Ricoh SP W2470 Pricing Blunder?

Could the SP W2470 be the biggest pricing blunder by Ricoh Co. in Japan?

A few months ago, I thought the pricing for their new Ricoh W2400 was out of whack (and I still think so), and now the SP W2470 comes along with an MSRP $11,545 and you HAVE to buy a dual roll feeder for the unit! That's right no single roll feeder is available! This is a MAJOR fault! Ricoh should have offered both a single and a dual and let the customer decide what they need, NOT THE MANUFACTURER!

MSRP with Dual Roll Feeder and the base machine is $15,204, I thought they should have come in around $12K tops, and they would be able to capture more TDV and increase placements while increasing consumable revenues. My thoughts is that many of the existing Ricoh 240W customers would add this unit as a extra and or a backup unit. However, not at this price!

Which leads me to this, I could offer my customer a Ricoh W2400 with copy and print with a single roll feeder for a list of $16,593. There's a difference here of $1,389. Now you tell me, what would the customer rather have just a printer that would lease for $296 (60 month rate factor) per month or a copier and printer for $323.56 per month? Right, for $27.56 I'll steer them to the copier printer all of the time! It amounts to less than a DOLLAR a day to have the copy feature! Oh, and by the way! Where is the form feed key on the Ricoh W2400???? If you send a wrong paper size to the printer you can not force feed the job, you must delete the entire print job.

Last year I sold 19 Ricoh 240W units, while only two had dual roll feeders attached. For me almost 95% of my units had a single roll feeder. Give the customers what they want!

Now on the other hand it would be nice to have the Ricoh SP W2470 in a 6ppm configuration, clients could justify the cost to add a standalone 6ppm system in addition to their existing machines.

On another note seems to me that there is still another segment of the market that is untapped. A market where there are 3 to 8 employees and all they need to do is print. They are out sourcing some 40 - 80 prints a month and can't afford payments of $296 and they are buying ink plotters whether HP or Canon. It would be nice to capture these customer also.

My general opinion is that Ricoh Wide Format is resting on their laurels with the Ricoh SP W2400. Their concern was to not capture more TDV, but to hold pricing similar to the outdated technology of the their competitors. And, while I'm on the subject, most of my customers could not give three hoots about the Document Server, Web Image Monitor, and Desktop Binder Lite. Thus with the launch of the Ricoh SP W2470 they have priced these units so they will not sell!

How many will I sell this year, one, yeah one might be right.

Padded Lease Rates! Ethical or Unethical, Where do You Stand!

Ethical or Unethical? Some companies use em and some don't. For those of you who are new to the business, I'll try to make some sense of the "padded" lease rates. "Padding" means to increase the lease rate factor from what the leasing companies published rate is. Meaning, the leasing company will provide the Direct Branch or Dealer with a rate factor of .0276 for a 36 month fair market value lease, thus a $10,000 piece of equipment would cost $276.00 per month to lease. Dollar amount times rate factor equals cost per month.

Now, here comes the sneaky part (geez, I hope I do not get phone calls from attorneys with pointy sticks!). The Direct Branch or Dealer will raise the rates to the reps, such as the rate going from .0276 (36 month FMV) to .0289 (36 month FMV), thus a $10,000 piece of equipment will now cost the customer $289.00 per month. The Direct Branch or the Dealer will then "back out" the rate. Meaning, take the payment and divide by the real rate factor (.0276) which will then equal the total dollar amount that is paid to the dealer by the leasing company. In this case the dealer would receive $10,471.01 or an increased revenue of $471.01 by "padding" the rate!

What's unethical about this you might ask? For me there are a few items that bother me. (A) If I am the sales person and I wrote a sale price of $10,000 for the system it would not be true, because we would actually be receiving $10,471.01 and not $10,000. (B) The fact that it is an FMV rates means the customer would have the buy-out price assessed at $10,470.01 and not $10,000 as stated on the sales order. So, if the customer wanted to purchase the equipment at the end of the lease they would be asked to pay the FMV for the $10,470.01 and not $10,000.

Many reps just quote a price per month and never show the customer the actual cost of the unit, so would they then be ethical because they never quoted the actual sale price for the piece of equipment? In other instances the leasing companies will actually give a percentage of the total dollar amount back to the Direct Branch or Dealer by giving them higher rates, thus the "padding" comes directly from the leasing company.

My beef is why do we (Direct Branches and Dealers) use "padded" rates at all? If you want more profit for your box just increase the cost of the box to the reps and let them do their thing. Padding rates in the long run may lose more sales, because the monthly payment will be higher than your competitor if you are both at the same dollar amount. What happens when a smart rep looks at a competitors quote and realizes that the rates are "padded". Surely he will tell the customer that they are be over charged in the monthly cost and the Direct Branch or the Dealer is not what they seem to be.

I'm sure there are many arguments to this, however it seems to me that there is no place for "padded" rates in our industry.

Whats Wrong With Equipment Leasing Companies?

Geez, I would have a shorter blog if I asked "Whats Right With Equipment Leasing Companies"? Keep in mind that when signing any legal document, the buyer needs to read the terms and conditions, however what happens is that most signers forget the Ts and Cs.

Here's a few gripes that have and the reasons why most leasing companies fail to make the cut of taking care of the customer.

1. End of lease notification: Why must there be only a "window" of time when the customer can notify the leasing company that they would like to return the equipment. There are a few that will allow any time 30 days prior to the end of the lease, however most will have a "window" and if you do not meet that window, the customer will be caught in a "roll over" scenario that could be as little as 30 days and as much as one year!!! Wells Fargo will "Roll over" for one year!
2. Restocking Fee: This has got to be the worst! Charging to restock the copier when it was never in their stock in the first place! Citi Capital was the main culprit here, and I'm sure there are others.
3. Call for Remaining Payments: When a customer calls about the remaining stream of payments, the leasing company always quotes the buy-out price, never do they quote the remaining stream of payments! Most leasing companies do not make the cut with this one.
4. Payments: There are a few leasing companies that will actually tell the customer what number payment is being made on the monthly statement. Most never do this and are anticipating the the customer will get caught in a roll over and then make more payments after the lease has expired!
5. Poor Billing Practice: Invoices sent late giving the customer only a few days to make the payment, taking too long to remove insurance charges, billing the wrong tax amount and not corrected mistakes in a timely manner.
6. Fair Market Value: When a system sells for $20,000 and the leasing company quotes $6,000 to own the equipment to either the vendor or the customer. Lets go! The equipment is 5 years old and should only be worth a few thousand if that.

If the leasing companies would charge a "fair" rate for their services, drop long term roll overs, notify customers of their end of lease options, drop re-stocking fees and offer deep discounts to dealers to buy the equipment at the end of the term. This would allow dealers to maintain a fleet of used machines, have a better relationship with the customer and the leasing company and would stop the waste of having tens of thousands of used copiers stacked in warehouses all over the world.

John Reiling Retires from Ricoh Americas Corporation

After many years of dedication to the Duplicator Market, John Reiling (Duplicator Marketing) is now retiring. After knowing John for about ten years, I'm aware that Ricoh will miss one of the GOOD GUYS in the industry.

I first meet John in about 11 years ago while attending a Ricoh duplicator sales training course at Ricoh U. I was impressed with Johns knowledge, dedication and desire for duplicators market place. His Dedication, Determination and Desire inspired me to sell many duplicators and seek out new markets in my territory. I can remember countless times having questions and not being able to reach my DSM, each and every time I contacted John he was always pleasant, knowledgeable and treated me with respect that he always returned a phone call.

I looked forward to the trade shows, whether Ricohs Dealer Shows or Print On Demand, because I was sure that John would be there and he would have some great stuff to tell me, whether business or family.

Kudos John! Good Luck with Retirement and All of us at The P4PHotel wish you good health and happiness!

What Can Third Party Solution Provers do to Increase Business?

With my 27 years of experience in "down the street" sales, I for one can say that one of these old rules are true "Out of Site, is Out of Mind"! Lets take a look at the average reps day. Arrive in the AM, get settled in, from there you are either going on appointments or trying to get appointments whether from phone calls or cold calls. When we're not doing that we are up to our ears in paper work, or taking questions from customers in reference supplies, machine ops, billing, preparing quotes, and trying to close deals. Oops , I left one out, we also have to research speeds, feeds, pricing and solutions.

Recently, I was at a manufacturers one day training session for the Ricoh W2400 and Ricoh w3600 where they introduced the new system where we were informed about all of the new features. At most of these training sessions you may or may not have a rep from a third party solution provider show his wares and tout thier solution. This solution provider is an industry leader cost tracking and recovery technology for service professionals and their providers. We watched the slide show make some notes, asked some questions and to tell you the truth, most of us forgot 90% of what we heard. The meeting was then over and the "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" fell into place.

So, what went wrong? Was the rep boring, not knowledgeable? No, most of these reps do a fine job, its that the third party providers do not take into account is that we as reps have a full plate everyday.

The third party solutions providers like Print Audit, Captiva, Kofax, Doculex, Fabsoft, Ecopy, Zetafax and many others need to have a daily or weekly presence for the rep. It's impossible to call all of the reps, and since 20% of the reps do 80% of the business this would be a terrible waste of time. So, how about print advertising, not a bad idea however most reps do not get to see the dealer magazines, plus they are read today and gone tomorrow. Again, how can these companies maintain a daily or weekly presence? For me the answer is simple, go to where the reps are, and where are most reps, well the 20% of the best reps are researching and gaining knowledge through the Internet.

The best reps are doing research before 9:00am and after 5:00pm, whether working from the office or working at home. Ours is not a 9-5 job and we know it!

Advertising on the P4PHotel http://www.p4photel.com/ is a great way to stay in front of 1,500 reps every hour of the day and week. Brand awareness is key along with having the reps see your solution every day. The P4P Hotel averages 100,000 hits per month and has an average of 100 reps a day visiting the site. Take it from someone who knows if I see your ad on a daily basis, you'll be getting a call from me sometime in the near future.

Can SeriPrinters Revitalize Digital Duplicators?

Hear yee, Here yee, "duplicators are dead". With cpc's eroding lower and lower, and the onset of hi-speed cheap ink printers will digital duplicators go the way of the horse and buggy?

Mike Scott (Business Development and Marketing Executive) of DRYPrint http://www.dryprint.com/ tends to think that SeriPrinters may move Digital Duplicators to a niche market for production printing!

Recently, I had the chance to speak to Mike in reference to SeriPrinters, the serprinter actually attaches to the end of a digital duplicator and performs a basic function that drys the ink from a digital duplicator (using UV light) . The Seri also requires dedicated ink, or Seri UV ink, nice thing about the dedicated ink is that it can only be purchased from DRYPrint, therefor Seri Dealers have a captive ink market and a great revenue stream for years and years. But, the key to the Seri is that it will let a duplicator print onto virtually any stock! I've personally sold two units where the client needed to print lot numbers onto a gloss stock that had a varnish. They tried many laser printers and all failed, the printers could not handle the stock and the varnish caused premature failure of the fuser units. In came the Seri, and a Ricoh Duplicator and all of the problems were solved, the system was laying down black lot numbers on 120lb stock on top of a varnish finish! The customer was happy and that made me happy.

Mike states that there are many vertical markets for the Seri such as Associations, Colleges, Universities, Non-Profit Groups, Pharmacuetical, Print Shops along with Production Print Houses (in Plant Print Shops).

So, what else is Seri up to, well another model is the Seri25VDP, the VDP is for Variable Data Printing. Connecting is a snap with the built in Ethernet. Seri incorporated an ink print engine to lay down the variable data once at the end of the print cycle. The process runs smooth and adding VDP at 120 pages a minute is exactly what Associations, College and Universities need. Not only can you add a text but you can also print and image along with multiple lines of text and in different colors. As of right now Seri offers Black, Red, Reflex Blue and Green. Plus, get this the Seri even print postage prepaid on envelopes!

As Mike and I were talking, it seemed to me that reps who take on the product need to sell the Features, Advantages and Benefits of the SeriPrinter, there is no need to talk about the Duplicator, sell the SERI and the Duplicator will follow. Cool, similar to Solution Sales, sell the solution and the hardware will follow.

With the eroding GP's and lower Gross Margins, Solution Guru and Print Gurus should give the SeriPrinter serious consideration in their solution selling process. No competition, great margins and a protected ink revenue stream that will last many years.

So, when you think about the next solution think about where a Seri may fit in, think about the solution and think about the locking out the competition. Take a trip to http://www.dryprint.com/ and see what they've got going on!

E-Copy 9.0 "What Are You Waiting For"?

Selling MFP's is a competitive business and it seems to be getting tougher every day..... for the reps who are only selling boxes or just upgrading existing clients! If can't separate yourself from the competition, your sales will and probably are in a downward spiral!

Let me tell you a quick story, we have five reps at our place. we represent Ricoh, Oki and Muratec. The guy with the least experience is 8 years in the business and then ten years and then the other three with over twenty years in the business. We have been an ecopy dealer for the last two years, at the end of the meeting I posed a question to all of the reps and then asked this one question. "What does ecopy desktop software do"? His response, "it scans...." I stopped him right there and told him he was wrong. I then made the statement that if we as reps can't start selling simple fantastic solutions, then you will be going the way of the Edsel!

E-Copy Desktop 9.0 Desktop software (Desktop Printer) is a great solution for merging electronic files from MS Word, Excel or other Windows applications along with scanned files to create a single document! You can move pages from any application to any position in the document. You can then email, LAN fax or print the document in the correct collated order. No more printing from multiple applications and then hand collated and then bring them to the copier. If you do not think that this has value in the office, YOU ARE MISTAKEN! Productivity in the office is probably in the top three when it comes to cost efficiency.

As a solutions guru, you need to bundle a 5 user license with every mfp, and stop talking about speeds and feeds and start talking about increasing productivity in the office! Start the talk track off with the software first, tell them the FAB (Features Advantage and Benefits) of E-Copy first. By doing this you will separate yourself from your competitor.

Here's another great thing about e-copy and my clients agree with me about this. The last time you created a document, think about how many different applications you used, MS Word, Excel, PDF's and maybe a scanned image or two? Ok, now you have printed all of you pages, hand collated them and then walked them to the copier for additional sets or you just needed one and did not make a copy. Tell me, what happens when you need to recreate that document in the future, arg!, you'll have to remember the file name from each application and then start the whole process over again. When you're using e-copy it can save the whole document as a pdf and can be saved in one folder! This is a great time saving for the average office user!

While in offices, I have found that a great number if SMB accounts do not have the full version of Adobe, at $400-$500 per license it is expensive. So, most of them are creating documents that way that I outlined.

Tip: Sell the solution and not the box, ecopy also has many other features which I enjoy. You can download a free 45 day evaluation here http://www.ecopy.com/eval/Products_eCopy_Desktop_Evaluation.aspx

Samsung 6345N Review from the Street!

Its been about six months since the Samsung 6345N was introduced and about 4 months or so since it has been on the street. For those of you who do not know the 6345N is a 45ppm MFP that can scan, print copy & fax (optional) all for a retail price of $2,995. The system can take an optional fax module along with a finisher/stapler and upto three additional 550 sheet paper trays.I have sold six of these units since they came out and have captured about 50,000 pages per month for all of the devices.

Here's what I like about the 6345N:

• Auto Doc Feeder is fast and copy and print speed is as advertised!


• Large 550 sheet paper trays for letter or legal.


• MSRP


• Duplex Print Speed


• Footprint


• Color Scanning
  


• Document Server


• Simple Easy to Navigate Touch Screen


• Easy Print Driver Navigation


• Fax Forward to Email as PDF


• Print Quality (Awesome)All in all well built, easy to use and will serve the needs well of illiterate MFP users. Not many bells and whistles, just down and dirty simple functionality.

Here goes what I don't like:

• Can't receive letter and legal faxes, everything must go to letter or legal.


• Accounting Package will not work, Samsung has stated that they are aware of the flaw and are developing a firmware upgrade.


• Every time you replace or add paper you have to confirm the paper size.


• Touch Screen seems like its not calibrated correctly and you have to select functions on most occasions more than once.


• Halftone copy quality is horrible from a printer document, no adjustments seem to work well.


• Extremely hard to make scan2email connections.Advanced Copy functionality such as duplex, collate, mixed sizes can not be selected until original documents have been loaded in the document feeder.

Summary:

For the price there is alot of bang for the buck for the print, and copy speed. Illiterate MFP users will like this machine and it will perform fine up to 10,000 pages per month. Vertical Markets are Realty, Mortgage, Title and Attorneys if they need to receive both letter and legal faxes you need to talk them into faxforward2email, this will work well and eliminate the problem of not being able to receive and print letter and legal at the same time.

Were I would not sell this machine, is to advanced MFP users that are used to all of the functionality and ease of use of our current machines, if you do place one of these with advanced users, I guarantee you'll be removing it with in a weeks time!

Bringing me to the final point, I believe that these types of units from Samsung, HP, Xerox (relabeled Samsung) and Muratec (relabeled Samsung) are needed and their should be more of them. There is no need for an 11x17 foot print for the vertical markets that I described. Ricoh, and Canon need to step up to plate and give the customers what they need and want. It's said that 77% of all MFP users do not need 11x17.

One other note, for the price these systems allowed me to place units and beat the competition badly. I heard that a few reps stated they did not no anything about the unit, another rep stated that they only make phones. Bottom line was that in a competitive deal this system can capture your TDV each an every time.

If anyone else has anything to add, please do so!

Features I'd Like to See with MFP's

I'm back from a few weeks off, and while I was away I thought about some cool features that I'd like to see in MFP's.

Scan2Print: Which would allow me to scan, save and then print to any printer on the network.

Fax Server: The ability to add multi-port modem cards (more than 3 modems) into the MFP and let me designate where to forward the faxes, either to a folder on the pc or via multiple email addresses.

Auto Binding & Hole Punching: While some of these features are available on high end units, I think its about time that these features move to segment 3 devices. Holepunching would have to be similar to the GBC Pronto and have the same type of feature set.

Copy Save: Every copy that was ever made was saved and routed to a server for archive, once there it can be archived in a Document Management Software.

My Top MFP Links!

Good ole Summertime! It seems to be wee slow everywhere, so I thought I would share some og my hottest MFP links with you. The places I go to get the info I need when I can not find it anywhere else other than the http://www.p4photel.com/

Print4Pay Hotel, nothing else like it in the world! Connect with other MFP Reps, SEs, CEs to share information, sales solutions, tech solutions and above all stay knowledgeable about with all of the products from all of the manufacturers. http://www.p4photel.com/

Guru.com allows you to connect with other professionals to customise a software or workflow solution! http://www.guru.com/

AutoCad discussion forum for printing and plotting, here you get to see what end users are really doing with your product and how they feel about it. Great for us Wide Format Gurus. http://discussion.autodesk.com/forum.jspa?forumID=30

Amortization Calculator always comes in handy when a customer asks you what the interest rate is. http://ray.met.fsu.edu/~bret/amortize.html

How Stuff Works! Need to know how it works? Take a trip here and you can rule the world with knowledge! http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-page2.htm

Fax Server ROI Calculator punch in the information and presto you have an instant ROI for fax servers. If you didn't know it, fax servers and FOIP is the hottest solution going! http://www.captaris.com/swfresources/RightFax/ROI_Calc.html

HP Page Yields go here to become a master for HP page yields and get the low down from HP when it comes to ink jet cartridges! http://h10060.www1.hp.com/pageyield/us/en/index.html

If you have any you would like to add please feel free to post here and I will edit and update for all of us!

Ricoh Americas Corporation "Unfair to Dealers" Part II

I spoke to one of my friends at RBS (yes, I have a friend at RBS, believe it or not), and we starting talking about named accounts, and down the street accounts in general. I then asked him if he was privy to any of the RMAP or DMAP info from Ricoh Americas Corporation or even info from Aficio League, he stated he is not and I believe him. I then asked how do you get your named accounts? Are they handed down to you from management or is it stuff you find in the field or is it a combo of both? He stated that named accounts are given to him, however in his eight or nine years there he has been with RBS he never seen a named account come down that stated the customer already had Ricoh products. However, what he did state is that there are now 5 RBS reps working the same geographic area, and when someone digs up a lead from a named account, the rep from the named account has to prove that he has been in contact with that named account. If he has, then he keeps it and if not he loses it.

In my county there are also 4-5 RBS covering what I cover for my dealer, with this type of "feet on the street" they are stumbling over my accounts on a frequent basis. I guess I need to "educate" my customers ahead of time, kinda like what the Association of Oil Heating does, and why it is better to business with the Authorized Dealer instead of the Authorized Direct Branch. Plus with RBS why are they giving incentives for new business when they are taking existing Ricoh Business, here there should be no extra incentives, incentives should be for taking down Xerox, Kyocera, OCE, Canon, Sharp, Toshiba and the rest of them! I have many thoughts on why Ricoh Americas Corporation is letting RBS do this.

Here's a few for you:

1. Top Ricoh Management (this includes Sam, Tom & Larry) have no clue what is happening in the street, they are so far removed from the day to day occurrences and no one has the gumption to tell them what is going on.


2. Top Ricoh Management (this includes Sam, Tom & Larry) have no clue what is happening in the street, they are so far removed from the day to day occurrences and no one has the gumption to tell them what is going on.


3. Top Ricoh Management (this includes Sam, Tom & Larry) have no clue what is happening in the street, they are so far removed from the day to day occurrences and no one has the gumption to tell them what is going on.


4. This is probably the most far-fetched rational I have of the whole situation. The plan was put in place months ago to have the Ricoh boxes to be sold by Ricoh Direct only. Slowly over time dealers who were sick and tired would change brands (drop Ricoh), and then down the road Ricoh would then call the smaller and mid sized dealers on the carpet and tell them they are not meeting their quotas and they would then be dropped, however you could become a Lanier or a Savin Dealer. Thus at the end of a few years you would only have a few Mega Ricoh Dealers and RBS. RBS would then be able to raise prices after they have eliminated the other Ricoh Dealers in their area.

Yeah, I know the last one is pretty far fetched and is out there, however the million-dollar question is "why" are they letting this happen to their own dealers. Ask your self why and the answer is almost always the almighty buck.

Just my two cents!

Rumor HP & IKON!

Have you been watching IKONs stock lately, keeps ticking up and up, rumor on the street is that HP http://www.hp.com/ is may acquire IKON http://www.ikon.com/ very soon!

Can you imagine after the bombshell Xerox http://www.xerox.com/ dropped a few months ago with Global http://www.gis.com/ , I for one thought that Ricoh or Canon would pull the trigger with either Ikon or Danka, but HP?

Can you image the ramifications of such a buyout to Canon http://www.imagerunner.com/ & Ricoh http://www.ricoh-usa.com/ ! Seems to me that buying distribution points is the only way to increase market share. Ricoh was one of the first to do it in recent years, then Oce, and then Xerox http://www.xerox.com/.

You can even see it in the low end distribution where manufacturers branches are dumping boxes to gain market share and increase consumables revenues down the road.

Round and round we go, where we stop, nobody knows!

Prospect Much? Tips

Prospecting in the office equipment industry is equal to putting your shoes on every day. It's just something you do all of the time!

Now that I'm a little older and little wiser, I've been able to hone some of my prospecting skills to get better results and qualified prospects. Here's a few tips for you.

1. Sometimes during the sales process, the customer will ask for a better price, and yes you can use the standard close, "If I can give you a better price can we do business today?", however I'll also add that in order to get the better price I'd like to get two to three names and contact information for friends or associates that are in business that may have a need for my services. This is probably the best references or leads that you can get, and you must follow up on them right away!

2. Vertical Market Prospecting, follow up with other businesses that are in the same business where you just made a sale. Mention that so, and so just upgrading to state of the art technology and also make the statement that there are many features designed for your type of business that will save time and money. It's just like the copier industry, when you come right down to it, its a small world and everyone pretty much knows someone else in their same line of work.

3. Prospect Around The Corner, when you have made a sale or have gained an appointment be sure to make a call to other businesses in the area and let them know you'll be meeting with so and so, and ask if you can stop buy. The same goes true for knocking on doors, whether before or at the end of the appointment take the time to stop at other businesses and tell them of your success or just drop a card and a brochure. It may take so time, however these cold calls will pay dividends down the road.

4. When going to a network event, GO ALONE!, this will force you into having conversations with other people and not yucking it up with ]your buddy from the office.

5. Develop and maintain a mailing list of all your cold calls whether phone or on-site calls. Then set a reminder on a calendar program for a monthly mailing to these clients. You can mail brochures, flyer's or my favorite a neat little one page newsletter that will keep them updated with your new products and services. If you are religious in sending this every month, you will start seeing great results in 3-6 months.

If you have anything else to add, please feel free to!

MFP WARS, Who Wins and Who Loses, Ricoh, Canon, Konica Minolta, Xerox or Sharp?

MFP Wars, basically I've never seen anything like the past year in the last 27 years of selling copiers. Direct Branches from KonicaMinolta, Ricoh, and Toshiba are basically selling MFP systems at cost or a few dollars above in order to acquire the aftermarket business. How long can this last? My bet is it will last as long as the deep pockets of the manufacturers will permit it.

All of the manufacturers have a dealer side of the business, recently a pricing issue was raised to one of the top three manufacturers in reference to the aggressive campaign that RBS is waging to acquire new business AT ANY COST, even if it means cutting into Ricoh Dealers business and profit margins. When the issue was raised to a senior level executive, they stated that they had no knowledge of this and that it could not be happening. The Senior Level exec then did some checking and found this out to be true and then escalated this issue to the VP of Sales (that's about where it sits right now). I seriously doubt that there will be any change in the SOP.

Now Ricoh is not the only manufacturer that has this problem, KonicaMinolta and Toshiba Direct branches are also in direct competition with their dealers and are looking to gain market share at any cost!

So, where does this leave dealers? For the dealers that are in the major market areas such as New York, Chicago, LA, Dallas, Boston etc, competition is fierce and dealers are taking a beating! Consider this, when the dealer loses a sale to its own manufacturers Direct Branch, who loses? The dealer loses because they did not get the sale and the clicks, the Direct Branch loses because they moved a box @ zero profit and in turn the parent company will lose because the dealers that buy at higher prices will not buy as many systems! So if everyone loses, what they heck are they doing? Preserving market share? At what cost?

Recently we have seen some new players in the market such as HP, Okidata, Samsung and even Lexmark has a full line of MFPs. Samsung has hit big with their 45ppm MFP that has an MSRP of $3,000 and due to launch a 55ppm system in the near future for under $8,000 MSRP. HPs foray with the Edgeline series will make an impact also.

I'll say it over and over there are too many managers @ Direct Branches that are teaching new reps to sell on price and price alone. I know they are under pressure to move boxes, however selling on price helps no one, especially the new reps that come and go. Basically thats the reason because they come and go, no one is their to teach them the skills of selling, such as FAB (feature, advantage and benefits), or Lock Out features that a certain system might have an most all the art of probing the customer and finding out the pain that they have or a solution that will allow them to sell at a profit. It seems to me that most Direct Branches are selling themselves into a hole they might never get out of.

I have a dear friend who works for RBS in New Jersey, we chatted the other day and he keeps stating that Dealers are the past and the Direct Branches are the future of the industry, I beg to differ, if that's the case then our industry is in a bad state of affairs.

As an industry we need to start from scratch, we need to hire energetic and dynamic people and teach then "How to Sell", educate them in prospecting, probing and customer relationship selling.

On the flip side I'm sure their are many fine reps out there that make a good living that are working at Direct Branches and Dealerships, however if the industry continues to "dump" boxes our way of life will could go downhill very fast.

Print4Pay Hotel Launches New Web Site!

It's done! We have launched the new site and you can get there via or.

The new website will allow for easy access to all to Ricoh Family Group, Kyocera, KonicaMinolta and Canon Message Boards. Also incorporated into the new site is my blog, which can be accessed by clicking "Selling MFP Solutions". Go ahead check out the blog there are awesome blogs that relate to Solution Selling and whats been happening in our industry.

New members will get three FREE documents that I have developed, "Top Ten Rules for New Salespeople", "14 Benefits of Leasing" and "Print Assessment Calculator".

Win $50 Best Buy card! All you have to do is log in, post a question or post and answer and you'll have a chance to win every month. Another contest is "Sell the Solution", here reps have a chance to win a $1,000 Amex gift card.

So, whether you are a veteran or a newbie, the Print4Pay Hotel is a great resource for information that is gathered on the street, and a great way to stay focused on maintaining your knowledge while sharing it with others in the industry!

Good Selling!

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.

BuyerZone.com , Friend or Foe?

It seems everyone wants to move boxes. We've said this all along; more boxes generate more clicks for service and more clicks for supplies.

Lets face some hard facts, Internet Buying is here and it’s not going to go away! Margins continue erode for all aspects of our business, sales, service and supplies.

I’d like to tell you all about Buyzone.com www.buyerzone.com/copiers. Potential clients who search for copiers on the major Internet search engines will see buyerzone.com. The link basically states that you can receive FREE price quotes from multiple vendors!

That’s a fantastic idea for the client, no interaction with sales people, no coming to visit your office, no looking at systems and IT can still hide in their hole. Everything is usually done via email. You click on the link and then answer six or seven questions in reference to your copier needs, speed, volume, special features, maintenance etc.

Buyerzone is good for the Client and good for Buyerzone and what I think is a bad idea for the dealer.

Here’s Why:

We have been signed up with Buyerzone for the last year to receive copier leads. I have received over 50 leads. I have not closed one of those leads!! When you get a lead, you've got to keep in mind that there are five other vendors in your area also receiving these leads (especially if you are in a major market).

I have offered machines for as little as a 5% MU and still have not received the order. I have sent emails (that’s how you receive the leads) and have followed up with phone calls. Eighty percent of these people requesting quotes will not speak to you, even if you tell them you are calling on behalf of Buyerzone. Keep in mind that they are probably doing this because they do not want to talk to anyone and they are looking for the lowest price and may or may not want to do the research on their own.

I believe that dealers subscribing to Buyerzone are hurting their own market. This market is price driven and that’s it! Most of these potential customers only want email quotes. All I can think of is that all of the supplies will also be bought from the Internet and service contracts will be ignored and customers will only get service when they need it. If you think you’re going to make money on service and supplies, then forgetaboutit! (Famous Jersey slang)

I went along with this for about a year, just replying to the emails and then making the calls. I figured all of these leads would be gravy and I kept on working my target accounts. After getting no response from my quotes, I set out to find out why systems were not being purchased from us (me). Yep!, the answer was price, price and price, someone was giving the equipment away for a few hundred dollars over cost on a large system and a few percent on the smaller systems! How can a commissioned rep compete with these tactics. WE CANNOT!

Most of the leads were for small machines Segment 1 or Segment 2. Here’s what worries me. Over the last three weeks, I have received three leads from Buyerzone for mid to large size accounts in my territory! Two were for 30ppm color systems and the other was for a 65ppm system. Times are changing and it looks like IT buyers are hitting the Internet more and more. They do not want to be bothered by "salespeople" or are we consultants?

What to do, what to do, hmmmmmmm……. Do you waste time on following up with the potential client to make an appointment so you can tell them why they should pay more (keep in mind that most of them will not want to see you), or do you just prepare a quote to meet their needs, send it email and hope they contact you, or do you just throw the lead in the garbage? The low end of the market has already eroded margins; do we need this on mid to large volume systems?

I’m a firm believer that doing business with Buyer Zone can degrade the dealers market for commanding prices that are essential to their well being and the well being of their industry. Why? News travels quick, good news travels quicker and IT buyers getting substantial savings travels at lightning speed! Can you image if 10% of the companies in your area just searched quotes through BuyerZone?

Do you need the IT buyer of one company talking to another or getting a job at “xyz” company telling others the only way to get quotes is though the BuyerZone?

I decided to test the waters and really see what is going on.

I filled out a BuyerZone prospect sheet, stating that the Print 4 Pay Hotel.com was looking for a copier. I got an email in an hour saying I was matched with six different dealers from my area (of course one of them was my dealership), and one was Konica/Minolta branch office! It’s been 24 hours and I haven’t received any phone calls and zero quotes via email. Now, I’m thinking what the heck is going on, maybe they all know me (Naw, not me, but wishful thinking)?? Maybe they can’t meet my needs for high-end color? Or am I just to impatient and expect a response ASAP!

Day 2, I have heard back from two companies ( well, I guess I was impatient), one represents OKI MFP (I clarified and they are a dealer) and the other is a dealer for Canon (or so they say). The company that represents the OKI called and asked me all of the right questions, volume, speed, feed, and stapling. However, I was taken back when he told me the system was very expensive. Anyway, he did not push for an appointment to delivery the quotes and said that he would email them. He seemed knowledgeable with his product and services.

With the second company I got a call from the “service manager” who stated he would sell the system at cost to get the maintenance revenue!! He also stated that his salespeople do not want to be bothered with these types of leads because they cannot make any money, however all he hopes is that I will take out a maintenance agreement. The “service manager” did ask for an appointment to sit down and deliver the quote, I reneged and said to please email it to me. He also stated that his ImageRunner 2620 was capable of doing 600,000 pages in six months with out a service call (why must people do this?). I told him I had quotes from other companies and he asked who they were; we spoke about speeds, feeds, etc. I then asked him what was the bit depth of color for the Canon, he seemed perplexed, and I then said it has to do with the depth of color. He then responded and I quote: “You mean DIP”, I said DIP?, and then I stated “don’t you mean DPI”? He said yes, at that point in time I just asked him to email me the quote as soon as you can.

I realize that I’m not be quite ethical in doing this, however I believe that dealers who are selling equipment at cost or a little over cost are jeopardizing my future. I need to find a way to get some of this business and what the competition is saying or doing.

Out of these two dealerships neither mentioned that they would like to see my operation or probe further to see if their system has a particular solution that may save me time and money. Neither representative talking about scan2email, print drivers, scan2folder, security, document management or software.

Hopefully, I will have a few more calls in a few days and will have the pricing I need.

On another note, I called my boss and told him about the competition and he stated that he knew the Konica/Minolta dealer that is associated with BuyerZone in our area and he confirmed that the owner takes the leads and looks to move the boxes at cost! I think he’s traveling down a slippery slope, we’ll have to wait and see. I do not have a quote from the Konica/Minolta dealer yet.

If you are subscribing to Buyerzone, maybe you should think about canceling your membership and do not give these companies that many choices and if you don’t want to cancel then you should change sales tactics when dealing with these customers. No appointment, no quote, if they do not answer your call, and then no quote!

With BuyerZone, I was hoping to move a few more boxes and thought it would be easy and that my expertise would come out with my quotes and follow up. Boy, was I wrong. Take it to the bank, the thought of aftermarket service and supplies are intriguing, however the thought of IT buyers buying from us instead of IngramMicro and CDW could be a big gamble.

BuyerZone also has a link for Document Imaging Systems, now this may be a horse of a different color! If Document Imaging is a popular as all the hype, I would then suggest that you sign up for this service to give it a try. We are going to sign up sometime this week. I am hoping that the Document Imaging may not be as cutthroat as someone just buying a copier. Selling to real pain, or having a customer that needs a hardware and software solution may be able to put more Gross Profit in our deals. (link: http://www.buyerzone.com/software/doc_man_software)

I am asking the owners of my company to cancel their subscription to BuyerZone.com for copiers.

It’s now Sunday night and I have been working on this off and on for three days. I’m going to post this and then do a follow up reply when I hear from the other dealers in reference to their quotes.

Do you agree or disagree? Would you like to add anything? If so, please post a reply with your thoughts.

Need a job in the copier industry?

Over the years I have received many calls from head hunters, and on some occassions I have succumbed to setting up an appointment to "test the waters", on every occassion these interviews were fruitless and the out come was that I'll stay at my current position. Gee, I thought that some of these guys or gals knew my industry!


I've finally found the right guy! His name is Bill Diminno and he is the CEO of Innovative Performance Group Bill is a former copy guy, having worked for Imagistics, Panasonic and Ricoh. Bill knows his stuff, so whether you are the "down the steet" sales rep, Major Accounts, or Top Level Exec, Bill is the right guy to call.

Give IPG a call before you think about taking an interview with someone who is not from our industry! http://www.ipg-usa.net

Who's Afraid of HP Edgeline CM8000 Series?

Well here goes, these are statements that were reported to me from members of the Print4Pay Hotel.

1. No Offset Stacking: I can't believe they made this big of a machine with offset!
2. No 3 Hole Punch: Again WOW!
3. Limited Card Stock: Only through the by-pass (I think this unit is rated for max 58lb only)
4. 11x17: The trays are very slow on 11x17 and the by-pass seems faster!
5. Misfeeds: While it doesn't misfeed much at all, if a user leaves a misfeed in over the weekend it will dry out the print heads (ouch!)
6. Weight (725lbs): Can not use a stairclimber because there are no stress points!
7. Black cpc: It's not the ink price that will get you but the cost of the maintenance kits!
8. Availability for the next six months: slim enough that we are looking to pick up another line!
9. CPP for color: Business .05 and Professional .06 cents per page!
10. Strangely enough, the letter paper only runs thru the machine in landscape orientation from the LCT (can't even load portrait/speed).
11. Standard 1,500 sheet paper supply only!
12. VERY slow FCOT (First Copy Out Time) 12 seconds.
13. Ink cartridges load from the bottom of the device (Oh my Back!)
14. To protect the print heads from electrostatic discharge, be sure to touch the
horizontal metal bar to ground yourself before clearing jams that are near the print heads. The print heads are above the print-drum area.
15. HP recommends that you do not use this device for printing on sequential paper, such as pre-numbered checks or invoices.


So, where does this lead us? First thoughts is that all of these issues will be corrected in a next generation model, whenever that comes about. Also their foray into the MFP marketplace with this system will leave a lot to be desired. The retail cost per page is impressive, however the system lacks the meat and potato features that High Volume MFP users are used to such as: Heavy Stock 110lb - 160lb, duplex of thick stock, Bookletmaker, Paper Punch Device, envelopes, transparencies and offset stacking!

Based on an average monthly volume of 50,000 pages the system will need print head replacement at 38 months (What is the cost for this?), plus I'll bet the ranch that the best print and copy quality is on "inkjet paper".

So when we get right down to it there are many deficiencies when compared to the standard laser MFP made by Ricoh, Xerox, Canon and Konica Minolta. Take a test drive you can download the manuals from HP, you can download the printer driver also.

One other note I found and I interpreted like this, when you are printing or copying pages with mized coverage, the system will slow down for high coverage areas, if this is the case, I believe this system is not much more than hype and will be easy to beat.

Ricoh Americas Corporation "Unfair to Dealers"?

I'm not one to whine and cry about missed sales, competition and saturated distribution. However, when I run across a quote from Ricoh Business Solutions that is simply outrageous it really gets my hair up.

The potential customer is in New Jersey (massive RBS stomping grounds), we always run into them and some times we win and most times we lose. Due to quotes like the one I'm going to tell you about!

This was not a competitive situation, the customer only had one quote on the table. I found out about the potential purchase through my Brother In Law who does business with this client for other services. When I arrived, the client handed the entire folder, in it were all of the previous bills for service and a copy of the current lease. There was also a quote from RBS for a C3500 with a cabinet. The cost per month for 60 months is $354.76.

Taking a deeper look at this. 354.75 brings back $18,380.08 based on a 60 month rate of .0193. We must then deduct the buy out of $4,754.10 and the cost to return, lets give the cost to return $300, so we have a total of $5054.10. Deducting this from the $18,380.08 leaves a sale for $13,325.90 (THIS i CAN LIVE WITH).

However the quote also includes 552,000 black prints with toner and all service. Let's give the cpp cost .01 (and that is on the lower end for this unit). We then have to deduct another $5,520 from the $13,325.90, this will then leave a sale price of $7,805.90. This is $543 over DMAP level one cost and also includes, delivery, training, cabinet and installation!

Now, I do not mind seeing this in a competitive quote, however with this deal this is the first quote the customer received! RBS was not the incumbent, and seems to be trying to buy business and hope that the customer will may color prints and or copies.

This is not the first quote nor the last that I will see like this, however does MSRP mean anything anymore, especially to RBS? What is the benefit of selling systems at DMAP Level One cost. Who wins (the customer & Ricoh Americas Corporation), who loses RBS? If they are buying at DMAP level 6, that leaves a 10% MU or a profit of $658, or are they buying less than DMAP Level 6. More and more it seems like dealers are subsidizing Direct Sales Operations.

We were told at Vision 2007 that there will be level playing fields for all, how the heck is this a level playing field, when the system is sold under our cost? And where the heck did salesmanship go, and the ability to provide a fair price along with great support.

For those that are interested I have a "Dealer Principal" only Forum now on the RFG P4P Hotel. I suggest you all band together and talk about strategies to help combat the direct channels in your market place.