Ricoh Vision 2007 @ Dallas, Texas

Well, I'll be on my way in the morning for Ricoh's Vision meeting for Ricoh Dealers, will try to get access every night to give a short report on what I heard and saw. Say tuned, and be sure to check in the next few days! Ricoh is Ichiban!

MFP Dealers "Seasons of Change"

The last eighteen months in the New York Metro Area has truly been a "Season of Changes" to remember!

Some of the acquisitions Connecticut Business Systems (Ricoh & Konica Minolta)bought by Global, Carr Business Systems (Canon, Ricoh & Konica Minolta)bought by Global, Stewart Industries (Savins largest Dealer in US) bought by Global, Copy Dynamics (Canon) bought by Stewart Industries (Global Owned), Northern Business Systems (Ricoh)bought by Toshiba, Lanier US now Ricoh Business Solutions and then all of Global purchased by Xerox WHEW!!!! All of these dealers have territories with in 100 miles of each other, it's the megalopolis of the NE and the greatest NOPA numbers in the US.

So, I'm sitting at my home office the other night and started to ponder on how the competition has changed. We'll it seems that most of the competition now is a "Direct Sales Force", as much as Global will say they are not direct how are they going to compete against a Xerox Direct Sales Force and on the other hand how am I going to compete against all of these organizations? Ricoh Direct Branch, Toshiba Direct Branch, Konica Minolta Direct Branch, Sharp Direct Branch, Xerox, hey what the heck happened to all of the Dealers?

I was on the phone today with a friend that is the Sales Manager at Sharp Investment Dealer today and we counted the dealers that were left that were doing about 5 million in sales volumes and not less 1 million, we could only think of 5! Just a few years ago there were 15 Dealers.

So, how do you compete? It's the basics, cold calling, mailing and the casual dropping to say hello to let the account know that you are available for them at any time and anywhere. Remembering that the customer is always right and as long as you believe and treat the customer that they are always right they will always buy from you again and again.

Thank God that Manufacturers Direct Branches have not found away to compensate the best sales people, if so we would all be working for them. Direct Sales Branches are too rigid in structure, too many layers of management, and takes months to implement changes. Guess that's why I like working for a smaller dealer, it is easy to make changes, and decisions can be made in minutes. If I had worked for a Direct Branch I would have not been able to watch all of my sons baseball games from Little League through college, would not have been able to take those long weekends and GOD bless cell phones take a couple of extra weeks of vacation each year (gee, hope my boss does not reads this, however I think he will, just kidding Jack!).

Well, it's off to Ricohs National Convention in Dallas, we see many friends there and will have a few things to say when I get back!

Why are MFP manufacturers not GREEN!

You've hear it over and over, it's all about capturing pages, especially in the SMB market place. So, why do MFP manufacturers like Canon, Xerox, Ricoh and Konica Minolta continue to manufacture stand alone laser printers that have a high per page cost with thier AIO cartdiges (All In One) and are not good for the environment?

Since I have sold Ricoh for so long, I'll start with a Ricoh MFP161, this unit can be purchased as just a copier, or fax/copier or a copier/printer/scanner/fax. This system also prints at 16 page per minute and can up to three paper source trays. Whats great about the MP161? The low cost of toner! The toner cost is .004 per page at retail. An Image Drum for the Ricoh MP161 is around $160 and has a yield of 45,000 pages which has a per page cost of .00355. Total per page cost at retail is around .00755. Oh, and by the way the toner cartridge is rated at 6% coverage.

Ricoh also sells the BP20 laser printer, which prints at 22 pages per minute, and can also have upto three paper sources. The Ricoh BP20 uses a AIO (All In One) cartridge that houses the toner and the drum. Retail cost for the cartridge is $124 and the yield is 5,000 pages based on 5% coverage. The retail cost per page is .0248 per page.

These numbers represent a savings of .01725 per page.

I realize that these per page costs do not include the fuser units, however I am going to give them a bye, because I think each one will negate the other. If the BP20 needs a fuser most customers will throw it (this really helps us GO GREEN) out because of the price and buy another printer, representing an increased cost to almost as much as the cost of the fuser replacement on the MP161.

Here's my spin for all of the MFP manufacturers, lets assume they all have the technology to implement a World Wide "GO GREEN" strategy. Take the existing MPF engine of the MP161 and sell it with out the scanning attachment (top part of the unit). Increase the print speed to 20 pages per minute or better. Hey, I'll be the first one to admit I have no clue what it costs to manufacture the MP161 engine or the BP20 laser printer. However if all of the manufacturers took the time to educate the buyers on Total Document Volume, Total Life Cycle Cost and the detrement to the enviroment from laser printers and AIO cartridges being discarded, they may have something.

I don't mean to rip one manufacturer with this, they all have the same philosphy in place when it comes to stand alone printers. I choose Ricoh products, becuase Ricoh is what I know best and believe they have excellent products. Canon, Xerox, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, anyone that is using AIO cartridges in stand alone laser printers is not helping us "Go GREEN", yes they all have recycling for the AIO cartidges, however at this time I do not believe any of them have a recycling for the laser printers nor their MFP's.

Will MFP's ever outsell standalone printers in this market?

On Demand "Boston" 2007 Review

Noreaster Steals the Show in Boston for On Demand 2007

Wind, Rain, Dreary and Damp weather cuts attendance at the show.



This was my fifth year attending the On Demand Show, twice in Phili and twice in New York City, the attendance is Boston was poor compared to having the shows in New York City. Get this...next year they are going to have the show the first week of March in Boston!! Who the heck wants to be in Boston the first week of March? I'll be in sunny Florida next year at that time and I will not have any regrets about not attending the show!

Most Interesting TechnologyThe worlds first duplexing duplicator from.... Ricoh, the DX 4640PD! Seeing is believing, the DX 4640PD was producing double sided (letter size) pages at 120 pages per minute! The technology is pretty interesting, both pages are scanned onto the 11x17 master, the paper then contacts one side of the master for the first image and then turns to make contact with the master again for the second image on the reverse side. The technology is the patented turn around system and roller that Ricoh developed. Great applications for church, associations and maybe Print4Pay market. The engine that they are using is the HQ7000, which is only capable of 400dpi printing, I would have rather seen this available at 600dpi for the Print4Pay market, however I think Ricoh can get more pages out of the association and churches markets than Print4Pay with the 400 dpi device. Print4Pay really needs a 600 dpi machine and the ability to produce 11x17 two sided.

Best Looking MFP KonicaMinolta's bixhub C550, 45 ppm color, 55 ppm mono, Biometric Authentic Technology that reads your finger vien to authenticate! Plus a snazy color swivel screen that seems easy to navigate. The KM rep told me that system is rated for 30% business color usage, plus I liked the idea of having large indicator lights when the paper trays were empty. Konica Minolta also showed a perfect binging system for their high end Pro series.

MX-M1100 from Sharp Hi speed digital MPF from Sharp, looked very similar to Ricoh's MP1350 and even had 11x17 large paper deck just like the Ricoh, the more I looked at it the more it looked like a direct copy of Ricohs MP1350, however it was not. One neat feature was the ability to plug in a usb drive for printing documents. The system was demoed to me, copy and print quality was very good, however one thing I noticed is that there was hardly anyone looking at this system.

Neat Stuff Panasonic showed a desktop scanner that was able to scan checks, documents and credit cards all in the same pass! NEAT!

Panasonic "Eye Candy" line of color MFP's the colors were cool, they had the yellow one on display and when looking at it I had the urge to build something. I think it reminded me of Stanley Tape measures. This system also had a usb port for file printing and image viewing, now that was pretty cool, I was able to plug my usb in, then all of my pictures were displayed on the color screen, from their I was able to select what I wanted to print and print them in a collated order. Very Nice!

What was Missing! HP EdgeLine, was no where to be found! They had brochures and that's about it. That was the biggest disappointment of the show, did you all know that the HP EdgeLine not have a "stress plate" for moving the system? How the heck are you going to get this up or down a flight of stairs? Since there is no "stress plate", you can not use a "stairclimber" Can you image trying to install or remove this system up and down a few flights of stairs!

Hey why don't they have this show in Orlando or Vegas in January! I'm sure the attendance would go way up!

SCOTTI, I NEED MORE SPEED!

I can remember Captian Kirk from Star Trek, always tell Scotti (Chief Engineer) that they always needed more speed to get out of a jam. Well, beleive or not RAM Logic, Inc., has the technology to increase speeds copy and prints speeds for multi functional copiers for the Ricoh Family Group.

Ram Logic offers two chips one that is compatible with Ricoh Aficio 1060, Gestetner 6002, Savin 2560, Lanier LD 160 (including sp versions)and the other is compatible with Ricoh Aficio 2051/2060, Gestetner Dsm651/660, Savin 4051/4060, Lanier LD151/160 (including sp versions).

I was at a meeting the other day for Ricoh and we were speaking about the MP9000, MP1100 and the MP1350 and how all these units are identical, except for the software (chip) that controls the spacing of sheets when running through the copier, if you decrease the gap or space between sheets the result would be a faster copier/printer.

Think of the upgrade possibilities for some of your existing accounts. You could call or visit and ask if they would like to increase the speed and productivy of their unit for only one dollar a day, turn all of the 55's to 75ppm devices. That's a 37% increase in speed!

When talking with Ram Logic, I understand that they are developing the technology for other RFG units as well. I would love to see one for the MP series of devices.

I love the idea and the marketing potential can be enormous, of course you'll have to get approval from Dealer Management and of course the manufacturer will not like it, there's a lot of smart people out their always thinking and it's people like RAM Logic that enable us to sell more solutions for the customer.

Just wish there was a way to beam the "off lease copiers" back to the leasing companies, now that would really be awesome! Here is Ram Logic web address www.ram-logic.com

Off to the SHOW at AIIM/On Demand

For the fifth year in a row, I will be attending the AIIM/On Demand Show. This years show is in Boston, MA. Products I looking to evaluate, HP's Edgeline CM8050/8060, Samsung's 6345N, a Ricoh Digital Duplicator (with duplexer), and then what ever tickles my fancy. I'm sure the buzz on the floor is going to be awesome with the recent bombshells that were launched this week and last week! I've hear that Konica Minolta may have been hit the hardest in the Xerox Buy of Global!

Will give you all a run down when I'm back in town

HP's Touted Edgeline MFP's "Ready to Rock"?

Information sure has been limited prior to the US launch of HP's CM8050 and CM8060, however isn't the Internet fantastic? I was able to download a brochure on the CM8050/8060 from HP's site in Singapore.

Truly, State of the Art Technology from HP......when it comes to ink technology! HP is claiming speeds of 71ppm for the 8060 and 57 ppm for the 8050. One phrase that always concerns me is this one "up to" , that's how the CM series is being marketing, with this phrase "delivers speeds at up to 71ppm for less complex documents". This sounds to me that this is a "draft mode" and in order to have better quality you will need to sacrifice speed, how much speed? I have no clue at this time. I will say if I am spending $15K plus on a machine, I do need to know what speed it will print my color documents at. Also, what constitutes a "complex document"? Is it MS Word, MS Publisher, Quark, Pagemaker, give me a little help when I'm reading the brochure.

I truly love the idea of a print head that does not move and the paper does, this is awesome technology. But, if HP is gonna play in the big boys back yard, why would they develop a system that can only handle a max 58lb stock? Canon has proved over the years that customers who buy color MFP's want thick media flexibility, plus the ability to duplex the thick media. Plus, how often do I have to replace the ink cartridges? Am I putting a gallon of ink in at a time, ya and you all thought gas was expensive!

When trying to get an idea of the cost per page on the CM series all I read is that the cost is "around" 25% less than color printers and then this disclaimer at the bottom of the document reads IDC Insight, “HP’s Edgeline Technology: HP Edges Ink into the Office”, 2006—”IDC estimates the colour cost per page of the Edgeline technology-based MFP will be about 25% less than the average colour cost per page of similarly featured colour laser MFPs from competing manufacturers”. Hey, I'm ok with this also as long as you can tell me what the average cost is, just seems like to much mumbo jumbo to me.

Some other items that I found is a 12 second FCOT (first copy), 1,500 Sheet of standard paper supply with three paper trays, an 80 sheet by-pass paper tray, plus a choice of three output devices. Oh, forgot this one, the CM8060/CM8050 weighs in at hefty 725LBS!!, with out accessories. It also seems that no booklet maker was designed for this system.

So, what does this mean for the other MFP manufacturers, Xerox, Ricoh, Canon, Kyocera Mita, Sharp and the others? I'm not sure.... I tend to think that HP will stay at home in the markets they already own, some aggressive dealers will branch out and take some business from the their rivals. To date I have not seen any prints from these units, nor the type of paper that it's printed on. I've heard that the color cpc will be at .03 cents and black at .01, that's very inexpensive for color and average for black. Good reps will put their heads together and find a way to sell against it for awhile, however it seems like ink technology is the future for hi speed color I will be in Boston later this month for the "On Demand Show" and hope HP will have the unit there.

See you in Boston!

Personal Desktop Scanners "Wave of the Future"?

A few months ago I was in a clients office doing an analysis for their printing needs in New Jersey. As I was going from office to office, I noticed that everyone had their own personal desktop scanners. This particular client had 12 Fugitsu ScanSnap S500's ($495 Retail)and all were connected locally via USB. As I made the rounds with the owner to each office, I was curious why the desktop scanners and not scanning from the MFP's, he stated that scanning at an MFP wastes time and productivity and for $500 each, he figured he was saving almost 20 hours a month of productivity! He also stated that all documents are scanned locally and then distributed or archived. I thought this was pretty neat idea and tucked it away in the ole memory banks. Just a few weeks ago doing another print analysis I again encountered 15 of the these scanners at another location, hmmmmmmm is this coincidence or a new fad.

Just yesterday one of my clients called me and asked me to quote on 6 desktop scanners similar to the Fugitsu, although he mentioned that he had seen the Canon DR2050c (Retail $695) and liked what he saw. Now this got my attention!

The Fugitsu Scan Snap S500 comes with a 50 page feeder, ABBY Fine Reader, USB 2.0, and scans at 36ppm in mono chrome and 18 ppm in color (150 dpi). Nice little box plus it is an upright scanner, the foot print is just under the size of a letter size piece of paper.

When comparing prices on the Internet, this are no margins, maybe $50 per box, however an solution like this may get you the MFP sales over someone else where scanning is an issue.

Keep it in your back pocket, I surely will.

Xerox Slams Home Run with Global Purchase!!

Boy oh boy, you just never know whats going to happen in our industry! Xerox down and out for the count three years ago, and boldly takes a step where no manufacturer has gone before. Xerox has upped the anti in the MFP War. Xerox acquiring Global Imaging located in Tampa, Florida will add an additional 1400 sales people on the street in the SMB market, plus an annuity stream that may top 1 Billion Dollars. The total price is $1.5 Billion, I'll bet there are a lot of Global Execs counting their greenbacks right about now and getting ready for an early retirement.

However, what does this purchase mean for the rest of the industry? Ricoh, Canon and Konica Minolta stand to lose substantial placements and revenue streams in the years to come. Hey, I think it may be time to start buying Danka and Ikon stock, if you think Ricoh and Canon are going to stand buy and not do anything... I think you haven't seen the whole picture yet. The time may be right for Ricoh to buy Ikon and Canon to buy Danka, its all about protecting your channels. Well, Xerox just took a big chunk of their channels today!

If Ricoh and Canon bought Ikon and Danka, could we see a replay of what happened twenty years ago, when Ikon and Danka first started. Could there or is there enough room for another huge round of dealerships being merged and bought to form a new conglomeration of dealers under another National Corporation?


How will Xerox handle their new partner? I for one would like to know how Xerox is going manage a direct sales force and then the sales force of Global, they are of two different cultures in the industry. Can they develop a successful marketing and dealer program that will enable both the direct sales force and Global to co-exist? Will Xerox handcuff them with short margins on boxes, supplies and parts? What about the logistics of supplying a 21 new core regions? I'm sure there is going to be many headaches and many success stories. Another question, what happens with Xerox's direct sales force? Will they be merged with the 21 core offices, will they be able to keep their jobs...... very interesting, we'll have to wait and see.

How will the Global employees react, their culture was always to sell against Xerox. Xerox was the name you had to beat, do they then become complacent because they now have the name?

I havn't seen or heard from a Xerox salesperson in my territory in the last few years and yes I concentrate in the SMB market place. Now, things will change as they always do and will, I will also have to change as I always do, when Xerox comes to town!

Samsung Stings MFP Manuafactuers!!!

It had to happen, did I think it was going to be MFP new comer Samsung! NO!!!

Samsung recentely released their flagship MFP the SCX-6345N. With a copy speed of 45ppm for letter and suplex print speed of 42ppm they have stunned the MFP market place, this is only the second system on the market that I know of that will not copy, scan or print 11x17, but as I have stated before, how many customers really need to print, copy or scan 11x17!

It has always been my contention that more of these systems should be developed and marketed to companies that do not need 11x17 capability. There are other options also, such as fax, finisher and stapling

A brief look at the unit tells me that this unit can an will compete with the likes of Ricoh, Canon and Xerox and will take significant clicks away from them! Dealers and sales people have been yearning for a system like this. Consumables, you bet! Drum is rated for 60K, Fuser for 200K, transfer unit 100K, Pick up Roller 100K, and toner is 20K. I have searched for supply pricing, however I had not found any, and I hope to have this in a few days so I can comment on the TCO and the CPC pricing.

Think of the possibilities! You can now sell a 45ppm MFP along with a 45 ppm color laser printer that has the 11x17 print capability less than the price of a 25ppm color MFP! Dealers who hop on this trend will be able to place more units at full retail and command a good margin on cpc pricing.

Here are a few statements from the Samsung web site:

Printing: At 43 prints per minute (simplex) and 40 prints per minute (duplex) your workloads cab be completed efficiently. And with many standard printing functions built in you can expand the range of your printing jobs.

Copying: Not only does the SCX-6345N's produce 43 copies per minute in A4 size but its duplex copy speed is almost as fast ~ 40 copies per minute when using the in built Document Feeder[DADF]. Moreover, the SCX-6345N performs nearly all the copy functions that are generally operated on A3 copiers.

Fax Option: With the optional Fax kit installed you can experience a variety of functions such as speed dial up to 200 numbers, group dial up to 100 groups (max. location per 1 group is 200), duplex send and receive, Fax-Email and etc. And because of the Duplex function then received faxes can be printed out double sided to reduce your operating costs.

Network Scanning: The SCX-6345N supports efficient distribution of scanned documents by allowing you to send them through email, FTP, SMB, Client.

All in all a force to be reckoned with in the emerging MFP Wars! Hey, it's all about the clicks RIGHT!!!!!!!

Are you Selling in a Vertical Market?

Today's offering from manufacturers is overwhelming to say the least. I can remember starting out on the business where one of the requirements is that you had to own or have access to a station wagon! One of the basic routines was to load a copier in the morning and then go cold calling, and if you found a hot prospect you would ask them if they would like to see a demonstration of the product. When they replied yes, you stated "great, I have one in the car, where can we do the demonstration? Yes, the good ole days when doors weren't locked, no soliciting signs were not the order of the day along with any intercoms and cameras to allow access.

Since, 2001 I have taken a vertical market approach to selling, having a territory that is high in NOPA ratings allows for a multitude of possible accounts. The vertical market that I concentrate on is Construction; which incorporates architects, engineers, general contractors, contractors, surveyors, mechanical contractors, and security systems companies.

Focusing on a vertical market allows me to learn more about each of this business and how they print, copy, fax and scan on a daily basis. I have become very familiar with the terms and their language, and boy does this help when trying to open the doors for discussion or attempting to dig for a solution that you might be able to present. Knowing their language positions you as the expert and the consultant that they can rely on for up to date solutions. It's really not as big a world as everyone thinks it is, most companies know of everyone else in their industry and have at last heard of them.

Here's how I started, I started with wide format systems for a few reasons. One the competition is not as fierce as regular copiers and the margins are usually higher due to the fact that there are only a few manufacturers. Plus the volume of paper that's needs to be copied, printed and faxed is enormous.

Focus on your smaller architectural firms that have 5-15 employees, most of the time when cold calling in person or when calling on the telephone you will be able to get to the owner of the firm. From there you need to use your skills to close for an appointment or a demonstration. Once you have sold an architectural firm you must ask for references, you can ask for Mechanical Engineers, General Contractors or Excavators and even Landscape Architects. All of these will have a need for wide format, copiers, scanners and fax. By the way, you can also go back to all of the wide format accounts and then solicit them for copiers, printers and fax.

Keep the ball rolling; use the "6 foot" approach when working the vertical market. Whenever you get within six feet of them ask them if they are need of saving time or saving money with their wide format documents.

I developed a mailing list for the wide format vertical market and every month I send out mailers to them. I do this in quarters, meaning the first month is for wide format, the second month is for MFP's and the third month is for software solutions (ecopy desktop, fax server software). Each quarter I repeat the process, after about one right or nine mailings, you will have clients calling you!

You can get your lists from Trade Associates, just go on the Internet and do a search for type of companies that you are interested. After the mailing I will also conduct phone calls and in person cold calls to the accounts. Conducting your prospecting this way will insure that you will get an audience sometime in the future.

Become a member for these trade organizations and offer to sponsor a meeting; most of these associations will have monthly or quarterly meetings. We have done a few of these and are always looking to do more. Nothing is better than having a captive audience and showing that you are recommended by their Trade Association.

Vertical Market Selling allows you to become an Expert in their business in a short amount of time and also allows you to spend more time with learning Features, Advantages and Benefits of the hardware that will be suit their needs.

Ricoh Organizational Changes

Ricoh has finally pulled the trigger on the much anticipated merger of Lanier and Ricoh. The new Corporation will be call Ricoh Americas Corporation. The U.S. business unit of Ricoh Americas Corporation will continue to be known as Ricoh U.S.

Lanier's Direct Sales Force will be merged with Ricoh Business Systems and thier name will change to Ricoh Business Solutions and they will sell Ricoh branded products.

Existing Gestetner Dealers and Lanier Dealers will be merger to form a new National Dealer Network selling Lanier branded products and the Gestetner name will be phased out!

I for one had hoped that the Lanier name would just go away, but instead they opted to remove one of the oldest names in the business Gestetner.

The name change of Ricoh Business Systems to Ricoh Business Solutions is ideal for changing market place, however the clout of this merger may hurt Ricoh Dealers. What I mean is that you will now have twice as many reps running around telling customers that they are buying from Ricoh Direct! If they were buying direct they would be buying from Ricoh Americas Corporation right?

Will all of these branches have to turn a profit? Or are they there just to gain market share by selling on price. I believe I read an article where most of these business units were losing money and very few were turning a "real" profit. What's whacked out about RBS is the compensation for thier sales reps, paying commissions on Gross Dollars billed is bad for the industry, and most direct sales locations of all manufacturers have turned great pieces of equipment into a commodities market. When you compensate your reps on gross dollars, who cares how much is made on the box. Unfortunatley Dealers again will bear the brunt of this merger. Ricoh Americas Corporation must take a note from Dealers and learn "how to sell" and "how to sell solutions", Ricoh's Dealers must turn a profit, if not they will be out of business. So why is it that thier branches can not or will not turn a profit? From what I have seen is that the best and most experienced reps are working for dealers and not branches, hmmmmm why is that?

Another thought comes to mind, with the merger of Lanier Dealers and Gestener Dealers, what are they going to call themselves Lanier Direct? I'm sure there are a few Gestetner Dealers that are not happy with the way this has panned out. They spent all these years selling against the Lanier's and now they must adopt the name change.

I sell down the street, just like alot of you, the last thing I need is another 4 reps in my area telling customers that they are direct with Ricoh and another 4 reps selling the same model number.

Don't you think it would be a great time to launch the Great American Copier Corporation, darn... forgot about Xerox, however most of thier boxes are manufactured overseas also.

On My Way Home!

I was on my way home from Palm Beach, Florida (went there to watch my son's collge baseball team) and the wife and I decided to get a drink at the airport in West Palm.

I ordered two Bloody Mary's, one for me and one for the wife. After I ordered the bartender asked if I would like a double for $2.00 more, I agreed and then he asked if I would like a triple for another two dollars, I agreed again. While I was there I watched this bartender work his magic. Everyone who ordered a beer, he would then tell them that for every beer they ordered they could get a shot for an additional three dollars more! This guy was must have poured 20 shots while I was at the bar!

This guy was a terrific sales person! Ask and ye shall recieve, I am taking a note from his aggressive style and will be asking all of my cleints if they would like an additional small from MFP for only $8.00 more per month!

Position Yourself as an Expert

Do you feel that you are the one of the best at selling MFP's? Do you consult more to the end user and then let the customer buy from you? Are you consistently producing print assessment reports for customers that have and instant ROI?

If so, you need to add this weapon to your arsenal. In your territory look up the 10 largest CPA firms. Once you have them, be prepared to make the calls to success!

CPA firms are in the business of making money as are all of us, they have many business clients that have trusted their services for years and years. What we want to do is to add value to the CPA's service's that they provide to their business clients, by added a new service for their customers. A customized Print Assessment Report for their clients.

Positioning yourself as an expert in the field of print assessments, meaning you are offering your services to the CPA firm for their clients, the CPA firm can either bill out this service or include it as an additional service that they offer for their clients. Your goal is to sell your knowledge and nothing else. Have copies of Print Assessments that you have completed to show the accounting firm what the typical report entails, here you are breaking the mold from the common copier salesperson and establishing yourself as the expert. You can even offer a FREE print assessment to the accounting firm to show them your expertise and your creative ideas for print assessment and print migration.

You can start by telling them about the high cost of printing to multiple devices and that you specialize in provided a detailed print assessment cost of what they are spending and a solution to save their clients money and or productivity. Your fees can be as much as $150 per hour plus expenses for your work.

All of the information needed is at your finger tips, companies like Ricoh offer a COG (customer opportunity generator), this software program gives you real life per page cost for about 95% of all the print devices that are on the market. For the other 5% you can do your research on the internet.

In reference to all of the print device software that is on the market..... they are ok, however nothing is better than visiting every single print device, generating a report and then interviewing the end user for thier needs. Interview can uncover tremendous saving and opportunities for all.

If you would like a copy of my print assessment report and a copy of my print assessment excel spreadsheet please send me and email. These are not free however, I am selling them for a small fee ($10.00). Both of these reports were customized over the years and have a proven track record for a professional presentation and the opportunity to close the deal.

Ricoh, Way to Support Your Printer Dealers!

I get a copy of CRN Magazine delivered to my home every month. Congrats to Ricoh they won another AWARD for an Annual Partner Report Card for VARs (Value Added Resellers). As I was reading the ad/award, I noticed a link for Ricoh that I had not seen before www.ricoh-usa.com/resellers.

Hey you know me; I went in to take a peak, just the usual marketing stuff for resellers. I then saw a link to buy a Ricoh printer, now my curiosity was up. I clicked the link, then the search bar asked for state, products (you could click, printers, multifunctional printers and scanners). So, I put the info in for New Jersey, selected the “find now” button and did not find my dealership, just a bunch of VAR's. That’s OK I though, let me check out some of my friends areas, so I did a search for Tennessee and Texas, still no dealers just VAR's. I was ok with this too and then went back to the home page for Ricoh. Off to the left you can click "IT solutions for business". I did and it brought me to www.ricoh-usa.com/itchannel/. And there it was again, a link for "where to buy" I clicked and it brought me to same info that I had saw before on the reseller’s page!

Now to me, someone who supports Ricoh, eats sleeps and breathes their products and sells Ricoh printers I found this offensive to dealers and dealer salespeople alike! Our printer DSM comes in from time to time and gives the old yahoo to sell more printers, more Ricoh, they are the best and we will support you! Some dealer support you got there!

I thought about someone who will visit an office and see a Ricoh printer or printers and will ask how is the printer, do you like it? The user then gives a glowing report, and then that prospective client is off to the web to see more and then find out where he can get one! Not from us dealers!!! Just VAR's, what the heck did VAR's ever do for Ricoh, we were the ones who suffered with the POS that they first came out with, not the VAR's, we continued to sell and support printers and over time they got better and better.

Way to go Ann Moser and the rest of the Ricoh Printer Group. Can't wait to hear or see my printer rep either at Dallas or in Boston!

Leasing Tips

Recently it came to my attention that CIT Financial has different rates for fax machines and laser printers. The rates for these types of units are higher than the MFP rates for multi-functional devices. I would guess that the reasoning is that CIT was not able to get a good return for these units once they came off v clease.

However this new lease structure has raised a few questions:

1. What happens when you have a combination of equipment, MFP's Faxes and Laser Printers? Are they going to blend the rate or do all of it at the MFP FMV rate?

2. When using the higher rate, will we (the dealer) get a better offer to buy the equipment?

What I find most unsettling is the leasing companies unwillingness to budge from their buy-out or upgrade rates, I would tend to think that most dealers would buy the equipment if they were using a "TRUE" fair market value.

Zero Interest Financing

A few months ago I called one of the leasing companies that we do business with and asked him to device an end of the year special for us. What I wanted was a 60 Month Zero Percent Finance with a $1.00 Purchase Option. The leasing companies will then get out their "bean counters" and give you a rate or a deduction off the invoice to meet your requirements. To my surprise the leasing company (USXL) reneged and said that they would not offer this type of program!

Ok, so I have to do it my self. Here's what I did, I presented a proposal for list price and then divided it by 60 payments. So, for a 60 month lease on $15,000 the customer would have to pay $250 per month. Then I backed out the rate for the dollar out payment, the equation is payment divided by rate factor equals money to dealer. In this case the dealer would receive $11,520.73 and $3,479.63 went to the leasing company (not a bad cut for them). Then I had to figure the cost of the machine and if I thought the GP was sufficient for the deal. It was, so I presented the offer and the deal sold.

There are many buyers out there who will only buy and never lease, the problem I was found with these customers is they tend to hold onto old technology too long and it's like pulling teeth to get them to upgrade, this scenario pulls at their purse strings and gets them the best of two worlds, they own the equipment at the and they are not paying the interest (actually the dealer is). Plus at the end of the term they may be more likely to do the same deal again.

Good Selling To All!

What's Hot! LAN FAXING!!!

Fax Servers, LAN Faxing and ECOPY Desktop! Lets face it the old way of faxing is slowing dying. A recent poll on the P4P showed that 85% of documents that were faxed are generated from the PC.

Usually customers will create a cover page in MS Word or WordPerfect, and will then print other documents from different applications. They will then gather the documents, assemble them in order and then walk them to the fax machine. Once they are there, they will place the documents in the feeder and then select or dial the number needed. Users will then wait for the documents and then return to their desk with the faxed documents and a report if needed.

Many fax ROI spreadsheets state that the average time is to send a fax is fifteen minutes! Sending only four faxes a day could take one hour of productivity and cost the company as much as $25.00 per day. Can you imagine if you had twenty people each sending four faxes a day! Then add up the pages that were printed on the printer and the cost of paper.

Software programs like ECopy Desktop and ZetafaxDUO enable the clients to print pages to the desktop and then rearrange them in any order that they like. Once they have arranged the pages they can then select the LAN fax printer. Here they can add a cover page or with ZetafaxDUO they could add their logo and create a cover page on the application. With one touch of the mouse, the documents can be faxed with out printing any pages thereby reducing the time that it took to prepare the fax the old way. Your clients could save hundreds or thousands of hours a year in productivity. Also, do not forget to ask the customer about lost faxes, many customers lose incredible amounts of time because they have misplaced a fax.

Fax Servers will take care of this because they capable of archiving the documents on the server and will allow the customer to retrieve the document if it is every lost or misplaced. Another great feature of some fax servers is that you can direct output to any network print device. Directing prints to less expensive print device can also save hundreds or thousands of dollars for your client. Some fax servers even allow to you direct the incoming faxes to email accounts, where they can then be viewed or printed!

I've been selling these types of solutions with success, when you put a solution in front of a client they are less likely to shop and usually can not recreate "your" solution. I have attached a fax questioner to use when interviewing your client.

Look for the questioner for fax work flow here

Knowing Your Product!

Recently, I had three appointments from new clients that were interested in purchasing or leasing new Multi-Functional Copy, Print, Scan & Fax Systems.

One of the first questions I ask is related to their monthly volume, if they do not know I will ask to print reports from each system to assess their volume. Once this is completed I can recommend a system that will meet or exceed their volume expectations.

One particular client wanted a color multi-functional and they wanted to migrate their color prints, black prints and copies to one system. After accessing the machine reports for their volume I found their volume to be about 17,000 pages per month of color and mono prints and copies.

They had a quote from a local manufacturers branch that propose a 35ppm system. I knew right from the start that this would be the wrong purchase for them. Th 35ppm system was rated for an average monthly volume of 10,000 pages per month. Here's where the problem starts.

I work for an independent dealer an the quote was from the manufacturers rep. Who is the customer to believe? Yes, I had to "prove" to them that the initial system that was quoted from the manufacturers rep, I had the manufacturers average monthly volumes and then the ridiculous maximum volume and then had to struggle with the customer on what this means to them. Keep in mind that I also had to tell them that a system from me would be $40,000 compared to $12,000. This sale is still pending, I ended up quoted the larger system and then a quote for the same system that they already had.

My beef is with the rep who gave them the quote, they were obviously in experienced and did not do their homework to meet the customers needs with a qualified system that will last the term of the lease and not be a boat anchor to the customer after two years!

A week later I ran up against Dealer for Canon that had recommended an iR2880i to the client and here too the clients volume was closer to 20,0000 pages month. Again, I had to jump through hoops to explain that the initial proposal would not meet their needs.

Too all of the reps who may read this, DO YOUR HOMEWORK!. Do you want to have this customer long term or are you out to make a quick buck and don't want to be bothered with the leg work. These types of situations make it bad for all of us!

Take the time and read the manufacturers specifications, and memorize the average volumes, because these are real. Maximum volumes means that once or twice or maybe three times the system could sustain this volume, however not on a monthly basis!

Learn how to get the meter reads from the printers, faxes and copiers in the office. You can then present a proposal that is real world. If you don't you will run into reps like me who will get the sale and your lack of knowledge will prove to be your downfall.

Return a Phone Call One Time!

One thing that gets me going is the courtesy of a return phone!

Is it too much to ask that I get a return phone call when leaving a message! Over the last few years it seems that no one is returning calls anymore especially to sales people. Keep in mind that most of the time the client or potential customer called us first! We then call them back immediately, stopped what we were working on and returned their call and then met with the client or gave them they information that they were looking for. What's the big deal about making a return call?

If you are not intersted in our services just make the call and tell us, we are all grown ups here. If you do not have a decision yet, that's OK to, just let us know and we'll scheduled a call somewhere down the road. The process of not returning a phone creates extra work and more calls.

The last thing we want to do is be a pain in the butt, however if you're not returning a call, we have no idea what is going on. Maybe your voice mail is not working, maybe you're out on vacation or just not interested. WE ARE NOT MIND READERS! I'll be it's the same thing on the customers end, is that nothing upsets them more when they do not get a return call from a sales person. Common Professional courtesy goes along way in a business relationship and it all starts with the first line of communication "the phone call" .

by Art Post
6:19:00 AM

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Ikon aligns with Kyocera

Ikon aligns with Kycoera for three different mfp solutions. Ricoh and Canon will feel the pinch along with many dealers that do not sell the Kyocera line. Kyocera's TCO is one of the lowest in the industry.

Ten years ago I sold Mita products and thought they were ok, nothing superior and always doubted thier reliabilty and longevity.

Heck, Kyocera Dealers have got to be beside themselves with this move. The dealers are the sole reason for the re-emergence of the Kyo line, they stuck with the product and kept placing boxes all these years and now Kyocera slaps them in the face. It's all about moving boxes isn't it?

Now, Ikon's job will get tougher. I think they deal with three different manufacturers now and will have to get reps, techs and CE's upto snuff on the machines, software and features. This will not be an easy task for Ikon unless they are thinking of dumping Ricoh or Canon (which I doubt).

I'll see how it shakes out with Ikon, what I do know is that selling against thier Kyo product will be pretty easy. One point I will hit on is service, where they have always been shaky, so how can they support another manufacturer with three new models in an expert fashion. I don't think they can.