Photizo Transform 2013 Wednesday Roundup

 

Early to Bed and Early to Rise? Not me, I hung around the sports bar Tuesday night and spoke to many P4P members, it was a good time put a face on the member.

I spent most of Wednesday morning after breakfast in the Transform Exhibit area.

Oki with NOC in a box was a really cool spin for dealers that would like to get into MNS, however they lack the resources for a full blown plan.

Muratec, also offering an even better version of MNS at a super price. Their program was extremely interesting

BTA Winter Break " Office Dealer Retreat to Orlando"

The Business Technology Association's (BTA) Southeast district will host it's annual Winter Break event at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando on February 8th and 9th of this year.

This will be my second BTA district event and I'm looking forward to getting the heck out of New Jersey for a few days and enjoy some decent weather.  Registration starts at Noon on the 8th and at 1PM Martin Brodigan CEO of Ricoh Americas Corp will kick off the even with the keynote presentation.

I'm a big fan of these events, and not just for the networking with other dealers and vendors. I'll also get the chance to sit in on 5 Educational Sessions.

Presenters for this event will be John Hamilton, President of Service Strategies Corp and lead a presentation for "Why is Service Quality Difficult to Manage?

Doug Johnson, Senior VP of Supplies Network will speak about "MPS Operational Excellence-The Key to MPS Profitability"

Milton Bartley, President & CEO of Image Quest will enlighten us with "adapting Leadership to Capitalize with Managed Services"

Sally Brause, Director of Human Resources Consulting of Great America Financial Services will present "You Be the Judge: How Would You Resolve These Challenging Human Resources Issues?"

In addition we'll also be captivated with Greg Walters and Jennifer Shutwell of Walters & Shutwell for "Parlaying MPS & Mobility".

The event will end at 6PM on Satuday and there is also an evening event for the BTA members.  Keep in mind that you don't have to be a BTA member in order to attend, yes it will cost a few extra dollars however it is money well spent.  BTA is your Association that supports Dealer initiatives, education, legal services and much more.  I recommend you take a trip here to learn more about the event and more about how BTA can help your Dealership.

-=Good Selling=-

10 Questions for the Manual MPS Assessment

Recently, I had an appointment with a "net" new account that was interested in our Managed Print Service Program. This was not a large account (about 30 employees).  Of course the first item of business was to close on the assessment. In this particular business there were over 15 assorted printers from Dell, HP & Okidata.

In smaller accounts I'm not a big fan of all the assessment software tools that are available. When doing a manual assessment one of the items of business is to inventory the entire fleet. I'm a big fan of doing a walk through and collecting my data the old fashioned way.

Of course the manual assessments will take time, however I'm introduced to every person in every department that prints. Not only do I get to meet that person, but I also get a few minutes to interview that person about how they use the printer. After I print the configuration sheet from the printer I'll then have a short interview with the main user/users of the printer.

1.  What size of paper do you print onto?

BPO, MFP, MPS, MNS, MBS, MDS = WTF

Geesh, were do we go from here. 

In recent weeks I've heard more about BPO (Business Process Optimization), MNS (Managed Network Service) and MBS (Managed Backup Service) that I care to know.  However, it is the flavor of the year and the company I work for is excited about bringing these services to our customers.  The company I work for is somewhat unique in that we've been selling MFP's (Multifunctional Products), along with MPS (Managed Print Service)  for many years with MPS coming on board a few years ago. The uniqueness is that we have our own full staff IT division, we've been installing servers, pc, and networks for some time.   That uniqueness now allows us to offer additional services to existing and new customers.

So, not all copier dealerships are created equal.  Thus I would tend to thing there are many more copier dealerships that don't have an IT division compared to ones that do. Many industry pundits are stating the copier dealers need to diversify and offer additional services.   I know of a few dealers who have already added mailing equipment (folders, inserters, tabbers), other dealers that have added 3D printers, Managed Network Services, Business Process Optimization, Managed Document Services (MDS) an Managed Backup Services (MBS).

But can Dealerships and Direct Branches be everything to everyone? Really, what else is left in the office besides the phone system, security and the cleaning service. 

Do you let your existing reps sell these new services?

These are my thoughts,  HELL NO! There are still more than enough additional pages that are available (see my blog on Bucks County "A Case for a Managed Print Service Detective).  Let your imaging reps concentrate on your imaging portfolio for MFP and MPS, you're most senior and advanced reps will probably shine with BPO because they will have the imaging (MFP) knowledge to combine and create new work flows with existing software that your dealership or direct branch maybe selling.  Your new reps should be recruited from local colleges and they should go through an intensive training for MNS, MBS, MDS and MBS and then unleashed into vertical markets such as manufacturing, health care, law, construction etc. As long as you are hiring reps that have a back ground with pc's and servers you should be able to train them rather quickly with your IOP, your pricing, and phone scripts.  In turn,  if you need imaging (MFP) reps than hire for that purpose only.

We want all of my reps to sell the same services?

Well, you maybe in a heep of trouble with your most experienced and senior imaging reps.  From what I've seen the sales cycle for MNS, BPO, MBS and MDS is much longer than imaging, adding to the fact that you need multiple meetings with multiple people from both sides. A sales cycle of 90 days is not out of the ordinary here. Since these services are billed monthly I would expect that commissions are paid monthly, in a previous Blog I had stated that I heard from a rep that told me her commission percentage was 6.5% of the monthly billing.  Selling an MNS and MBS to an SMB account with 10 computers and one server could result in a monthly fee of $700 per month.  Commissions would be around $42 per month.  Take your best rep and let's say he or she gives you an average of $14k per month in GP, that rep is only good for "x" amount of sales per month.  So, lets say there were 7 sales that had $2K of GP for each (hey we're keeping it simple), now we ask that same rep to start selling MNS and MBS.  We could then see 5 imaging sales for a total of $12k GP and then two sales for MNS/MBS, thus the GP would be lowered along with lower commissions (along with $84 commission for the MNS/MBS portion, but the dealership or direct branch picked up $1,400 in monthly billing.  How about this one, the rep only sells 3 imaging units for a total of $6K GP and MNS/MBS, are you and the rep ready to bite the bullet?

My point is that the tenured reps unless they are going after huge accounts and they have a huge draw they will see no money in the MNS/MBS SMB business. WIFM?  Not much..., thus the need to train new reps that are dedicated the new services.

Quota for MNS/MBS:

If you plan on having a dedicated sales team for the new services, YES, by all means. Of course if you want to add to yur imaging reps quota, then NO!

The main gist of "services" is that you can control the network, with that comes the imaging, the BPO and everything else.  I agree that dealers need to diversify but Managed Network Services, Business Process Optimization, Managed Backup Service may not right for every dealership.

-=Good Selling=-

Managed Network Services "The New Holy Grail for Office Equipment Dealers"?

A few months we had a thread started on the Print4Pay Hotel forums titled "Managed Services Are You In or Out".  Since then we've had 15 replies and over 150 page views with many different opinions.  I'd like to back up a step and state that most of the Print4Pay Hotel members that actively post responses, ask questions and see answers are probably some of the most knowledgeable reps and work for some of the more progressive dealers that I know in the industry.  All of the threads stated that in some way, shape or form, these reps and dealers are embracing Managed Network Services.

I'll post some of the replies here and then give a few of my own points at the end of the blog.  I encourage you to go here or go here if you need to register (it's free), view the threads and to add your perspective of how you or your company is either moving forward, or already selling Managed Network Services.  It's a good discussion for all of us since this is something new  and we could all learn from each other.

Here's a few of the responses:

We just partnered with an IT services company as another addition to our portfolio. Managing the network is very critical moving forward. We are just in the infancy stage but can see the opportunity and growth opportunities. from Larry

I believe this is the future of our industry. Forget MPS, that's a failure. In the near future a single vendor will manage all of an office's computer hardware. From switches, routers, PCs, printers and MFPs. Its already heading that way. At the very least we all need to partner up with the best IT companies in our territories and work together and share leads. Remember the IT guy's opinion will almost always carry a ton of weight when the customer is choosing an MFP or vendor to connect hardware to the network. from fisher

We have had good results selling IT services to small to medium companies that "dedicated" IT companies don't want to mess with. I'm talking about something in the neighborhood of 3-15 stations. Unfortunately, we now have a problem...customer IT issues are often urgent where getting our MFP's connected seldom is so us copier reps have become less of a priority. We might have to wait a week sometimes to get IT install support from our own people. They see our request as being non-revenue generating even though our dept pays their dept for every install but that is just a revenue shuffle and not net new incremental revenue. However, I'm a firm believer that "A rising tide lifts all boats" Any profitable revenue coming into this company helps us all. from Old Glory

Yes from Jason R

I agree with 'fisher' that "this is the future of our industry" and Managed IT Services would be a logical step for Independent Dealers to take as soon as possible. In fact, it could be necessary in the future, to help protect your base and gain net new business, with this offering. from GMAN

The route where we are finding a lot of interest is speaking to our ability to provide complementary services (remote monitoring, endpoint security, data recovery, etc.) to their current I.T. offerings, whether internal or outsourced. Our goal isn't to replace their existing I.T. (unless they're looking for that) but rather to help them do more with less. A lot of companies that had multiple I.T. people a few years ago are now rolling with a single individual who is overwhelmed. Adding MNS to that equation for $2k-$4k per month is substantially less than adding another full-time person, and you get much more than you would get just by adding another body. from txeagle

These are just a few of the responses that were posted.  Again you can read the rest on the Print4Pay Hotel forums.

But, I'd like to add this. In the last response from txeagle he stated "Adding MNS to that equation for $2K - $4k per month is substantially less than adding another full-time person, and you get much more than you would get just by adding another body".  Wow, that was an awesome response I never thought of it that way. 

But, here's a few thoughts of my own, let's say that the cost cover each PC each month is $30, and the cost to cover a server is $150 per month. How many PC's and Servers would need to be covered to generate a monthly MNS contract in the $2-$4K monthly cost?  One hundred PC's would be $3k per month and maybe 70 PC's and 10 servers would be $3,600 per month.  Let's just say that to generate this type of revenue off of one account it would have to be a size able account.

I'm aware of my own comp plan and the commissions for selling MNS, I've had the opportunity to reach out to a few Print4Pay Hotel members to discuss what their commission (pay) is when they sell and MNS plan.  Pretty much the numbers are all over the place, some dealerships offer as a commission the first two months of billing, while other will pay a percentage of the billing on a quarterly or monthly basis.  The lowest comp plan I saw was for a rep to make 6% per month of the billing.

Now 6% for one account that is averaging $3K per month would net a commission of $180 per month and $2,160 per year.  Based on the yearly that's very acceptable, however you'll also have to figure how long did it take to close that deal.  You see the problem that I see with this is what happens with the smaller accounts like  the 5-25 employees range with anywhere from 5 pc's and a server to 25 pc's and maybe a couple of servers.  Is this really going to pay off for the time that it takes to prospect, research, quote and close the deal, especially of the MNS contract is for 10 pc's and a one server?  A monthly billing of $450 and a commission based on the lowest monthly rate of 6% would generate $27 in commission to the rep per month and $324 per year! BTW, I did ask about the contract term for MNS and no one was locking in contracts for more than one year.

You can also look at this another way, lets say we found and imaging deal (selling an MFP) and the monthly lease rate was $450 per month.  That sale would generate $22,727 in hardware and a good estimate of commission would be about $1,600 and I'm thinking this might be on the low side. 

Right away, I'm thinking that it would be practical to not offer MNS for companies that have less than 25 employees or less than 15 networked PC's and servers. 

There's so much more to MNS, you could also generate additional billing hours for professional services, of course you would "own" the network, but as a rep who will be selling these services we need to find out where our time is best spent.  Please fell free to comment!

-=Good Selling=-