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Sunday, February 19, 2012

7 Tips When Competing with the Direct Channel

No baseball, no football, hockey (yawn), basketball..........LinSanity! The rookie who came from the obscure, no one believed in him, 2 or three teams cut him, he was only 5'3" as a frosh in high school.  This kid is now leading a resurgence to the NBA because of a no quit attitude, heart and desire to be the best.

So it was interesting that this week we had a post on the Print4Pay Hotel members from one of the  rookies in the business who has a no quit attitude and  was struggling with getting sales against the Direct Channel. Quite a few members chimed in with their thoughts on how to compete and their secrets on how to win. 

We'll post some of threads here (partial) on how our Print4Pay Hotel members responded on the forums.

Here's the thread from our member that kicked it off:

Question: I'm so frustrated. 1st Case: customer calls wants quote on 2 IR6055's. Needs print, copy, scan function staple finisher and 3hole punch. My pricing comes in right under $25K. Oce dealer gets the deal priced at $19K. 2nd Case: same Oce dealer quotes IR2525 at $2,300. My price $3,200. My cost on both of the deals was a couple dollars less than their quote. How are they able to give the equipment away and stay profitable... Has anyone else come up against this issue as an independent Canon dealer? If so, how are you fairing? NE ideas on how to overcome this.

Response: This is a tough battle in the field. Ever since Canon purchased Oce....Oce/Canon has provided extreme price flexibility. Oce/Canon will not lose the margins they have already built into the equipment nor will they lose the service revenue. So at that point it is up to the rep to price the deal where they think they would have the best shot to win within their guidelines. Remember that there may be.......read more here

Response: Things that I've used in the past I've posted here in a document http://p4photel.com/eve/forums...0104541/m/7783923667. Some other tips is to create value with your service.....follow the link or read more here

Response: Just an additional mote on this, I'm going head to head with Ricoh direct on many occasion's and sometimes they don't even know I'm in the deal and visa versa. There will be no differences with the hardware, the difference is...read more here

Response: thanks for sharing. We all learn here...even the people that have been in the industry for years. What you will find out is every deal is different and there are all sorts of angles that you can take like Art was describing. What separates you from others is your knowledge of the industry....that builds respect with the customer and they know what you are talking about...not just trying to sell a...read more here

Response: We compete against Oce & CBS all the time. We tell customers early on that we will not be the "cheapest" vendor that they look at. In fact if they are looking for the cheapest price they shouldn't be looking at us, because we provide the best value, not the cheapest price. When you break down the cost over a 48 or 60 month period how much more did you cost them for your better support? Even if they are buying....read more here

The other two tips are on the forums.

Take a trip to the forums to read the rest of the responses from our members, it's not about speeds and feeds anymore. If you're not registered go here for our FREE membership.

-=Good Selling=-






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