Scan2Cloud Solution the Alternative to eCopy

When you've been in the busy as long as I've been you see many reps come and go, however for those of us that stick around we have a tendency to never leave the business.  I met Monte through the Print4Pay Hotel forums many years ago, it may have been in 04 or 05, even though we've never met we've been able to help each other with information through the P4P forums and ever now and then we get the chance to chat on the phone.

A few months ago, Monte introduced me to CC Scan and gave me a brief overview of the features and benefits of the program. I'm not able to offer CC Scan to my current prospects and current clients, although I wish I could. I'm sure many readers maybe able to use CC Scan as an additional tool or to add value to the MFP sale. Lately, I been asking every potential prospect if they are archiving or scanning to cloud based software and I would estimate that 60-65% have answered that question as a yes.  The key question would be "how are you doing that" and or please show me.  CC Scan allows you to.....well better that it comes from Monte than me.......

Capture Component based in San Juan Capistrano, California has just released its newest version of ccScan Now integrating all manufactures of MFP’s and offering an alternative to eCopy that is a fraction of the price.

This software allows users to scan document directly to cloud based repositories like Box.net, Salesfroce.com, Google Drive, SharePoint 365 along with several other cloud providers. Users simply scan the document at the MFP and key in Metadata at the point of scan and documents are automatically filed correctly and named correctly to the cloud. All companies are either looking at cloud solutions or they have already implemented one. At a cost of only @$360 annually you now have a solution to offer that your competitor may not. Want some help on a presale?

Monte Jensen with 20 years of experience in the MFP space is there to help with trial licenses and web-ex demos.

So, Monte knows his stuff, as a matter of fact he is my "go to" guy when I have a question about eCopy (speaking of eCopy, have you ever tried to get support out of them...).  Maybe you're looking for that special lockout feature, or maybe you're looking to build your Pro Services, or better yet you're looking to drive additional profits and margins.  CC Scan offers you many choices, no quotas and the opportunity to be "the expert" with Scan2cloud solutions and it's device agnostic!!!!

You can reach at 415-286-1127 or email him at monte.jensen@capturecompents.com  and as Monte would say "Good Solution Selling"

-=Good Selling=-

Bucks County "A Case for a Managed Print Services Detective"

Amazing, it simply is....I picked up this press release for Bucks County today titled "Commissioner calls for copy paper investigation". 

Bucks County, PA just approved a bid for copy paper in the amount of $167,000 dollars.  I'm going to go out on a limb and figure this was all for letter size paper and the each case of paper has 5,000 sheets of paper. I'm also going to make an assumption that the cost per case was $20 per case, since I've seen it on sale for that low a few times and this was a rather large bid.

At $20 per case the County of Bucks would have received 8,350 cases of paper. Cases of paper have 5,000 sheets of paper, thus we can figure that the total of sheets is 41.75 million sheets of paper! 

What does Buck County do with all  of this paper? 

Well it seems it's all used in the copiers, printers and fax machines.  Forty Two Million sheets of paper is...well... a whole heck of a lot of paper. I can only think of how many useless and out of date print devices they have!

Since we know how many sheets of paper they have, we can take and educated guess at what Bucks County is paying to put ink and toner on paper.  Since the average cost per page is for a decent size multifunctional copier/printer is around a penny and the cost for most stand alone printers and fax can range from 3 cents to 12 cents per page (and I'm not even thinking about color, just black). I would say the average cost per page printed/copier and faxed would be .03 cents.

Do the math and lets round it off to 42 million pages, 42 million times .03 cents is $1,260,000 dollars!  That's a cool $1.26 million dollars is spent every year for output!  Again this does not factor the cost of the hardware, nor does it assume that there are any color devices and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts there are many color devices.

So, what can Bucks County do to lower their costs? 

Well for starters they could call me to do a print assessment of all of their output devices.  I could be their Managed Print/Copy Detective and find out where there is waste, find the obsolete printers/copiers, evaluate the high cost printer/copiers, and recommend print management software, toner reduction algorithms and A4 MFP hardware that will lower the amount of prints and paper, redirect prints to lower cost devices and recommend a better security system than walk up users inputting a four or six digit code in the copier. I'm thinking there could be as much as a 25% savings to the county when it's all said and done. 

Of course this would be a huge assessment and take quite of bit of time to map and record every print device and of course someone with my ability does not work for free.  Consultants are people who tell other people how to do something that they don't know how to do.

So, Commissioner Martin, I'm here at your service, give me call and let' see how much we can save the Bucks County!

BTW, I already sent Commissioner Martin and email on this, and I hope he enjoys it!  the investigation has been launched!


-=Good Selling=-

Top 5 Trending MFP & Printer Solutions

Those of us in the know are always trying to catch on the latest and greatest MFP & Print solutions.  Here's my top 5 from the last year with a short overview on each. When was the last time you hugged your copier solutions rep, cause if they are bringing these solutions to the table then you owe it to them to reach out and hug them!

1) PretonSaver:  Need to get more bang for the buck out of your toner cartridges?  Take a gander at Preton Saver software, Pretonsaver will eliminate those pesky little extra pixels of toner and can offer toner savings of up to 25-45%!

Hey, maybe it's not a bad idea to go back to selling maintenance agreements, not include the toner, but do include licenses of PretonSaver.  Just think about the talk track to the end user.  You buy the toner, we'll do the service/maintenance but we'll also sell you "x" licenses of PretonSaver that can save you 25-45% of your toner costs for your MFP and your printer fleet!  Thus you would have the extremely low cost per page of service/maintenance coupled with an almost 50% savings on the toner.  Look at it this way, if manufacturer is stating 6% coverage for toner, and the toner cost is $32 for 8,000 pages that puts the retail toner cost at .0032, using PretonSaver you could lower that cost to .00144.  That's a savings of .00176, over the life of the MFP if you printed and copied 400,000 pages you would have a savings of $704 and that's only for one MFP! Can you image the savings on the fleet? 

2) Print Audit:  I've always been a fan of Print Audit, even before they became a Print4Pay Hotel sponsor.  Plain and simple their software works, day in day out, simple to use, simple to install and the ease of use is second to none.  Print Audit has a wide variety of print management software that is designed for the end user of the office equipment dealer.  I can't tell you how many calls I get from customers claiming "my color volume has gone through the roof", "this machine is costing me more than the payment on my car", and those customers are right. They have no way of controlling printing, whether it's color or black. It's not the dealers fault, nor is it the manufacturers fault, the end user needs to take some accountability and place limits on printing or re-direct printing to lower cost devices.  Print Audit 6 will do all of that plus more, and it's done behind the scenes, once you set the print rules it like "set it and forget it", Print Audit 6 will insure that limits are enforced and re-directing to lower cost devices is now the norm. Copier Dealers, there's never been a better time to become a Premier Print Audit partner, everyone is looking to reduce costs, prints and their Premier SaaS model allows you to sell software by the click, by the seat or just a flat monthly fee!

3) Doculex: Doculex has been a mainstay in the office equipment industry for many years. Doculex my first introduction into Document Management Software. If you had to ask me name the first document management company that comes to mind then it would be Doculex.  By no means am I document management guru,  however Doculex has roots in the MFP industry, long before other DMS companies were soliciting their wares to MFP dealers Doculex was already there with a very impressive channel of MFP Dealers.  "By becoming a DocuLex Reseller, you can provide your customers a complete document management solution, increasing your recurring revenue and customer retention. Attract new customers and add value to your existing customer base. DocuLex can provide direct support for you and your customer, and customers can get started with the DocuLex Archive Studio Content Management Software solution for as little as $ 40 per user per month."  Just and FYI Doculex is a sponsor for the Print4Pay Hotel and we'll have a guest blog posted for them soon along with webinars for our members.


4) Nuance:  In particular their ecopy paperworks, sometimes you just need simplicity right?  I just love showing ecopy paperworks to my existing customers and potential new accounts. eCopy paperworks is one of those rare software programs that you can fully understand all of the icons and master after 5 times.  With ease you can whiteout/blackout text, add lines with arrows (color lines too), highlight an area in different colors, add digital notes, add signatures, OCR a document (drop back into word or excel), .pdf a document, use the TWAIN scan feature, draw freehand notes, move pages, delete pages, cut, copy, paste and even add hyperlinks to a document.  I use ecopy every day and can't think what I would do if I did not have paperworks anymore.   Over the years I demo'd this product many times and I've never had someone tell me that they didn't like it. Take it from if you're in need of software that will convert documents to .pdf's and you need to do markups on documents the ecopy paperworks is the best I've seen in years!

5) UDOCX:  A couple of years ago before I even knew that web browsers could be used in MFPs, I had a thread posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums from the marketing person for UDOCX. The thread pointed out that in Europe on Ricoh devices with enabled web browsers users could now scan2sharepoint, scan2MS365 without the need to have a software installed on a server. This was genius, the UDOCX is software as a service, users would pay a monthly fee and you were off and running with a powerful web based scanning solution (with no server hardware or software to maintain) from the MFP. Now, web enabled MFP browsers took a little longer here in the states, but at least with all of the new Ricoh MFP's you're good to go.  It's my understanding that you can also use the UDOCX service with Xerox, Sharp & Canon systems.  UDOCX will also support cloud printing and scan2fax.  Scan2fax, think about it, no MFP fax option to purchase, no telephone line charges, no call charges, no taxes and no FCC charges.

-=Good Selling=-

The Transition of the Copier Industry "Part 2"

Part #2

When digital copiers first arrived on the scene, we were all happy that copiers were now capable of network printing, network scanning and faxing. In the early days the biggest benefit to the end users was that if the copier jammed (and they all did), during a copy or print job, you would be able to clear the jam, then reset the system and the copier remembered what page was not copied or printed and you would be able to continue with the job.  When this happened with analog systems you pretty much had to trash the entire copy job and start all over, what a drag that was especially if it happened with a demonstration.

For those of us that were in the industry with the emergence of digital copiers we saw the benefit of having one system that would replace three systems, the existing analog copier, the printer and the fax machine.  The cost per page of fax machines and stand alone printers always and still have a higher cost per page.  I can remember in the late nineties compiling my own cost per analysis for each device and it wasn't easy.  You had to access specs from brochures, get cartridge prices and yields from industry published copier, printer and fax spec check books.  It was an easy sale when you could present an immediate ROI for most customers to replace three systems with one. Traditionally analog copiers and digital copiers always had a lower cost per page than laser printers and fax machines. I'm thinking copier dealers started the managed print/copy trend by offering an all inclusive cost per page contracts with the digital systems and we didn't even know it.

We did have our issues!  We were copier service and sales companies now trying to offer support and solutions for print/fax and scan environments.  Many of the early network copies never printed as fast as they were advertised, print drivers were awkward and it seemed we always had some type of issues with installing print drivers, and addressing print issues. But, we moved forward as an industry with improved technology from the manufacturers and other third party suppliers.  I believe the service model for copiers and the planned obsolescence of supplies and parts always kept us in tune and in front of the customer.

At sometime in the late nineties and early 2,000's we started to see third party hardware and software solutions from companies like eCopy, and Equitrac. I'm sure there were more however I can't remember any of the other players.  Companies like Ecopy and Equitrac allowed copier dealers to move into selling software, supporting software and also presented opportunities for professional services. Within a few years there were many other companies that emerged with additional solutions.  All of these third party providers added value to the digital copier.  Thus salespeople had more opportunities to sell solutions in many different vertical markets and larger companies as well.  The once ridiculed copier that took the butt of all the office jokes emerged as the central hub in the office for processing information on paper.

The digital copier industry of today is changing again and companies like Xerox, Ricoh, KonicaMinolta and Canon are making the transition to service led companies. These companies will be the sole provider for documents whether they are created electronically or printed, they want to help customers with print stream management, forms, email, archiving of documents (electronic and paper), they also want to provide consulting to help businesses increase efficiencies, provide easier work flows and reduce your costs.

more to come with Part 3

-=Good Selling=-

Daily Managed Print Service Industry Notes from Around the World!

Like other printing companies, Lexmark has placed a heavier focus on providing so-called managed print services to help offset headwinds in traditional hardware and supplies businesses. Under such services, printing companies are typically contracted ...read more here

One might not think much when clicking on the print button and taking a printout about how much energy was consumed in the process. This leads us to question how aware Indian enterprises are when it comes to the concept of Green Printing? Is it just a buzzword or is it morphing into reality, albeit slowly. ...read more here

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Feb. 1, 2012 -- Building on its reputation as a leading managed print services (MPS) provider, Mosaic Business Solutions was named as one of 'The Best Places to Work' in South Florida by the South Florida Business Journal. The organization, along with the other honorees, will be recognized at a special event on February 23rd...read more here

Nuance is a company with a plethora of products covering voice recognition, document capture and print management. As Nuance has largely grown through acquisition (about 50 in the past 10 years) it is probably better known by its product names, which include established brands such as PaperPort (desktop productivity), OmniPage (OCR), Dragon Dictate (voice recognition), eCopy (document capture and workflow) and Equitrac (print management) – its most recent buy....read more here
In its latest report on the print market, analyst firm IDC says that, after a flat trend in 2010, it now expects home and office print volumes in Western Europe to slow down even further, declining at a CAGR of 0.6 percent from 2011 through to 2015. IDC says the increasing popularity of IEMDs will contribute to this slow decline.

"New Internet-enabled mobile devices change the nature of users' relationship with documents," said Arnaud Gagneux, director, Imaging Hardcopy and Document Solutions, Western Europe for IDC. "This affects both consumers and businesses, and offers hardcopy vendors opportunities for growth in security, document solutions, and managed print services, to name a few."...read more here

-=Good Selling=-

Scan to the Cloud for eCopy & Salesforce.com

This is Hot!  Finally an ecopy connector for salesforce.com, I'm sure this can be an additional product for all of us to focus us.

Announcing the connector for Salesforce.com for Nuance eCopy Sharescan. Partnering with Nuance a company called 2112 http://www.scan-to-salesforce.com has announced they have released a “connector” for eCopy Sharescan that will allow users to scan documents directly into Salesforce.com accounts using an eCopy enabled MFP or scanner. Batch scan using barcode cover pages will allow users to scan batches of documents that will then be converted to individual PDF files and automatically uploaded to the correct Salesforce account.

Salesforce.com is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with regional headquarters around the world. Salesforce.com has its services translated into 16] different languages and currently has 82,400 customers and over 2,100,000 subscribers. The application runs in the cloud, so the user can access it anywhere through an Internet-enabled mobile device or a connected computer. The Sales Cloud includes a real-time sales collaborative tool called Chatter, provides sales representatives with a complete customer profile and account history, allows the user to manage marketing campaign spending and performance across a variety of channels from a single application, tracks all opportunity-related data including milestones, decision makers, customer communications, and any other information unique to the company's sales process. Other activities can be done on the Salesforce cloud. These include using the Jigsaw business data to access over 20 million complete and current business contacts from right inside Salesforce CRM, and designing and automating any process in Salesforce CRM.

VP Shashi Klamath “We see a great need in the marketplace to scan and store documents directly into Salesforce.com accounts leveraging a company’s existing infrastructure. This simplifies and automates that process saving companies thousands of dollars in paper document storage and labor.”
 
-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh's PPDM enables and Epiphany for Eric the Office Worker

We all know about Eric the Office Worker right? For those of you who don't, Eric the Office Worker was featured here in three blogs. Eric the "Office Worker" Gets a Supra Wide Format!, Print Audit Green with "Eric the Office Worker" and Ecopy Desktop & "Eric the Office Worker".

Eric the Office Worker seems to have a proficiency for finding time saving software and hardware products in the office.

The last we heard of Eric, he was working for BetaAlpha Corp in Patterson, NJ, since then Eric the Office Worker has honed his job skills and landed a sales job in Frostburg, MD with DigDug Systems. DigDug has been around for almost 30 years and has four locations with about 80 employees.

Eric's job is to visit existing clients and seek out new clients to buy or lease heavy duty construction equipment.

In previous blogs Eric the Office Worker had been at three other firms in the past couple years and in two of those firms he instituted the use of Ecopy and Print Audit 6. If there's one thing that excites Eric, it's software that'll help him to cut the paperwork, save time and improve his efficiencies!

Being somewhat nosey and curious Eric had peeked over his cubical the other day when the new Ricoh copier was delivered, as a matter a fact he even asked his manager if he could sit in on the tutorial. Eric had been an old hand at copier technology and with his previous experience and thought he might be able to pick up something new. Giving it sometime Eric had thought... gheesh, this copier just got this new machine and all it does it print, copy, scan and fax??? What good is this he thought?

Just when Eric was about to retreat back to his cubical, the salesperson mention the "special function" key, with that Eric took notice and moved just a little closer to the system. The salesperson then directed the operator to enable the PPDM key, the operator did so and with that Eric moved a little closer to the system.

Just to cut to the chase go here for PPDM video

What really WOWED Eric is the fact that he could now walk to Ricoh multifunctional copier with hard copies and with the touch of a few buttons he was able to increase his productivity with a few of these key features!

• He could now walk to the copier and scan documents back to MS word or MS Excel, along with that he was able to enable a data capture on his lead forms, meaning he would scan the lead forms and the data would be extracted and captured into and Excel file, thus saving him countless hours of data input.
• Eric would also be able to scan his business cards with data capture, another huge time savings.
• But the greatest time saver for Eric was the ability to create fill able .pdf forms from the scanner, yeah Eric had all of the sales forms but they were either in an Excel which was a pain the butt to fill out because who ever made the forms had locked down certain cells and he couldn't change them, and then the pdf's were not fill able. Try doing this on ecopy without the fill able forms and this is a very mundane task.

Eric was elated with the initial PPDM demonstraion  and was excited that he was able to personalize his experience at the multifunctional copier and save countless hours with forms, MS word docs, MS Excel docs and fill able forms. Matter of fact the first item Eric did was to scan his leases, sales orders, maintenance agreements, lease documents, bill of ladings, return authorizations into fill able forms and then loaded them in his notebook. Eric also took a copy of his companies’ power point presentation and turned it into an audio presentation for his clients.  BTW, another great feature that Eric likes is the ability to convert a file to .pdf while just right clicking the document. No more opening the application and then coverting the doc to pdf! Awesome.

Hey, we all know Eric the Office Worker is a fictional character for this blog, however since Eric and I were turned on to PPDM, we really didn't have an idea how this technology would help us save time nor how to present it to our clients. My works of advice, if you have PPDM or something like it, lead it with it!  It's worth your time to become and expert with workflow solutions that will enable your customers to save countless hours with the mundane task of processing paper.

-=Good Selling=-

Top 7 Print4Pay Hotel Blogs

Since there's not a lot goin on in the industry lately....well wait a big annoucement did come from Canon that they had struck and agreement to supply FEDEX/Kinkos stores with Canon devices! That's a nice deal, especially with Canon now having access to the Oce Wideformat devices. What's next Staples, Office Max?

Here they are:

Too often in sales we get caught up in the day to day work of research, solutions, speeds, feeds and analysis and forget some of the basic sales skills that we learned.  Selling Copiers and MFP's "Get Back to the Basics"

Just last night on cable news, I listened to a report that service companies are enjoying the recent decline in the economy because more businesses and consumers are ...MFPs, Refurbs, Repos and Pre-Owned

"Eric the Office Worker" is now working at Acme Buy. "Eric the Office Worker" is a Customer Sales Rep, and helps customers fulfill their orders as the customers visit the Acme Buy Showroom. Ecopy Desktop & "Eric the Office Worker"

Thought about this the other day in car, made myself pull over and jotted down a few notes for everyone. I've complied a laundry list of points that I have adhered to in order to maximize Gross Profit. Selling Copiers " How to Maximize GP"

 I ask you, what do customers hate more when they are dis-satisfied with Office Equipment Leasing Companies? Yep, it us the sales people that put them into a bad lease. Most reps who have been in the business awhile know about some of the pitfalls of a good equipment leasing company and a not so good one. Top Copier Equipment Leasing Companies for Office Dealers

 The last eighteen months in the New York Metro Area has truly been a "Season of Changes" to remember!
Top Copier Equipment Leasing Companies for Office Dealers

 Most multifunctional copiers can be programed to count letter size paper as one click of the count meter (they are default from the factory this way), plus they can also be programmed to count 11x17 as one click (not the default program from the factory). MFP "Wars" Single click 11x17

-=Good Selling=-

3 Numbers to Think About!

How about it, are there any scifi fans out there? If so, how about Star Trek fans? Tell me, what's the one item you never see in a Star Trek episode or movie? Well......................it's paper!!!! Kirk, Spock and Picard all have either tricorders or flat panel display (not the ipad)  that they'll read from or sign.

So, here's some interesting numbers I found on the web today from Gartner & IDC!

SOME NUMBERS TO THINK ABOUT

IDC estimates that executives spend 45 percent of their time working with documents. 610 billion e-mails are sent each year out of which half are printed. Whoa, that's 305 billion sheets of paper!!

According to IDC, companies spend as much as 10 percent of revenues on document production, management and distribution. True, and most CFO's and CEO' will not put up an agrument with this number!

According to Gartner, up to 3 percent of corporate revenue is spent on the office output fleet (print,copy and fax). Another number that is accepted amd must be remembered that this is an average, you may have a hard time selling an SMB account on this number.

Been saying this for years, dealers need to become Value Added Resellers and or Partners. Business owners and CFO's will listen if we have a story to tell about how to improve the process and reduce the paper.

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Sales "Prospects Never Want A Lower Price"

I thought I'd repost this as a reminder for us all to sell value!

I'm very pleased to present our next "Guest Blogger" Jim Parker from CBS Digital from Longview, Texas. Jim's a great salesmanager and has been one of my "go to" guys over the years and he has put together a fanstastic Blog for everyone. Jim is also known as "Old Glory" on the P4P Ricoh Family Group Message Boards. Enjoy!





We are all often faced with requests to lower our price. However, is that really what is being asked of us? As Zig Ziglar says, “Thousands of ¼ inch drills are sold every year to people who did not want ¼ inch drills. What they wanted were ¼ inch holes.” Our customers never, I repeat NEVER want a lower price. What they want is a better deal. Whether you are competing with a current payment, competitive bid, whatever, it still boils down to wanting a better deal. The only way the prospect knows how to ask for a better deal is to ask for a better price. A peddler will just give him the better price. A salesperson will help him to see other options that may be available to them.

For the sake of this discussion, I am going to assume that the sales rep has already done their due diligence and gotten clarification. A professional sales rep will never “launch” into a rebuttal without first seeking clarification. “What leads you to believe that my price is too high?” or “Is there a number that we need to work together to try to meet?” are a couple of possible examples. The answer will go a long way toward determining which of the examples below you will want to try. If the answer has something to do with a competitive quote, make sure that the other aspects of the quote are comparable. If you are shopping for a kitchen appliance and get a quote that offers free delivery at a higher price, don’t you go to the cheaper place and ask for free delivery? You may have maintenance pricing that more than offsets the competitor’s cheaper equipment price. See the whole picture before you address the concerns.

I am also assuming the prospect would prefer to do business with you but needs help justifying his decision. If you aren’t his preferred vendor, probably nothing but price will win the deal.
Some of the choices below only apply to cash purchases and some assume a lease arrangement while some are applicable regardless. Every one of these will work for you someday while none of them will work every day. You just need to be prepared to try them all on every deal until something works. Nothing here is rocket-science, just common-sense and over 25 years of industry experience but don’t take any of them lightly. While some may seem obvious to you, none are obvious to your prospect.

In no particular order:

· Remove an accessory. “You can always add it later Mr. Customer.”

· Give away an accessory or supplies. Depending on your pay-plan, it is probably less expensive to give away an accessory worth $1,000 than it is to discount $1,000.

· Give away a printer…same principle as above, but may provide the incentive he needs. However, never suggest that they can take it home for personal use. That might constitute a bribe if the decision-maker is anyone but the owner. You might also consider giving away entry-level document management such as eCopy.

· Step down to a slower model. They may have wanted a 30 ppm because that is the speed of what they are replacing. However, the 25 ppm units of today are as productive as the 30 ppm units of yesterday unless all of their volume is long-run/single-page.

· Most units have multiple finishing options as well as multiple paper- feed options. What about offering a lesser option?

· Lengthen the lease. Sometimes just adding 3 months to the term gets the job done. If they prefer to do business with you, they should be willing to commit to an extra 3 months to get it done.

· If they have 3 months left on their old lease, add 3 months to the term and do a 90-day deferred payment lease rather than buying out the old lease. The customer gets the new equipment now but continues to make payments toward their old lease. Your payments begin when the old lease runs out. You haven’t paid the buy-out and they haven’t had to wait to get the new equipment or make dual payments.

· Step Lease. This is a lease where the first year has a lower payment than subsequent years. “Mr. Customer, what if I had a way for you to have that lower payment for the first year, would that make it easier?” If you can get away with a higher payment for the subsequent years, great! If not, you are still better off than had you given it all away.

· If you can’t compete apples-to-apples, bring in an orange.

By the time you have tried all of these, the prospect will probably have voluntarily told you the real reason he isn’t buying from you and it probably had nothing to do with price to begin with. Either way, you have saved face and maintained your integrity. As long as we can say that, we’ll do OK in this business.

Jim Parker
Director of Sales
Complete Business Systems, Inc.Longview, TX

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 09/13/09

Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

Konica Minolta has signed to be the Platinum sponsor for the upcoming ON DEMAND trade show in Russia on 10/28-11/3/2009.

Results of a survey conducted by the InfoPrint (division of Ricoh) of IT Managers who are responsible for print/mailroom operations/CRDs:
- 2/3’s believe they are spending too much on postage
- More than half have not planned for or implemented Intelligent Mail barcoding for postal discounts
- Nearly half feel that their operations could be running more efficiently
- 90% feel pressure from management to lower costs
- 66% are trying to reduce print volumes
- 60% encouraging e-delivery of documents
- 38% considering workforce reductions
- 77% believe they could benefit from more automation

Hewlett Packard announced that it has authorized Pitney Bowes to be a dealer for its upcoming HP T300 Inkjet Web Press, a production color inkjet system. Details:
- PB plans on bundling with a mail finishing system
- PB will provide software transformations from AFP/IPDS, Metacode and/or LCDS protocols
- PB will provide service and support
- Will be called IntelliJet system, with approximate MSRP of $4 million
- 400 feet per minute in full color
- 30” wide printing
- 1200x600dpi
- Will start selling in January of 2010
- PB will build showroom for product in Shelton, Connecticut

Large printer, RR Donnelley & Sons Co. of Chicago, announced it will assist Hewlett Packard in designing future color inkjet presses.

Kodak taking a gamble with its booth at Print 09 Show in Chicago. For the first time, it will not display any of its production print systems (DigiMaster, NexPress, Prosper, Versamark, etc.). Instead, it will have a 24 foot long multi-media display to show videos of the equipment. In contrast, Xerox will apparently have at least 18 models on display running jobs.

Canon now shipping the imagePRESS CR Server A7000, which is a relabeled Creo print controller for its imagePRESS C7000VP system.

Ricoh announced, that through its InfoPrint division, it is offering versions of its 90/1107/1357 production b/w systems with MICR toner for check printing. In addition, it will offer MICR ink for the InfoPrint 5000 color inkjet system (relabeled product from Screen of Israel)

Ricoh announced that its factory direct branched will now sell VoIP phone systems from Fonality. No kidding, Ricoh had stated they were not going to rely on hardware!

EFI announced a new operating system for its Fiery print servers called System 9 featuring:
- embedded JDF technology, enabling integration with 3rd party workflow applications
- includes version 5.0 of Command WorkStation
- optional Fiery SeeQuence Suite (Impose, Compose)
- IPP enabled printer support
- Will ship in Q4, 2009

Xerox’s Chief Technology Officer, Sophie Vandebroek, announced that Xerox plans on launching a production color system using the wax technology used in the ColorQube.

Xerox launched the iGen4 220, which is advertised as printing full color at 220 impressions per minute. This is actually two iGen4s bolted together, so paper moving at 110ppm has both sides imaged at same time. Pricing not announced.

Oce’ announced the new JetStream 3300 production color inkjet system:
- top speed of 492 feet per minute
- prints up to 30” wide on rolls of paper
- comes standard with black ink, and option allows for CMYK
- pricing not announced

Oce’ announced the new VarioPrint 6320 Ultra production b/w system featuring:
- Cutsheet printer
- 308ppm top speed
- Maximum monthly duty cycle of 10 million per month
- Pricing not announced

Oce’ announced that during the PRINT 09 trade show in Chicago, it will have a CS665 (relabeled Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6501) printing free copies of a perfect bound book, titled “Where’s My Birthday Cake”. The photo book was created by professional photographer, Jason Lee, featuring his daughters, Kristin & Kayla.

Peerless, maker of generic print controllers, provided its last quarter’s financials:
- Revenue of $2.1 million, down from $3.3 million last year
- Gross margin of 65.2% compared to 50.4% last year
- Net income of $2 million

eCopy won both the “Spring 2009 Pick Award” & “5 Star Award” from Buyers Labs, Inc. (BLI), and was the only document imaging software vendor to receive a “Pick” in this round of awards.

Brother introduced a new series of desktop A4 color inkjet AIO’s (starting at $129) and advertised them as offering a speed of 28ppm for color, but this speed is based on a page with only 5% coverage per color.

Toshiba division general manager, Kuniaki Kumamuru, stated that the company plans on significantly increasing investment in its LED lightbulb division in an interview with Reuters:
- is considering acquisitions to grow the division
- company produced Japan’s first incandescent light bulb in 1890
- goal is to have $3.8 million in LED lightbulb sales by 2015
- current selling price is $40 to $50 for a 100 watt LED lightbulb
- will open sales offices in France, US, Britain and Germany by end of year

Keyscan introduced a new keyboard that customer could buy for their PC’s that incorporates a single sheet color scanner into the back. Pricing unannounced.

IPEX, a production print group in Europe, announced that its “Champions in Print” award will be to the founders of Adobe and inventors of PostScript, Dr. John Warnock and Dr. Chuck Geschke.

IBML, a dealer in Wyoming, won a document management bid from Wyoming Medical Center. Details:
- 5 year contract worth $200,000
- As a result of new software and scanners, hospital reduced its scanning/indexing staff by 33%
- Bid included ImageTrac software and scanners
- Hospital believes it will save $450,000 total over life of contract
- Hospital has 205 beds in Casper, WY
- Campus covers 719,000 square feet
- 150 physicians
- Will scan 52,000 pages per day

Online Print Solutions, maker of web-to-print and VDP software, announced it now offers Multi-Touch Campaign software, which generates personalized URLs (PURL) for end users to respond to direct mail offerings.

XMPie, maker of variable data software, announced a new option called “Email Service”, which will send out and track email marketing messages to end users to supplement VDP direct mail offerings.

Recent findings published by The CMO Council on chief marketing officers in the U.S.:
- average tenure of a CMO is 23.2 months
- 50% CMOs are hired to fix broken marketing departments
- 56% of marketers perceive themselves as being customer centric,
but only 12% of customers surveyed agree
- 83% of CMOs face change resistant corporate cultures
- 76% of companies are not realizing the full revenue potential of their customers
- On average, 31% of marketing budget is spent on print jobs
- Only 25% of CMOs know what TransPromo is

GE Capital’s Leasing Director, Jim Kelly, gave out info in a recent interview:
- Has been in copier leasing for 20 years (started with acquisition of leasing
business from Chase Manhattan)
- Serves 8,000 dealers
- Has leases with 500,000 end users
- Is investing $3 million in “Touchless Initiative”
- “We’re trying to get that instant feel you have with a credit card”
- “Our vision is one minute turn time. That’s one minute from application through funding. That’s a lofty, loft goal, but that’s the vision we have for this.”

Have customers that want to make business cards with their color MFP? Michael Business Machines (MBM) introduced the BC12. This desktop device takes thick stock from your color MFP, and slices it up into 12 business cards in a single pass, at a speed of 60 cards per minute (13 sheets per minute top speed)

Details from the recent Sharp Align 09 national sales meeting for its dealers:
- Was at the Gaylord Resort in Washington, DC
- Plans on launching a managed print services program based on partnerships
with LMI, PrintAudit and Compass in October
- Has more than 400 authorized dealers in the US
- Has 10 factory direct branches
- Has stopped buying copier dealers (due to poor economy)
- Showed future products:
- Un-named 62ppm & 75ppm A3 b/w MFPs
- 150 sheet document feeder that scans both sides of original at same time
- Scans in color
- Color LCD display
- Pullout keyboards
- Will ship in June, 2010
- MX-M283N, a 28ppm A3 MFP
- MX-M503N, a 50ppm A3 MFP
- Optional air purifier for $500 with copier status lights
- 40ppm color A4 printer
- 40ppm b/w A4 printer
- ScanPro desktop scanners
- One model is b/w only, other is color
- Scan both sides of original at same time
- Can scan business cards and medical info cards

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Weekend Industry Notes 2/08/09

The following is a quick review of copier/MFP industry news from various trade publications.

- Panasonic announced it will lose $3.9 billion for year 2008, its first loss in 6 years.

- Danka Business Systems PLC asked its shareholders to approve a voluntary liquidation for the second time since it sold off its business to Konica Minolta. The vote will be on 2/19/09 to distribute the $6.5 million that it is left from the sale after debts were paid off.

- In a survey conducted by Gartner of 443 production print managers, they were asked on a scale of 1 to 7, which technology offers the best image quality:
- Toner: 5.68
- Liquid Ink (HP Indigo): 5.40
- Inkjet: 5.24
- Offset Press: 5.17
- First time ever that toner based production color output was favored over offset

- Xerox announced it will try a new managed print services to market its wax-based color printers & AIOs, the Phaser 8860 and the Phaser 8860MFPs
- Hybrid Color Plan #1
- Three meters collected
- $0.0169 for b/w and “useful” color pages (color text or small color logo)
- $0.039 for “everyday” color pages (web page prints)
- $0.079 for “expressive” color pages (heavy color)
- Hybrid Color Plan #2
- Two meters collected
- $0.0169 for b/w and “useful” color pages
- $0.059 for “everyday” and “expressive” color pages

- Xerox signed on as official sponsor of the DOCUMENT Strategy Forum event in Chicago, IL on 10/5-7/09 to promote document management.

- Xerox makes a change in one of its Global locations. Mike Hosking, formerly a Xerox executive in Rochester, NY, was named the new president of Capitol Office Solutions of Columbia, MD.

- Xerox send out a full color direct mail piece to customers across the country, with the tag line “Learn how to cut document costs by up to 30% or more!”. End users who respond and request info from Xerox are entered into a drawing for several Sony Bravia 40” HDTV sets. The promo claims lucrative trade-in dollars for existing competitive MFPs.

- A company named RITI claims it will introduce a printer that uses old coffee grounds to create the image.

- The U.S. Graphic Design Business study shows:
- 11% increase in graphic design establishments by 2013
- 13% increase in graphic design employees
- 2% growth in graphic design revenue
- 20% growth in graphic design freelancers

- Hewlett Packard, in an effort to boost sluggish sales, announced a trade-in program:
- Trade-in credit of up to $1000.00 off purchase price of new LaserJet (b/w or color)
- Trade-in can be any make and model
- HP claims it will “recycle” the trade-in laser printer
- Does not apply to inkjet printers

- Rochester Software Associates (RSA) announced the “Print Stimulus Package” where it has lowered the pricing of its web-to-print software for the print-for-pay industry. Customers can now get its WebCRD for as little as $19,995.00

- New technology to replace laser engines? Inventor Peter Salmon has introduced “Solid State Printing”
- Salmon Technologies Inc. is located in Mountainview, CA
- Does not use a drum or a laser printhead
- Promises high speed printing at a much lower cost
- Has not yet attracted investors
- Uses integrated circuits to attract toner to transfer roller
- The integrated circuits employs electrode structures on glass substrates with electrodes driven by solid state devices
- Electrodes are driven by 40 volt traveling waves (VTW)
- Each electrode applies one toner particle at a time
- Uses traditional fusing method
- Uses polymerized toner technology
- Can image both sides of paper at same time
- A printer with a 36” wide print width would consist of 86,400 writing channels per head
- Each channel includes a 10 micron micro print engine
- 2400x2400dpi
- Top speed of 200 feet per minute
- Machine would take up 16 square feet of floor space

- After a misleading article appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Kodak CEO, Antonio Perez was forced to deny the implications that it was going to sell off its copier division (the NexPress production color system and the DigiMaster production b/w equipment). He stated; “We are not thinking of divesting any of those businesses.”

- eCopy announced that it will allow IRIS Group to resell its product. IRIS makes the OCR engine that is used in eCopy products since 1998.

- Printable Technologies Inc. announced it will make PURLs more affordable. Personalized URLs (PURLs) are essential to variable data direct mail printing, where the end user can respond to an offer by entering a website that uses their name (i.e. www.jimsmithoffer.com). Originally costing $5000 for FusionPro Links software and $0.02 for each PURL created, the price was reduced to $995 with unlimited PURls.


- Ricoh announced new programs to get software companies to develop applications that can be embedded into new Ricoh MFPs. The Ricoh Developer Program (RiDP) now features:
- Java based Embedded Software Architecture
- DocumentMall membership, for $1000 per year, access to Ricoh’s web-based DocumentMall Software
As-A-Service (SaaS) solution
- Major Account/Strategic Account (MASA) membership is $2500/year for specific accounts only
- Education (EDU) membership is free to accredited higher education institutions
- Basic membership is free
- Premier is S400/year
- Premier Plus is $4500/year

- A company in Shingle Springs, CA was created to test hard drives removed from digital copiers for confidential data. Digital Copier Security Inc., run by John Juntunen, claims that when companies trade-in or dispose of their digital copiers, that they are leaving sensitive data behind for others to take advantage of. The company charges thousands of dollars to remove the hard drive, destroy it, and then provide certificate of its destruction to the end user.

Ecopy Desktop & "Eric the Office Worker"

"Eric the Office Worker" is now working at Acme Buy. "Eric the Office Worker" is a Customer Sales Rep, and helps customers fulfill their orders as the customers visit the Acme Buy Showroom.

Eric has no clue there's a better way to reduce paper and save time. Eric's current workflow is that he will print a sales order form (pdf) in color from a local color printer, he will then hand write the order information for the customer, when Eric is finished he has the customer sign the order, process payment. From there Eric will make a copy of that order for him self, a copy for the customer and hand over the original to order processing. Order processing will then enter the order, make another copy to forward to accounting. At this point the order that "Eric the Office Worker" filled out has been copied three times.

Now, did I tell you how "Eric the Office Worker" has a small issue with handwriting, although he enters all of the information needed, on many occasions "Eric the Office Worker" 2's look like 7's and some of his script needs to be deciphered. So, order processing will call him back about the order and verbally go over the numbers or words that are in questions. At times, Eric the Office Worker has even added sticky notes to the order to draw attention to a question on a model number the color of a specific item. Did I tell you that sometimes the sticky note never makes it to order processing? The last sticky note was found hanging off of Sally's shoe as she was entering the lunch room.

Eric is not the only sales person at the office, there are 9 more and each has the same workflow. Order entry spends countless hours questioning handwriting, additional notes, and if the order is misplaced there are additional hours spent each and every month.

So, where is the solution for "Eric the office Worker"? Acme needs to simplify the process and reduce errors in order to increase profit.

Ecopy desktop to the rescue! Ecopy desktop would be installed on all of the pc's, in additional we would add 10 USB signature scanners to all of the sales people. Now, "Eric the Office Worker" will pull up the sales order, from there he will edit the pdf form with Ecopy Desktop, that's right he'll be able to type all of the information on the screen. Once the order is correct, he will than have the customer sign the USB scanner and then import the signature to the form. Once completed, he will print one for the customer, then email the sales form (by, the way if Eric, needs to add anything additional to the form, he can add a "sticky note" to the electronic document)to order entry. From there order entry will view the order, enter the order in the system (order entry can also add notes at this time). Order Entry then emails the form to Accounting. Accounting then creates and invoice and files sales order electronically.

Using Ecopy Desktop has just saved three printed pages, seeing that there are 10 sales people that makes 30 pages saved, and then four orders from each rep per day now saves 120 pages a day, they're open 7 days a week, so that's a total of 3,600 pieces of paper saved. Monthly paper savings is $25.20.

We've also saved 3,600 copies at .0125 per page, there's another $45 per month. However the true savings is in productivity, the office now saves more than 7 hours per month due to the reduced paper based workflow. Documents are now clean and easy to read, everyone can keep an electronic copy if they need to along with the not every having a lost sales order ever again. At an average cost of $21 per hour, the company has saved an additional $147 in productivity.

End result is a monthly savings of $217.20 per month, cost to have ecopy desktop (15 seats) and scanners (10 USB scanners) and consulting equals $145 per month. Net savings every month equals $71.31 and a customer forever.

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Sales Tips "Selling GREEN MFP's"

This was a recent post I had on the Ricoh Family Group P4P Hotel. To say the lease I was astounded when one of my clients asked for a "GREEN" copier/MFP.

I put this flyer together today as handout to customers, hope this will work, if you have anything else to add, please do so and we can have a killer document:

• 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!

This is just the tip of the iceberg, if you would like to know more about “Going Green” and reducing your costs, please call me for an appointment.

Commission for Clicks "Selling MFP's"

Has The Time Come for Sales People to be Paid on Click Revenue?

Here's how are P4P members responded:

79% Yes

13% No

8% Not Sure

8 out of 10 reps would like to be paid on click revenue. To me, its the smart alternative to keep clients for years and to really have the time to consult for solutions that will add productivity and lower costs.

Recently, I read a post from an Ikon rep, the person stated that at the beginning of the month they sell solutions such as Print Management, E-Copy, and Document Management. At the end of the month the sell Canon and Ricoh! Funny, now all they will be selling is Ricoh........but don't count the chickens before they hatch. I've heard rumors of a bidding war for Ikon! LOL

Selling Copiers "ECOPY DESKTOP + MS WORD + LAN FAX EQUALS"?

SOLUTION!!!! Yippee!!

We're all in for the hardware sale, and we all know you can't make living (just yet) selling third party solution software. However for the savvy reps we do have Ecopy Desktop!!

While in an account today, I was sizing up the hardware specs with the IT Manager, I asked about adding a fax option to a high volume unit. The IT persons interest peeked when I told him that they could reduce the amount of pages printed on stand alone printers if they added the fax option to the unit. We then spoke about the ability to fax forward faxes to a network folder and or an email address. From here all in bound faxes could be monitored and then distributed electronically. So far, so good.

Next, we spoke about the advantages of LAN from from the desktop and here's where we hit a snag. The IT manager explained that all outbound faxes needed a cover page, and currently they were all using the same cover page that was created in an MS word document. In this fax cover page they had six different fields of information that needed input by the user. Now, my current LAN fax software only offers 5 different input fields, the one he was looking for was how many pages are being sent. Alas, we could not accomplish what he was looking for, I knew he wanted to reduce paper and I also sensed he liked the idea of reducing paper.

The solution that I proposed was e-copy desktop software. I explained how we can use his existing word template and keep this as a saved fax cover sheet for everyone. When they needed to fax from the PC, they would then print to ecopy desktop, then merge the file with the fax cover sheet that we saved in ecopy. From their, the users could use the markup feature for the fax cover page and input all of the information, plus when they selected the "view all" icon they could see how many pages were in that electronic document. This would then take the guess work out of figuring out how many pages were in a word, excel or something other type of document. Along with the feature of having the entire outbound fax saved to a file on the network.

In review, the speeds and feeds of the hardware were acceptable, however what made my system stand out from the others was the ability to combine E-Copy Desktop with the hardware to give the customer a real cost savings, real productivity savings along with a "green" solution. I also knew that no one else that the IT manager had brought attention to this type of solution.

We all need to sell hardware to live, however asking questions about "how do you do this and how do you do that" can lead to a very productive sales call.

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!!

Selling Copiers "Prospects Never Want A Lower Price"

I'm very pleased to present our next "Guest Blogger" Jim Parker from CBS Digital from Longview, Texas. Jim's a great salesmanager and has been oneof my "go to" guys over the years and he has put together a fanstastic Blog for everyone. Jim is also known as "Old Glory" on the P4P Ricoh Family Group Message Boards. Enjoy!

We are all often faced with requests to lower our price. However, is that really what is being asked of us? As Zig Ziglar says, “Thousands of ¼ inch drills are sold every year to people who did not want ¼ inch drills. What they wanted were ¼ inch holes.” Our customers never, I repeat NEVER want a lower price. What they want is a better deal. Whether you are competing with a current payment, competitive bid, whatever, it still boils down to wanting a better deal. The only way the prospect knows how to ask for a better deal is to ask for a better price. A peddler will just give him the better price. A salesperson will help him to see other options that may be available to them.

For the sake of this discussion, I am going to assume that the sales rep has already done their due diligence and gotten clarification. A professional sales rep will never “launch” into a rebuttal without first seeking clarification. “What leads you to believe that my price is too high?” or “Is there a number that we need to work together to try to meet?” are a couple of possible examples. The answer will go a long way toward determining which of the examples below you will want to try. If the answer has something to do with a competitive quote, make sure that the other aspects of the quote are comparable. If you are shopping for a kitchen appliance and get a quote that offers free delivery at a higher price, don’t you go to the cheaper place and ask for free delivery? You may have maintenance pricing that more than offsets the competitor’s cheaper equipment price. See the whole picture before you address the concerns.

I am also assuming the prospect would prefer to do business with you but needs help justifying his decision. If you aren’t his preferred vendor, probably nothing but price will win the deal.
Some of the choices below only apply to cash purchases and some assume a lease arrangement while some are applicable regardless. Every one of these will work for you someday while none of them will work every day. You just need to be prepared to try them all on every deal until something works. Nothing here is rocket-science, just common-sense and over 25 years of industry experience but don’t take any of them lightly. While some may seem obvious to you, none are obvious to your prospect.

In no particular order:

· Remove an accessory. “You can always add it later Mr. Customer.”

· Give away an accessory or supplies. Depending on your pay-plan, it is probably less expensive to give away an accessory worth $1,000 than it is to discount $1,000.

· Give away a printer…same principle as above, but may provide the incentive he needs. However, never suggest that they can take it home for personal use. That might constitute a bribe if the decision-maker is anyone but the owner. You might also consider giving away entry-level document management such as eCopy.

· Step down to a slower model. They may have wanted a 30 ppm because that is the speed of what they are replacing. However, the 25 ppm units of today are as productive as the 30 ppm units of yesterday unless all of their volume is long-run/single-page.

· Most units have multiple finishing options as well as multiple paper- feed options. What about offering a lesser option?

· Lengthen the lease. Sometimes just adding 3 months to the term gets the job done. If they prefer to do business with you, they should be willing to commit to an extra 3 months to get it done.

· If they have 3 months left on their old lease, add 3 months to the term and do a 90-day deferred payment lease rather than buying out the old lease. The customer gets the new equipment now but continues to make payments toward their old lease. Your payments begin when the old lease runs out. You haven’t paid the buy-out and they haven’t had to wait to get the new equipment or make dual payments.

· Step Lease. This is a lease where the first year has a lower payment than subsequent years. “Mr. Customer, what if I had a way for you to have that lower payment for the first year, would that make it easier?” If you can get away with a higher payment for the subsequent years, great! If not, you are still better off than had you given it all away.

· If you can’t compete apples-to-apples, bring in an orange.

By the time you have tried all of these, the prospect will probably have voluntarily told you the real reason he isn’t buying from you and it probably had nothing to do with price to begin with. Either way, you have saved face and maintained your integrity. As long as we can say that, we’ll do OK in this business.

Jim Parker
Director of Sales
Complete Business Systems, Inc.Longview, TX

How to Transform Yourself into A Solution Selling Guru!

With the industry rapidly changing and the on-set on Direct Branches just moving boxes to capture clicks, it is essential that we transform to solution selling.

So what is Solution Selling? Solution Selling can be a sale that incorporates a piece of hard with a software solution. It could be something as simple as a print driver setting that saves the customer time or something as elaborate as a Document Management Software application that is also have as piece of hardware attached to the sale.

How Do I Find Out If They Are in Need of A Solution?

There are many ways, it all starts with asking questions in reference to their workflow and "How" and "Why" they do what they do with a document or a piece of paper. Also to be on the lookout for certain situations of hardware and software. I'll take a few scenarios from situations that I saw in the field.

1. Side by Side Faxes: I was on an appointment with a referral from one of my clients in New Jersey, I asked him if I could "tour" his operation before we sat down. My client was very obliging and took me for a tour, while on the tour I saw two side by side faxes. Now, I know two side by side faxes are a dead give away that A: They have a heavy inbound and outbound traffic of faxes, B: They were probably not using LAN fax software and C: These faxes had a high cost per page.

I then asked about "How" they use these faxes for inbound and outbound, if I could pull a report from each fax and "Why" were they printing their faxes and where do the faxes go once they arrive?

After finding out the why and how, I offered to do an ROI Analysis Report on his fax workflow. By the time I was done with this particular department, I had on order for an MFP with Dual Fax lines, and a 5 user license of Ecopy Desktop Software, along with this they were now going to use LAN fax for all of their outbound documents with Ecopy. The end result was a piece of software and hardware sold at MSRP plus a customer who was elated with the paper/toner savings along with the increased productivity!

2. Printing, Gathering n Collating: I see this all of the time! People will print various document from different applications, and will then gather them together and manually collate the documents into a set and then place them in the copier for additional sets (whew), what a waste of time! On the other hand this customer was ripe for ECopy Desktop Software. If you don't know already Ecopy can act as a "virtual printer" and print copies a the documents to Ecopy software, from their the cleint can see all of their pages from all of the different applications, they can move any page to an position in the document and create a virtual document that has been electronically collated within the Ecopy software. From there the document can then be printed, faxed or emailed and then converted to a pdf document.

Once I see someone who is doing this I'll ask them this basic question, "what happens when you need another copy of this document?" Most will groan and state they have to spend hours remembering the file name from each application and then find those documents on their system. I'll then ask them that if there was a piece of software that could save them all of this anguish would they be interested? You know the answer.

So, in essence LAN Fax and ECopy are simple solutions that will help you become the "more knowledgeable" rep and can provide a relief of pain that is associated with the day to day activities of the document workflow in the office.

Becoming a solution seller means to be interactive with the customer, ask questions and probe into the "How" and "Why" they do what they do. Use your eyes, and ears whether you are cold calling or conducting an appointment. If you have an idea, let the customer know that you have an idea that may help them. Everyone is interested in hearing a better way of doing something.

Again, these are just a few of the "simple" solutions that will get you going, as you become more knowledgeable with software and hardware capabilities you will become more adept at offering advanced solutions, these simple and advanced solutions will make you stand out in the crowd and make the customer less likely to shop your price.