trip here, become a member of the worlds largest group of copier, print and mfp professionals in the work.

Here's a sample of one of our Second Annual "Color Cost Per Page Polls"

Question:
Please check your average color cost per page for 10,000 plus pages per month.

Choices:
.08
.075-.079
.070-.074
.065-.069
.060-.064
.055-.059
.050-.054
.045-.049
.040-.044
.035-.039
under .034

Question:
Please check your average color cost per page for 7,000-10,000 pages per month.

Choices:
.08
.075-.079
.070-.074
.065-.069
.060-.064
.055-.059
.050-.054
.045-.049
.040-.044
.035-.039
under .034

Question:
Please check your average color cost per page for 4,000 - 7,000 plus pages per month.

Choices:
.08
.075-.079
.070-.074
.065-.069
.060-.064
.055-.059
.050-.054
.045-.049
.040-.044
.035-.039
under .034

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Scan2Cloud Poll from the Print4Pay Hotel

I'm watching the Giants lay waste to the RAMS, hopefully it stays that way!  In the mean time, a few months ago we posted a poll on the Print4Pay Hotel forums titled "Scan2Cloud Poll".

 We asked "Please vote on your estimation of what cloud-based solution integration would best help you in the field to capture additional business?

With many manufacturers having or ready to release scan2cloud services, we figured we'd ask the guys and the gals in the field what they would like to have.  I always like to see these polls turnout because I feel that the salespeople on the street have a better grip on what their customers want and not some wishy washy product manager trying to come to grips of what customers want.  Tell me when was the last time a product manager was in the field trying to sell a solution to an end user?  NEVER!

"Please vote on your estimation of what cloud-based solution integration would best help you in the field to capture additional business?


Scan2Microsoft SharePoint/Microsoft exchange server/Mircosoft 365/OCR & searchable pdf/Scan2Print (unlimited users)  50%

Scan2Fax Documents/multi cloud fax numbers (unlimited users) no mfp fax modem require 17%

Scan2Cloud/Documents stored offsite 33%

Scan2Evernote/Scan2box.net/Scan2google docs/Scan2email w/ OCR 4 Word & Excel/Scan2print (2 users) 0%

Scan2Evernote/Scan2email w/OCR & searchable .pdf 0%

There you have it, what I can tell you is that the first two poll questions are features that come with the UDOCX solution, 67% of our members felt that this was the best choice for them.

The third solution is a basic scan2cloud that is now being offered by a few different companies and last but not least are the last three.  But, key in a 4 & 5, this is a cloud solution soon to be released by one of the Big 4 (Xerox, Ricoh, KonicaMinolta and Canon) and not one member voted for that solution.  I can tell you upfront that the product being offered with those features will BOMB.

So you wanna know who?  Well, I ask you to log on to the Print4Pay Hotel forums and we'll show you which on eof the Big 4 it is.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP & Copier Weekend Industry Updates" P4P Hotel forums

After a week in which I experienced my first Hurricane and Earthquake it's back to normal in the wonderful garden state of New Jersey!

Is it just me or did we feel a drop in business since the Great Debt Debacle?  Please let me know if this is happening in other parts of the country!

Below are some of the threads that were posted for discussion on the Print4Pay Hotel forums. Enjoy!

Announcements & Discussions Forums:
Cloud Poll
Fenestrae's UDOCX Proud Sponsor at the European SharePoint Conference in Berlin
HDD Wiping/Reformatting
Is giving away free stuff to the DM (built into your cost) ethical?
Toner Save Software to Get MPS CPCs Down

P4P Hotel's "Pricing on the Street":
Ikon Ricoh 7501c "Pricing on the Street"
sharp quote for MXM623NP2
Canon iR3245's w/ iR3380
New askalpha 520i
IKON Quote PRO907EX

P4P Hotel's Document Library:
Print Production Glossary
July MFP Journal
Ricoh Wide Format Color Scanner Sell Document
Sizzle off the Press - Xerox ColorQube 9300 series
MFPs M4555 & CM4540 MFP HP's Latest

RFp's, RFQ's & Leads:
Digital Production Copier/Scanner/Printer Cost Per Copy Service
Maintenance Support Agreement ~ Xerox B/W Copiers
Canon Color Copiers
Major RFI for over 565 plus units in NE USA

2011 Digital Production Copier RFP.

Copier Stuff We Found on the Web:

Leasing a Ricoh copier for about $123.50 per

Suspected counterfeit artist arrested with fake $100s

BBT Group, a supplier of office copier and print products

Dumb Ass "Still trying to make money with Copier"

School District of Jefferson Board of Education first heard from representatives of I

P4P Polls

Solution Sales Poll

New August Sales Quota Poll
The Ricoh Throne Poll

Comp Plan Poll

Pietrunti Gig Poll

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=-

New Copier and MFP Selling Polls!

Over on the Print4Pay Hotel forums, the only forums in the world dedicated for people in the copier industry professionals to collaborate with each other. We've posted a few new polls.

The latest is the Solutions Sales Poll, basically we're asking what percentage of your copier/MFP sales also include an OEM Solution or a Third Party solution such as and not limited to ECopy, UDOCX, Nuance, NSI, Jet Mobile, PrintAudit, Print Director, Planet Press, Document Management, etc.. Along with that we've also asked if you include the Professional Services or add them as chargeable.

Our second Poll is the August Sales Quota Poll (take this poll now), to me this is more about how I can judge my efforts with all of the sale people in the business, not just looking at what I did in my company but more about how we performed as a group and with our peers!  July's Sales Quota Poll was pretty impressive for mist Print4Pay Hotel members.

The third poll is our Comp Plan Poll, pretty much just voting on what type of comp plan you are on. Whether it's a hybrid, gross profit or gross revenue. Click the link for the Copier and MFP Comp Plan Poll.

Last but not least is our Copier/MFP take down poll, here your selecting what manufacturers devices you've knocked out.  I find this one of the most interesting polls because you can really get a good feel for the population of boxes in commercial accounts.

That's it for the latest polls, but what's really cool is that there are ove 200 polls posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums!

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Copier Take Down Poll!

About a month ago I was trying to come up with a new poll for the Print4Pay Hotel forums. I struggled for a few days when one of our new reps in the office made a statement "hey, we should keep track of manufacturers units that we take outta da (jersey talk) field!  With that statement I had the idea I was looking for! Thank goodness for newbies!

Oh, btw the way you gotta hear this, I'm always trying to help the new reps to learn more about the features, advantages and benefits of the hardware they are selling.  Sometimes, I'll quiz them (they must be thinking what a pain in the ass this guy is), however on this occasion I was trying think of an obscure feature that would be relevant top copying.  So, I asked......."what is 8 up", the answer was.....drum roll......"that's when the machine misfeeds and it ate up the copies", with that answer I stopped my quizzing, shook my head and went back to making calls!

Back to the MFP Copier Take Down Poll, our members can select how many units they removed from the field and what manufacturers machines were displaced.  Who's in the lead?  How many were displaced??  Let me just say in two weeks I'm pretty impressed with the numbers and we'll have to see were they end up. 

You can check out the MFP Copier Take Down Poll! Click here

BTW, if you're and end user of multifunctional copiers and you happen to be in the market and would like a P4P Certified Solutions Professional to provide assistance please click P4P Cafe to get a Professional Proposal!

-=Good Selling=-

New Global Copier & MFP Survey "Suvey Said"

I started a survey on the Print4Pay Hotel "End User Forums" just about two years ago.  In that survey we asked "What Copier/MFP Brand would you pay more for?"  With over 750 page views I'm gonna declare a winner.  Mind you there's no science to this poll, users who view the poll can vote for their choice.  Drum roll please!

Ricoh  17%


Xerox 21%

Canon 29%

KonicaMinolta 21%

Kyocera 6%

Sharp 5%

Toshiba  2%

Panasonic  0%

Oce  1%

So, there it is Canon sits at Numero Uno, Xerox and KonicaMinolta tied for second, Ricoh a close third and the rest of the pack, the rest....right, who cares.
-=Good Selling=-

What's Your Average MFP Copier Lease Sale?

We posted this poll on the Print4Pay Hotel foums a few months ago. 

I know what my average lease sale is however wanted to hear from others.  I recently had exchanged a few emails with a leasing company that I wanted to do business with, however they made a statement that the lowest amount they would fund is $20 or $25K, I can't remember which it was. Any how their (leasing companies) statement was that $22,500 (I'll meet them halfway) was the number that they found to be the average copier/mfp lease sale and would they would not take a deal for less than that.  Funny, if the $22,500 was the average should there have been deals under that????

Ah, enough said on that, here's how our Print4Pay Hotel members responded when posed with:

What's Your Average Lease Sale?


$1,000 - 2,900   =  0%
$2,901-  6,900   =  18%
$6.901 - 9,900   =  53%
$9,901 - 14,900 =  12%
$14.901 - 19,900 =  0%
$19,901 plus        =  18%

So, 71% all all leases were under $9,900 and a whopping 83% were under $14,900.  Not sure why the total come up with 101%, and I'm not even going to try to figure that out.  We're going to continue to keep this poll open on the Print4Pay Hotel forums and we'll come back to this in a few months to see where the numbers are then.  I'm betting Dollars to Doughnuts that findings will be similar.

What was that leasing company thinking about? 

-=Good Selling=-

Recent MPF & Copier Polls on the Print4Pay Hotel Forums

Print4Pay Hotel Weekend Industry Threads for 8/15/10

Take a trip to our P4P Value Page get access to all forums, rfp's, rfq's, proposals, quotes, and leads! pssst! We've now linked and uploaded leads, RFP's and RFQ's for more than 1,020 systems!

Please take the time think about a Premium Membership, not only do you get access to all of the forums, but your contribution keeps the site running!

We've added New Content to our P4P Document Library! Every week, I'll be uploading a new file or document that I've used for research, quotes, pricing or marketing<\b>

Please support our Advertisers Polek & Polek, Lucas Distributing, Print Audit, Cybercon Services (Dealer Consulting Service), Ratio

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The Print4Hotel Team

Canon & Oce "Good Deal or Not a Good Deal"

I've always been a fan of Howie Mandels "Deal or NO Deal", I find myself trying to use my super psychic powers to pick the "right case", well, it seems I have better luck betting on the ponies, they'll be NO million dollar case for me.

A few months ago we (Print4Pay Hotel) posted a poll here on the MFP Solutions blog about the recent Canon & Oce Deal. We asked our readers.

Canon & Oce "Was this a good deal or a not so good deal?"

Here's how our readers responded!

Good Deal 55%
Bad Deal 32%
Not Sure 13%

More readers thought it was a good deal for both parties and I'd have to agree. From preivious threads from Print4Pay Hotel members, it seems that Oce had been courting a buyer for quite some time, at one point KonicaMinolta was rumored to be buying to shares of Oce over in Europe. Anyway, the business continues to consolidate and margins are still tight, talk is that's there's another major move to be made before the end of the year. The only hint I can give is that both companies have manufactured cameras.

-=Good Selling=-

What will shake up and rattle the office equipment industry?

This was a poll that we had running on the P4PCafe Blog for quite a few months. It was actually started by a Print4Pay Hotel member.

What's the next big development that will shake up and rattle the office equipment industry?

RISO will enter the MFP game and make a splash  14%

Ricoh changes name to Ikon Americas Corporation  11%

Canon really does buy the Toshiba MFP business for distribution  23%

HP buys XEROX  23%

Sharp's A4 products outsell Sharp's A3 products  24%

None of the above  4%

This poll was more for humor than a scientific offering.  However Riso has made a splash with ComColor and if they ever come out with a 40, 50 , or 60ppm unit, then I think they'll have industry giants shakin!

How about Ricoh changing the name to Ikon or HP buying Xerox, yeah it will never happen.  Toshiba MFP division is still out there, could be time for someone to step up to the plate, maybe Kyocera?  Just don't seem how Toshiba can sustain the MFP business with such a low market share.

Have fun with this poll, and visit the P4P Cafe when you can!

-=Good Selling=-

Print4Pay Hotel closes Office Equipment Poll!

This was a poll I had running on the Print4Pay Cafe blog for a few months. It was more tongue and cheek. I forgot to add a line for Canon buys Oce? (arrggghh)

What's the next big development that will shake up and rattle the office equipment industry?

Here's how the voting shook out:

RISO will enter the MFP game and make a splash 14%

Ricoh changes name to Ikon Americas Corporation 11%

Canon really does buy the Toshiba MFP business for distribution 25%

HP buys XEROX 19%

Sharp's A4 products outsell Sharp's A3 products 26%

None of the above 5%

Let's see Riso has entered the MFP market with their ComColor Devices, Canon did not buy Toshiba but they did make the move on OCE. Sharp, we've heard the A4 MFP's have been selling well.

Look for a new poll next week on the Print4Pay Cafe!

-=Good Selling=-

Managed Print Service Poll "Review"

We've had this poll running for about a month now, or is it more like three weeks. Ah, can't remember it's the end of the month, the quarter and the year and I'm being hammered every day about sales!!!!

Ok, back to the poll. We asked: You're now selling Managed Print Services "Your thoughts now". Basically tell us, it is working for you or not!

Here's the choices that vendors had to choose from and the percentages:

It's been a great success for us 27%
It's been ok for us 26%
It's not reaping the profits we thought it would 37%
If we had to do it over, we would not have gotten into MPS 10%

Very interesting to say the least, it seems to me that 47% or almost 1 out of every two vendors are not happy with the move. I thought it would have been more like 80% would have agreed with "It's been a great success for us".

I'm a follower of MPS, I believe it has it's place, however if 47% are unhappy, why is that? It's obvious that I can't answer that question, so I reached out to a friend of mine Greg Walters with Death of the Copier in Southern Cal, here's what he had to say......l check back here in a few hours for the response!!

Here's Greg's opine:

You study does not surprise me. I know of a few very successful MPS Practices. But I have been taking many, many questions in the past 5 months all around getting an MPS Practice "going".

It seems that most MPS practices are set up on the wrong premise. Whether MPS is thought of as a marketing ploy to move more equipment, a strategic motion to secure existing accounts or a way to capture ongoing, single function volumes, most attention has been focused on "programs" and internal tactics.

We are ignoring or missing the Client in all this.

And...

All the MPS momentum gained from MPS ideas and programs and goals and potential is being bled off before it gets to the Selling Professional. Either the MPS philosophy is so weak, the sales person ignores and continues as always or the MPS philosophy is so complicated and nebulous, the sales person ignores and continues as always.

Here's the secret - Your study does note reflect MANAGED PRINT SERVICES problems, your study reveals basic, selling problems.

Put that on your whiteboard and gaze upon genius...

LOL!

Greg Walters
-=Good Selling=-

You're now selling Managed Print Services "Your Thoughts Now

Well, very interesting is all I can say. About a week ago, we posted a new poll for Managed Print Services "Your Thoughts Now". We asked, since you're now into MPS, how's it going?

As of right now, more than half rate it as a failure or not reaping the profits that they thought they would, while another 25% states that it's ok and only 9% stated "It's been a great success for us".

If you're into MPS take the poll, I can't wait to see the final numbers on this one.

We'll have this poll running till the end of the year.

-=Good Selling=-

New Managed Print Service Poll Launched

We ran this poll for a few months over the summer of 09. Is your company going to offer Managed Print Services?

These were the responses to that poll:

#1 Yes 39%
#2 No 14%
#3 We already have it in place 47%

We've launched our new Poll Managed Print Service "What Now?" We want to know, now that you've entered the Managed Print Service Arena, how has it been for you?

Here's the poll, you can also find it on the left side of this blog along with being featured in the "polls" forum of the Print4Pay Hotel Message Boards.

P4P Hotel Poll

You're now selling Managed Print Services "Your Thoughts Now" It's been a great success for us It's been ok for us It's not reaping the profits we thought it would If we had to do it over, we would not have gotten into MPS View Results

-=Good Selling=-