Scan2Cloud Solution the Alternative to eCopy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-=Good Selling=-

Sharp jp Update less than 48 hours for 2012 financials

On May 14th, Sharp will release their financials for 2012 and unveil a business plan that will define how Sharp will kick start and improve it's finances. So what I've compiled below is some recent quotes about Sharp that I gather from many different sources:

Bad News Notes about Sharp for the past two weeks included:

"Japan's leading maker of liquid crystal displays had a 500 billion yen ($5.1 billion) net loss for the year, worse than the 450 billion yen deficit it forecast in November, the sources said on condition that they not be identified."

"In addition to the write-offs, the company is also taking a charge to put aside cash for possible fines from a display price-fixing investigation in Europe, the sources said."

"The write-off of excess capacity, however, highlights softer demand from Apple, which has seen its profit growth slow dramatically from more than 60 percent over the past five years to a projected rate of less than 5 percent for the next decade."

"but more fundamental problems remain. Sharp likely earned an operating profit in the second half of fiscal 2012 as requested by its main banks. Still, the impairment losses on LCD production facilities and other factors probably widened consolidated losses for the fiscal year beyond the projected Y450 billion."

"Sharp is in desperate need of cash, prompting it to accept a lifeline from rival Samsung. In March, Sharp raised Y10 billion from a new share issuance to Samsung, giving it about a 3% stake in Sharp. Sharp said in a statement the report wasn't based on anything it had announced."

"Sharp, which at the start of the year was forced to curtail production of 9.7-inch screens for Apple's iPad, began limited panel fabrication for Apple's next iPhone, with mass production slated to start in June, the sources said."

Good News Notes about Sharp for the past two weeks included:

"Its operating profit for the second half of its business year was 20 billion yen, compared with the company's forecast for 13.8 billion yen, the sources added."

"In addition, the two lenders have decided to give Sharp an extension on a total of Y360 billion in lending that matures in June. With the new facility, credit extended to Sharp by the two main banks, which stood at about Y200 billion as of March 31 last year, is expected to rise to around Y800 billion."

"Sharp Corp. aims to expand its business tie-up with Samsung Electronics Co. beyond liquid crystal displays, and is considering seeking an additional capital injection from the South Korean electronics conglomerate, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported in its Thursday morning edition.

"Under a three-year business plan scheduled to be released May 14, Sharp will likely include plan to expand its ties in areas such as copiers." 

"The number of Sharp directors will be reduced from 12 to six, and the company’s payroll will have significantly fewer advisers who previously served as presidents or vice presidents, according to the plan for the three-year period ending March 2016. Sharp is expected to release the plan on May 14."

"Sharp Corp. will cut 5,000 jobs, slash the number of directors and advisory positions and shift its production focus under a three-year plan to fully recover from the 2008 global financial crisis."

My View:  All of these statements were from various reports that were posted over the last two weeks. There seems to be as much good as bad about Sharp.  Which could be a good thing.  While I was at the Transform Even this week in Phoenix, I was told by a good source that the deal with Sharp and Samsung was nixed not by Sharp but by some ministry of business. I guess that may have to do with the whole Korean/Japanese culture? However in a recent report from I picked up it was stated that "Sharp will likely include a plan to extend ties in areas such as copiers". This was posted in a reference to "Sharp aims to strengthen tie-up with Samsung", which contradicts what I heard from a "good source".

I'm no genius, I just try to read all of the reports to see what may or may not happen with Sharps Imaging Division.  Here at home I can see what will happen with the page volumes and also understand that there are too many players and our industry needs to contract to protect margins.  In reading most of these reports, only once was there any mention of Sharps Imaging Division. For now Sharp seems to be concentrated on displays, appliances and smart phones.  I guess we'll have a better picture in a couple of days.

PS

"Samsung sees the copier business as having the potential to succeed its mainstay smartphone business, which could slow down amid fierce global competition".
 

-=Good Selling=-

Photizo Transform 2013 Wednesday Roundup

 

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

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

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

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

Photizo Transform 2013 Tuesday Roundup

Tuesday:

Long day of seminars, I took in a total of three. I was able to sit in on a seminar by Ed Crowley (CEO Photizo) for "How Connected Devices and Big Data are Changing Industries", Darrell Amy (Owner Dealer Marketing) for "Marketing Strategies for Managed Services" and Jared Hansen (CEO Breezy) for "The Importance of Mobility in the Future of Print".

Tomorrow I've been invited to a Round Table Discussion for the "Future of Imaging".

I was able to meet with a few vendors. One was Celstream which offers "printJinni" and I was intrigued by the offering of a print4pay mobile print solution that dealers could resell and it's device agnostic.

Verdiem offers a software service

The Future of Imaging a Round Table Discussion

I had the opportunity to sit in on round table discussion at this weeks Photizo Transform 2013 Event in Scottsdale.

I thought we had a great slice of people from the industry, a couple of MPS players from South Africa and Canada (Go Leafs!), another MPS provider from LA, a representative from Dell, marketing person from a Document Management Software provider, two additional providers that I did not get the chance to meet and then myself . 

The open discussion or statement from the MPS provider in LA was that he was not sure that Managed Network Services was the Holy Grail for his company. However he did admit that he had lost a tremendous volume of pages to a company that decided to move the information from being printed on pages to email.  One day it was there and the next

Photizo Opens Transform 2013 Event

Newark to Phoenix in a little under 5 hours,  sitting next to two Japanese businessmen who spoke nothing but Japanese the whole way, equals very BIG headache!

Never the less I made my way to the Scottsdale Resort and Conference Center by about 1PM.  This year's event features 30 speakers and more than 30 vendors that will have a heavy focus on educational seminars for Managed Print, Managed Services, Business Process and what the future holds for our Industry.

Ed Crowley's welcome message states it best, "As the industry has transformed, so has our event. We now cover the full range of the imaging industry and look forward to your participation in making this our best event yet"!

I'm looking forward to these seminars tomorrow:

The Importance of Mobility in the Future of Print   Joel Hansen, Breezy

Products and Platforms: Solution or Tool  Edward McLaughlin, Vaderus

Real-Time Data: How Connected Devices and Big Data are Changing Industries  Edward Crowley, Photizo Group

Marketing for Managed Services: Darrell Amy, Dealer Marketing Systems

Preton Saver - Toner & Paper Optimization, Ori Eizenberger Preton

In addition I'll be looking forward to seeing the new products and services from all of the vendors along with catching up with friends in the industry.

I'll have more tomorrow, plus my final wrap up of my top ten favs from the Transform 2013 Event.

-=Good Selling=-

5 Tips on How to Sell More Without Really Trying

Last week we had a special training day for telemarketing, but the day brought back many memories about how I use to get additional business, find additional prospects and or make a new contact. 

Over the years we tend to forget about some of the basics that was taught us many years ago.  I'm thinking that many of these "ways" may have perished because I don't hear anyone speaking or teaching these tactics. 

While this will be one of my shorter blogs I hoping that it will bring back memories for us old timers and for those that are new to the industry some new ways of finding those new accounts.

1. When you're finished writing the order ask the DM if they might know of anyone else that may be interested in your services.  (If you don't ask you don't get)

2. While you're writing the order, ask if the DM would be interested in any additional smaller printers, scanners or a backup MFP. (ya never know right)

3. You're bogged down on price, the DM put it out there, "can I get the system for this ....(he states his price), well you know you can do that price but instead of just saying "if I can do that price can we write order"?  maybe spin it this way "I'm ok with that price as long as we can write the order today and you can give me three references that may need my services, will that work for you"?

4. If you're selling Managed Services along with selling imaging, after you write the imaging order close for another appointment to introduce your other services.

5. Ask the DM is they are involved with an Association for their industry, if so ask for the contact name of that person.  Call the Association and ask about sponsorship initiatives, speaking opportunities for educated the members, or showing your wares at one of their meetings.

Numbers 1, 2 & 3 seem to have been forgotten at least in my neck of the woods.  I just don't hear managers preaching these.  Hope this helps for everyone.

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh MP C300HW and MP C300HT Spec Review

On April 17th Ricoh added two additional MFP's that are specifically designed for the Healthcare Industry.  Loyal readers may remember that a few years ago I mentioned that the next "Big Thing" is that manufacturers would start designing and introducing vertical market imaging systems. It seems Ricoh is practicing what I preached at least for the Healthcare Industry.

Both of these systems are similar to Ricoh's MPC300 (Color) MFP system that was launched a little over two years ago.  The major difference between the MPC 300HW and the MPC 300HT is that the "HW" model will be able to print patient wristbands (from the paper tray) from electronic medical records.  It's my understanding that this feature will enable users to eliminate expensive single purpose thermal printers.  Both the HW and the HT model are both equipped with Teflon Coating paper trays which can assist in minimizing paper misfeeds and the ability to print on wristband stock

What we'll do is go over a few of the specs for these new devices:

7 Way to Help You Cold Call for Copiers and MPS Prospects

This is the third time I've revised this blog, the original was posted almost three years ago, the last update was two years ago and just today I added some new content for cold calling. ENJOY!

Some of us enjoy it and most of us would rather have a bad day at the office instead of doing this. 

It’s the COLD CALL, I like to call it GOLD CALLING!  It's usually the day from hell or the day to find some GOLDEN accounts. If you've been doing it as long as I have, you've had success and have found some of your best accounts this way!

I must say the most daunting task is to open a door where you can’t see what is on the other side, will there be rejection or jubilation! Most times it will be rejection. Get use to it, its part of the job and comes with the territory. Attitude, Attitude and more tude will help you overcome the rejection and plow ahead. You always must keep in mind that you are there to give them a better solution or a better way of doing things, and if they are not interested then that’s their loss!

What, I hate most is a NO SOLICITING sign on the door. Full speed ahead right? You may want to think twice about this and send the owner or CEO a fedex letter or package. That will get their attention.
Here are a few tips to get you going.

Tip: If someone won't provide you with a business card, get out your phone and take a picture of the company name on the business directory.

Make Quality Cold Calls

New Ricoh MPC8002 & MPC6502 Sneak Peek

On April 25th Ricoh Japan launched the much anticipated launch of their new high speed color MFP. For those of us in the states, we've been waiting along time for the refresh of the current MPC6501 and MPC7501. 

I've been told that the system will not launch in the US until the current inventory of MPC6501's and 7501's have been depleted.  I can hope that this will happen sooner rather than later since we are so far behind the curve of technology with the old systems.

So, what's new?  I've been told (rumor) that the new MPC 8002 and MPC6502 is a new clean sheet design.  What I'll do is post some of the specs for the new systems, because at this point that's about all I know.

COPY Features

Maximum Print Size through by-pass:  13x19 
Memory: 2.5GB
Paper Trays Maximum Thickness: 256 gsm
By-Pass Maximum Thickness: 300 gsm
Duplex Maximum Thickness:  256 gsm
Scan Resolution: 600x600
Print Resolution: 1200dpi x 4800 dpi
First Copy Black Time for MPC8002: 4.8 seconds/Color 6.4 seconds
First Copy Black Time for MPC6502: 6.4 seconds/Color 7.5 seconds
MPC 8002 Speed: 80 letter size pages per minute
MPC 6502 Speed: 65 letter size pages per minute

PRINT Features

MFP Solutions Top Ten Copier & MFP Blogs for April 2013

Last month I posted "MPF Solutions Top Ten Copier and MFP Blogs for March 2013 and I made a mental note of one particular Blog I wrote titled 10 Awesome Tips for a Great MFP/Copier Demo.

I wrote this Blog in August of 2012, last month there were 856 reads, this month increased to 956 reads for the month.  Total reads since August now stands at a little over 9,000 reads!!! All I can say is thank you. I did post a follow up Demo Blog titled The "Art" of the Copier & MFP Demo which I thought was better, but who am I to argue with over 9,000 reads. Thank you!!!

		10 Awesome Tips for a Great MFP/Copier  Demo Aug 12, 2012, 3 comments   956 Does Brother Corporation Have it's Sights Set for ... Apr 21, 2013   308 WTF is a Copier Lease Forgiveness? Mar 31, 2013, 2 comments   296 End of MFP Copier Lease Equals Balloon Payment? Apr 5, 2013   272 15 Ways to Make your MFP & MPS Proposals Standout!... Mar 31, 2013   240 Copier Stream of Payments Calculator Apr 14, 2013   230 Memjet, Preton Saver Offering New MFP & MPS Soluti... Apr 21, 2013   227 Ricoh MPC4502 Series MFP Review Apr 15, 2012, 1 comment   215 Copiers and MFP's "Charge for Scans or Not to Char... Apr 14, 2013   211 How to Close More MFP & MPS Sales             Apr 13, 2013 -=Good Selling=-

Top Ten Copier and MFP Proposals for April 2013

Well, if you tuned into lasts months Top Ten Copier and MFP Proposals for March 2013. I stated that April 2013 business was going to be marginal at best, and that was the case. But, I have over $230K in the pipeline and it's time to make things happen.

On another note, we'll be moving the MFP Solutions Blog to a new site.  I'll be able to condense all three sites into one site. The main objective is to save me time and to bring some of my ideas to the masses.

One more important item, each week I'll be writing a Premium Blog, thus the only way you'll be able to read this is to subscribe to a Premium Print4Pay Hotel membership.  The annual subscription will be $99 per year, however if you elect to take a Lifetime Premium Membership the cost is only $299 until July 1st, after July 1st the cost for the Lifetime Premium Membership will be $499. If you'd like please go here to access your Lifetime membership (since we made our announcement last week, we've had ten new Lifetime Members.

Each month on the Print4Pay Hotel forums we'll upload "Pricing on the Street" quotes, these quotes are certified as accurate since the pricing information is emailed to us from other Print4Pay Hotel members in the field.

We'll also receive and upload quotes and proposals from other

Why Are Copy Machines Always Such a Pain?

"We’ve all had the experience.  You’re pushing a deadline, your anxiety is high, you need to make a few copies and get to a meeting ASAP.  There is no time to spare.

Everything is ticking along fine, coming together nicely, until you get to the copier.  It jams.  A light comes on.  It’s out of toner.  It’s out of paper.  A light is blinking and it won’t budge.  You open and close a few drawers.  You pop the front panel.  You peer around the back.  You switch it off and on.  Nothing happens.  Time is running out.  You’re screwed.  The copy machine has defeated you again".

I can't even remember where I picked this up, but it was in my google alerts and thought it would be a good topic about copier karma.

What comes around goes around, and I'm thinking this may be a case of Copier Karma coming back to haunt the people the in the office.  Some may ask how do you get Copier Karma, for those of us in the industry it's simple, the copier salesperson put a hex on the copier before we delivered it to you!

Yup there are those of us that have that ability to put a curse on your copier, and we do it for a good reason.  Here's a few tips

Tuesday, A Day in the Week of Selling Copiers

Tough week, today was the end of the month and I had booked five appointments with my first appointment at 7:30AM (really did I need the deal that bad?).  Up at 6AM, back to bed at 6:05AM, finally up at em for 6:15AM. Made my way downstairs to walk the dog, and watch the sky turning orange over the ocean t the east.

Made my first appointment at 7:32AM,  knocked on the door (cause it was locked and thought what a way to start the day), 45 seconds later the owner came to the door and we proceeded to write the order for a small MPC305SPF.  As of a few days ago I was hoping to get the wide format system (CW2200SP) and the smaller color system, however the customer wanted to wait a few months on the wide format since they are in a seasonal business and the year just started for them.  I also made sure that I mentioned that we could offer a seasonal lease on the wide format system.  I left with a promise that I would follow up before the end of the new month about the wide format system.

Into the car and I realized I left my cell phone at home, a quick 25 minute ride north along the ocean and I was home to get my phone.  Powered up the laptop and made sure I made some updates in my CRM software. I had a tele conference appointment for 8:45AM and went over the specifics for a rather large secure print proposal that I'm still working on.  After 30 minutes

Memjet, Preton Saver Offering New MFP & MPS Solutions

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog about Memjet's new C6010 ink color printer with their waterfall ink head technology.  The Memjet C6010 color printer's claim to fame is an out put speed of 60 pages per minute with full bleed for letter size paper, the ability for the dealer to control the aftermarket for the ink and the excellent margins on that are available for the ink and the hardware.

I had the chance to speak with Kim Beswick with Memjet the other day.  Kim spoke about the dealers ability to control your ink supplies. The dealer(s) would be able to buy new or send used cartridges to Parts Now for a refill @ a 30% discount.  Dealers also would be able to refill their own cartridges @ a 50% discount and Memjet would supply the dealers with a free refill systems. Dealers would be able to buy ink in one liter bags.

Control is good, especially with aftermarket supplies. One of the points I outlined in the previous Memjet blog was the thought that wouldn't it be awesome if the Memjet C6010 had technology to allow dealers to bill the end users for the amount of ink that they used.  This would be similar to Xerox's tiered billing or Kyotier billing. Having this type of billing system would allow dealers to bill for just black, and tiered cost per page billing for the amount of color ink that was used. At the time when I wrote the blog there was no such technology available until......

Preton made an announcement on March 17th

Print4Pay Hotel to Launch New Social Media Site for Imaging Professionals

June 1st is right around the corner. When the clock strikes Midnight on June 1st we'll be turning on a new web platform that will combine the end users forums, the secure forums, and the MFP solutions Blog. 

If you're a Print4Pay Hotel member you'll be grandfathered in to the new site, there is nothing you need to do.  The new site will be somewhat similar to facebook and linked in, where you can add your own picture, your own bio, add clips, add documents, download documents, add video and subscribe to threads and see what's trending in our industry.  We'll still have the forums, however in order to post or read a thread you'll need to be registered and as always I will maintain who gets approved and who does not. For those of you that had to bookmark four different sites, they will now all be combined into one site.

We've posted a link for the beta site on the Print4Pay Hotel forums, if you get the time check out the beta site and please email me if you have any suggestions. 

Moving to the new site will save me time, I'll only have to administer one site for updates and changes.  This will then allow me more time to develop new features, new utilities  and services that will provide outstanding value to our members. 

To date the Print4Pay Hotel has over 2,600 registered members from around the world. Our Print4Pay Hotel forums has over 50,000 threads related to the office equipment industry, and the Print4Pay Hotel generates more than 220,000 page views per month.

-=Good Selling=-

How Do You Feel About the Copier Industry?

How Do You Feel About the Copier Industry? This is the title of a recent thread on the Print4Pay Hotel forums that was posted a little more than a month a go.  I thought I would share some of the comments from our members.  If you'd like to read the entire threads please go here and register for a free membership.

I still believe there are many more pages to capture. I'm not thrilled with the shrinking margins, however I gotten used to picking my battles and knowing when I can make GP and when I can't. I think our industry needs to be more creative with new products also..... Member from NJ

We have one dealer in our territory with the sell at all cost mentality, low ball service, low ball the sale just to get the deal..... Member from WI

I'm in favor of a contraction of the industry as a whole.... Member from NJ

Anyway it seems you have to work harder and harder every year, I'm not opposed to working hard but will be interesting to see when the industry bottoms out. Member from New Zealand

Society does not seem to be producing people who want to be in outside sales or think that they can earn an income other than by sitting behind a computer..... Member from Canada

I think it is easy (30 years of thinking a warped way) but when you get a

Does Brother Corporation Have it's Sights Set for Another Acquisition?

I was stunned when I read the report that Brother Corporation has signed an agreement to purchase certain assets of their document imaging division. The purchase agreement is to include document scanners. image capture software and technical services.  The price, mere 210 million US dollars. I wasn't stunned by the sale because I had heard and read that Kodak was shopping the document imaging business for quite sometime. The stunned part was that Brother Corporation was the buyer.

What were Ricoh, Kyocera, Xerox, Canon, Toshiba and KonicaMinolta thinking? Recently I had an opportunity to provide 20-30 production scanners to a large firm with over 3,000 employees. I was in with Fujitsu and had Kodak as the competition. I knew that Kodak was shopping the business and made sure I the prospect knew.

When you think about what types of companies need high production scanners you can only think that they would be some of the largest

Copier Stream of Payments Calculator

Over time I became pretty adept at calculating how many payments were left when I needed to trade up a competitors copy machine/MFP's that were leased.  Problem is I would scribble the start date, today's date, and then figure out how many payments the has made to date.  I also then had to calculate the monthly payment times the remaining stream of payments, and then add a return fee.

After years of making a mistake every now and then I moved to calculating the remaining payments in my pricing worksheet (which is a document that can be downloaded on the Print 4Pay Hotel forums).  All was well and good, but I was still having issues with the start date, today's date, when we delivered new equipment. Plain and simple is was a cluster$%^#.

The other day, I decided to do something about it.  I developed my own "Copier Stream of Payments Calculator.  All you need to do is input the start date, today's date and the amount of the monthly payment and the rest if the information is calculated for you with the remaining number of payments, and the total for the remaining stream of payments and return fees.

Usually this file is reserved for Premium Print4Pay Hotel members, however if you register here and include a note in the BIO field stating "send me the Copier Stream of Payments Calculator", I will email that to you for free.  I showed it to a few reps already and all have stated it's a real time saver and awesome to use in the field.

-=Good Selling=-

Monday, A Day in the Life of a Copier Salesperson

FYI, this was something I posted about 4 years ago, this was just one Monday that I wrote about.  Seems it was the same time of the year, since the METS we're doing their home opener.

Monday???.....Everyone knows that a great copier sales person week starts late Sunday, because they called it quits early Friday!

With that in mind, Sunday night is geared to getting these type jobs accomplished.

• Answering emails that came in late Friday
• Preparing any quotes or orders needed on Monday
• Researching items needed to quote early in the week on Monday or Tuesday
• Checking your calendar to make sure there are no conflicting appointments
• Going through your account list to see if there any viable upgrades coming soon
• Rewriting your list of things to do

Whew, after all of that is done, it's MONDAY, yea!!! Time to make some sales YEA!!

The dreaded drive to the office, for someone like me, a late owl, I always find myself in a rush on Monday morning. Can you believe my wife picks out here clothes the night before? Well, not me, I'm a man and can figure that out in an instant, so off I go to work with two different color socks. Stop for coffee, and off to drive 33 miles which will take almost 90 minutes in order to get there by 8:00AM.

I'm at the office, get the laptop, get my presentation binder,