Scan2Cloud Solution the Alternative to eCopy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-=Good Selling=-

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

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

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

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

What does Buck County do with all  of this paper? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


-=Good Selling=-

The End of Solution Sales? Are they Fracking Crazy?

The other night I came across an article/blog titled "The End of Solution Sales", as usual I gave it a read and was not in agreement with several of the statements that were made by the authors.

"But now, owing to increasingly sophisticated procurement teams and purchasing consultants armed with troves of data, companies can readily define solutions for themselves". 

Hey, if the procurement teams and purchasing teams are investigating pricing, they can pretty much find that anywhere for a specific piece of hardware or solution.  The trick is knowing which solution is the right fit and if  there is a better solution that will ease the pain or improve the business process to make it the corporation moer efficient.  You can look up tons of information on the web, however can you really find a solution to specific business problems?  In some cases, I'm thinking yes, however when it comes to true print stream management solutions I'm thinking, not really! 

Let's take this for example:  combine print stream to print 3 pages on NCR paper and staple, a google lookup returns this.  If you got to the second page of the google search you would have seen a few of my blog posts, however nothing on the acutally software that provides the solution.

There will always be Solution Sales and there will always be Solution Sales People, the "End of Solutions Sales" is catchy title and thats about all it is.   Vince from the P4P Hotel forums posting this in reference to the article;  "I hope like Hell my competition reads this and decides to fire their Solutions and Systems Engineers. Beucase then I will have an even easier time of cleaning their clocks!

Why RFPs don't work anymore!

The first couple of paragraphs don't seem to be supported by the end of the article, unless the Super Saleman that he speaks of have in depth technical knowledge of the products they sell and the network environments that they sell them into, Oh wait! That would be a Pre Sales Solution Engineer. Never mind!"

The other statement I am not in agreement with is "The top-performing reps have abandoned the traditional playbook and devised a novel, even radical, sales approach built on the three strategies outlined above. Let’s take a close look at each".  There is NO playbook! Top reps will always find a way to tweak strategiesnd if they don't they will be left in the dust.

I had to chance to look up the three writers for this article/blog and there was one common theme among them (lloed them up on linkedin), seems like none of them had real sales experience and the article/blog they wrote about was based on data.  Come on, if you're really going to claim that this is the end of Solution Sales at least have some experience in sales!

Solution Sales is here to stay, the rep or the company that seeks out new technologies and new solution vendors will always be one step ahead of the competition and always have a creative way to solve a business process. If you don't eat the bear, the bear will eat you!

BTW, here's the link for the article!

-=Good Selling=-

What is an MFP Copier Solution Worth?

I've been busy for the past week visiting my son at Fort Benning, Ga.  He's graduated boot camp and will be there for another month for advanced training.  I'm proud of his accomplishment and can't wait to see him for his final graduation in July.

Anyway one of the Print4Pay Hotel sponsor is a Stethos, if you're not familiar with Stethos they are a software company that offers different solutions to enhance and modify the printer data stream without interfering with existing processes. The pricing for these solutions is off the the charts, believe me you can sell a solution and make an excellent profit!

So last week I made a phone call to a Net New Account, this was my third call to this Health Care account and I was able to get through to the IT manager. I have to admit I had a little bit of help, meaning my wife had to make a few visits to this Health Care Group (she's fine). Like most medical plans we had to pay something, about three weeks ago we received billing from them and the billing was at 3 pages that were printed from some sort of laser device, however they were not stapled. Thus I assumed (and I was right), that someone had to fold each piece of paper that was printed and then stuffed in the envelope.  The folding part is mundane and is a real loss of time when it comes to productivity. 

The plan was to speak about the billing I received and then to ask questions:

Top 7 Solutions @ Transform 2012 ESP @ #3

I really feel that we're hitting the sweet spot with some of the recent solutions we've blogged about.  I'm a BIG fan of new products, services, and technologies that can get the final result.... a sale.  Every customer is different and you never knows what can turn them on.  Even a back door solution could get you in the "in" that you need and could lead to tremendous opportunities down the road.

White at the Photizo's Global Transform MPS Conference in Orlando I came across and exciting product and solution from ESP (Electronic Systems Protection).  Basically what ESP has combines power protect with and energy management solution that will allow salespeople to improve their sales strategies, reduce end users costs and sell sustainable solutions to their customers.

I'll give you all a short story from many years ago, when I had my own dealership we were a Copystar copier dealer, Mitsubishi fax dealer and a Brother dealer for faxes, typewriters and word processors.  I can't tell you how many times I back doored into an account with a word processor or typewriter and ended up getting the copier business.  The same thing....

Why Sell Copier and Managed Print Solutions by the Penny

I'm going to borrow something from This Week in Imaging and Scott Cullen.  Scott reported that while having breakfast with at the Kyocera Dealer Meeting that a Dealer stated that “the truth is 80 percent of the people out there don’t need solutions.”

Mind you I have no clue who the dealer is or if they are a Kyocera Dealer only or have multiple lines, however the statement that "the truth is 80% of the people (think he meant customers) don't need solutions." is just plain wrong! I'm thinking maybe that Dealer Owner (if it was a dealer owner) doesn't go out much in the field anymore and is listening to reps who don't want to sell solutions or just don't understand the solutions that they have.

I'll admit getting the customer to commit to buying, installing, implementing and training on any of the solutions (Equitrac, Ecopy, NSI Autostore, UDOCX, Global Scan, Digi Docflow) is a tall task. I speak about solutions all of the time for every appointment, I'm finding interest, and in some cases I can sell the solution but have had to back down because "we didn't feel comfortable supporting the solution." What I find in the field is at least 50%-60% would like to have the solutions that we offer. The stumbling blocks that I run across are many and I'll list a few from my point of view and from other Print4Pay Hotel members that I've spoken to or communicated with through the Print4Pay Hotel forums.

• Upfront cost of the solution
• The Cost of  the Implementation of Solution (time in the customers eyes)
• Training (what happens when the person or people I have trained leave, retire or are replaced)
• Maintenance/Upgrades (who's going to monitor or keep track of the maintenance costs and upgrade when needed and will I need additional training for an upgrade)
• Change the Process (we're to thin with staff already and to change the process would be a burden on productivity)
• Support (Who do I call, are you/they proactive, can I get them on the phone asap)
• What Solutions Can We Support (this is from the dealers perspective, do I have the personnel that is capable of doing this right, or will we dabble and flounder)

Ricoh Innovates with Scan2iPhone & Scan2iPod App

I've had an iPod touch for awhile, but never had the chance to play around with it. Over the last week or so, I've been having some fun with all of the different apps and games. I'll have to admit I love some of the games but hate the fact that they give you the opportunity to pay for additional features. Whatever, the game cost .99 cents and I think I dumped $20 bucks or so on upgrades, kinda wish I had that opportunity with PACMAN when I use to sit at the bar for hours dumping quarters into the machine.

Anyway, I downloaded the app for Ricoh Innovations for scanning documents on my iPod touch and this will also work with the iphone, not sure about the new droid phones.

So, under some not so good light at my desk I used the app to scan some pages. It's easy!!! You open the Ricoh app, take the picture and you'll then have the opportunity to deskew the document, clean the document or keep as is. When you're done you can them export to all these Google docs, email, Evernote, Dropbox, or export to your picture gallery. When exporting to everything but your picture gallery you send as a .pdf or .jpeg.

Within a minute or less I had the document in my Google docs and then sent to my email account. One of the nice features that I noticed is that once the document is sent it's not deleted, this enables you to send the document to another if needed. It kinda almost felt James Bondish, being able to take a picture of the document and have it captured and secured with one of my accounts.

The image quality is good. Keep in mind that you can tap the screen of the iPod or iPhone and you'll be able to focus and then see the AE lock on the screen.  I did not have the chance to export as a jpeg to see that quality. Keep in mind it's more for documents, sketches and stuff like that. Once I opened the doc, of course it was readable, but the quality kinda reminded me of a poor quality fax (but, I then realized that the document I captured was printed via inkjet printer and it was taken from an image from the web, thus 72dpi). I printed the document to my printer and it printed exactly what I scanned.

I'm thinking a better quality document will produce much better results and I really didn't have the time to run out to the car to get some good originals nor did I want to print from the inkjet. When I'm back in the office I'll give this a shot with some clean documents.

So, I'm thinking this is an awesome app, especially for those of us in the field. Instead of using scan2email or faxing the documents to the office. I can take a picture of them and email them or upload to my Google docs (this way I always have a copy of the documents).

It's the sizzle that sells the steak right? I'll going to incorporate this app into my presentations, and I was just thinking a neat demonstration would be to have email2print setup at the office and then just email the scanned page to the MFP's email address. That would be the sizzle!

Dam, I couldn't wait till I got to the office so I went to the car and pulled a clean original and processed through the Ricoh app. You know it did a very good job, not A1 perfect, but good enough for FREE and good enough to read and process documents!!!

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers & MFP's "I'm Thinking this is Not for Me" Ask Art

We (Print4Pay Hotel Members) try to help whenever we can.  Ours is not an easy business and we can all agree to that.  Since the Digital revolution of copiers, the new Digital systems offer companies endless opportunities to enhance work flow, reduce paper, scan 2 ERP systems and much more. But, I wanted to get to the the matter in hand.  Yesterday this thread was posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums.

I've been selling MFP's for 9 months. I've only gotten a commission once. I'm starting to get discouraged. Questioning if this is the right industry for me. Can't see me supporting my family on base alone. I guess I'm looking for encouragement, words of wisdom etc.

One P4P'er (thats our short name for members) posted this today:

Quit selling MFP's and start selling solutions.
"You can get anything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want."
Zig Ziglar

Selling Copiers & MFP's "5 End of Year Sales Tips"

Before you know it, we'll be in 2012.....funny how it all goes so fast.  My Mom once told me that life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end the faster it goes.  True....

So, for all of us that need or want to finish the year strong, yup the carrots been dangled, we bit and we need to reach the monthly, quarterly and year end bonuses.  Here's a few tips to use, to help close and find business.

1.  Find those companies that have made a profit (gee, is there really some of those left), for those that have, they need to reduce their tax burden and one of the best ways is to purchase office equipment.

2. Customers on the edge?  Looking to lease however they are holding back?  Inform them of Section 179 of the IRS Tax Code, it just may be enough to put them over the edge or better yet have them buy from you!

3.  The harder you prospect NOW, will pay off in December.  Typically in December we'll hear statements like this "Call us back after the New Year", "We're just to hectic to make any decisions right now", " My boss got ran over by a Reindeer last night".

Selling Copiers "Are you Selling the RIGHT Solutions?"

We all know we can't make any money with a box to box situation.  So, where can the profit be made? Usually it's made in non competitive situations that will produce an immediate ROI for the customer.

One of the keys is to know everything about your customer.  You may be able to see the hardware when you do a walk through, however if you don't ask how do you do this or how do you do that, you don't get, get what?  INFORMATION!!!

We need to ask what do you print on that printer or this printer. With this you'll get a better understanding of the media they are using.  Plus, you can then add questions like:

Selling Copiers "When is a New Account Not a New Account"

Tis the question!

It's been bugging me for a while and just thought I'd throw it out there for the masses.  How does you company clarify what is new account and what's not?

Here's some emails that I've received from other reps over the last few months.

"Our company sold them some hardware about 8 years ago, after the 36 month lease expired we lost the business and the account went elsewhere.  I was just able to place a small MFP in the account again (hopefully bigger things will come of it), however my company stated that this was not a new account, since they were on the books EIGHT years ago!!    Why is that?"  Lansing, Michigan

"I'm closing to getting the deal for Print Production System for this account, years ago they had a wide format system from us.  They moved, did not have the need for wide format anymore, after the lease they returned the equipment.  Today they have Xerox Production Color and a Canon Production System.  We have no clicks in this account and no traction with Print Production.  Why is this not a NEW account" Boca Raton, Florida

"Dam..........we've got this account that has 28 printers from us and NO copiers/MFP's.  They had 45 copiers from Kyocera until I upgraded them.  I went back to the office with order in hand and was ecstatic that I had pulled in a new account, to me it was a new account because they did not have one copier/MFP from us before.  WTF, why does this not count"   Boston, Mass


I'm in the field just like everyone else.  I understand that NEW business is the way to grow the business.  Going around upgrading existing accounts is not the way to GROW the business.  But, in the cases mentioned above, THEY ARE ALL NEW BUSINESS well at least they are to me!

So, the salesperson in Boston generated 45 new placements of copiers, but just because they had traction with printers it doesn't count for new business?  What about the wide format in Boca, dam it was gone years ago and this company had to no traction in Print Production. 

New business should mean we've generated additional revenue that we did not have from an existing account, hey you put us on the map in that account and that was a great job.  Of course new business is also a place where you have never had a placement of hardware.  Many years ago I was refused a new account status because the customer was getting service from us however they never purchased copiers until  I sold them one, and then there was another where the company was buying toner cartridges for their laser printer.  Yup, I sold em a big fancy color system and it didn't count.

Sales are what you make of it.....sometimes the BS needs to stop and each account should be reviewed on a case by case basis.  Did we expand out exposure, did we gain additional placements, what did we have before.  Just because you never did business with them before is the not the only reason the account should be classified as NEW!

=Good Selling=-

MFP Solutions to the Table and Hardware will Follow!

I've had a few emails in recent weeks to try and get some threads in reference to solutions. There certainly are enough of them out there.

Just today I had an appointment with an IT Manager in New Jersey, company size is about 40 and they have numerous print, copy and fax devices.

The first thing I did was to ask for a tour of the facility. Once I had the ok, I fumbled for the pen and paper and we went to see all of the devices.

This is probably the best way to start any appointment when you're engaging with a new client, so much can be learned from seeing how the machines are placed, where they are placed, how they are used and what type of media is being used. You really can get a firm grip on how they use their machines.

When we arrived at one of the MFP's, I questioned the IT person if they are scanning the documents as search able pdf's. The answer I got was, "well we had looked at document management...", I then replied "was it the expense why you didn't move forward?", the IT Manager agreed and then stated the cost was $20K to get started. With that I brought up NSI Autostore explaining that that you can get NSI for around $1,200 or so and at least start converting all of your scanned images to search able .pdfs.

Selling MFP's & Copiers Like a LION!

I'm in the office the other day (which I hate to be in the office), and one of the new reps...well not that new but new to sales and new to the industry is having a tough go of it.  The rep in question has all of the tools to make an excellent rep such as polite, intelligent, quick thinker, quick learner and a good worker. 

Mind you the rep in question is getting the appointments, making the calls but is falling short in getting the orders.  I too struggled with this in my early years of selling, the problem for me in the early years is that I had no one to mentor me. For me, it took some 18 years in the industry before I had a true mentor.  Imagine that, no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to help hone your sales skills, basically you're  marooned to take care of yourself. 

Nowadays with the Internet there are many ways to get self help for sales, even on the Print4Pay Hotel forums we'll bounce ideas off of one another and there's even a forum titled Recommended Reading for Sales with over a dozen books mentioned.

Years ago I turned to "Act Like a Lamb and Sell Like a Lion" by Tom Hopkins, this book turned around my sales career! As I read theboo for the first time I told myself, dam this stuff is corny and it won't work. Alas, I had no other options but to make sales work. Hence I continued to read and learn.  After a few sales calls I found my self hearing a certain reply or a trigger word that sparked a response from the book. Yeah, it was corny stuff, but it worked!

I guess the moral of this story is that there is a "art" to selling, guiding the prospect to the end result of buying your product and services. If you're an excellent listener the prospect will tell you where they are in the sales cycle. If they are not convinced that they want your product you'll hear replies like "let me think about it", or "we haven't made a decision yet" and my favorite "we're going to check out competitors models".   "WHY" it's an awesome reply isn't it??

Back to our rep, I brought the book in the office today and told him make sure you give it back to me, and I also told him to read a few pages at a time and take it everywhere you go, it's your key to success.

-=Good Selling=-

I Want My....I Want My..... SMART MFP

MTV, the Eighties, what a special place in time for some of us!  So, where am I going with this??  Not really sure yet, however I wanted to give end users a little more insight on today's MFP's (Multifunctional Products/Printers).

Years ago we called them copy machines,  of course they were used to make copies, about ten to twelve years ago we saw the transformation of copy machines (analog) to digital copiers.  The only difference was that the manufacturers had the technology to convert the scanned page to a digital format and then use a laser beam to write the image to the photo conductor (drum).  The old copiers (analog) that were unreliable, service intensive and the butt of office jokes was transformed into reliable hi speed copiers that could scan and print from the network. 

So, a few years back, digital copiers took another leap forward with the ability to add software cards (Java) that would allow the digital copiers to become work flow and information hubs in the office.  This next generation is what I call a SMART MFP, pretty much they are designed to work with software that will enhance productivity and increase efficiencies in the office. 

Today's SMART MFP's will allow users to scan documents as scan2word, scan2excel, scan2ftp, scan2url, scan2sharepoint, scan2folder, scan2drive and process them as search able pdf's, editable pdfs, index, and OCR and that's just the tip of the iceberg.  I could probably bore you to tears with all of the applications that are available today.

What I see in the field is that most end users still treat the MFP as a commodity, clients looking to buy on price instead of buying on savings . Let me elaborate on the savings, the savings would come from saving countless hours of handling and managing a paper based work flow. If you can cut 10-20 hours a month of labor, that's a big savings. How about if you could cut 5 hours of labor per month per employee?  It can be done with today's SMART MFPs.

If I were an end user I'd want my MFP to process all of those mundane tasks related with the handling of paper. I'd also want my MFP to tell me who is printing what (files) and how many along with having restrictions of what files they can and can't print. If I were using forms, I'd like to be able to have my MFP print onto  NCR paper and auto staple these forms so I don't have to buy them from a print shop.  While I'm at it, why can't I have a virtual (cloud) fax numbers for all of my employees do they can send and received faxes from the PC's without wasting time going to and from the MFP. 

Good news is that everything I mentioned above can be done with SMART MFP's.

-=Good Selling=

Pennies from Ricoh

Thirty Two years in the down the street sales of copiers will teach you a few things along the way.  I tend to think that I've become an expert in many areas, not only am I an expert with copiers but I've also progressed to be an expert (professional) in others things.

Professional Directions Giver:  Where do you need to go in New Jersey?  With all my years behind the wheel who the heck needs map quest or one of those fancy GPS's.  I can get you from point A to point B with all the short cuts and no tolls.  When traveling with the wife there's no need for me to get lost or get off the beaten track because I'm embarrassed to ask for directions!

Professional Cold Caller:  Right, what the bloody hell, are companies going to shoot me or call me nasty names for calling them on the phone or stopping in. Over the years I learned what I need to get from a stop in, how to  track down Mrs. or Mr. Right, and been thrown out of more places than I can remember.  Full speed ahead!

Professed Expert with Ricoh Equipment:  With 13 years of selling the Ricoh product line, I know more than most and generally smarter than the average bear with configurations and what can and can't be done!

Professional Driver:  Over 20,000 miles per year for 32 two years is ..........(need the calculator for this one) for 640,000 miles travel in the beautiful State of New Jersey.  My wife tells me I'm a horrible driver, I tell her that....she needs to mind her own business and let me drive!  If I'm still doing this in 18 years I'll have a million miles under my belt and will be absolutely insane.

Professional Penny Counter:  Tell me, where else can you count pennies or tenths of pennies in your head and give the correct answer for volumes of 600,000 pages at .005 or .008.  Better yet add them up for 5 years and have the correct answer.  I've seen some really weird looks from customers when give them the numbers with out the aid of a calculator!  I'm always telling the wife and others that I'm in the penny business and make over six figures a year!!

Professional Finder of Lavatories:  When you're on the road as much as I am, you always have your fav spots for relief whether inside or outside!

Professional Lie Dectector:  Believe it or not, I can tell when your BS'ing me. I've learned to listen very carefully and can pick apart inconsistencies in your story, and your body language.  So, whether you're a potential client, sales person, or sales manager I know when your feeding me bull.

Just one other note, I named the blog "Pennies from Ricoh" because in the last 13 years of selling Ricoh products have been excellent years, and the popularity of customers who engage in cost per page maintenance agreements, again it's made me and expert in the penny counting business.  Boy, do those pennies add up, especially when you get a 1% overage on a cost per page of .008!

-=Good Selling=-

Death of the Fax Machine "Finally"

I borrowed a line from Greg Walters from The Death of the Copier here.


It's my firm belief that the fax machine as we know it will cease to exist. Now, if you would have asked me three months ago, I would have told you never, ever, fax will always be here.

What's changed my mind? A few things, one I'm gonna keep to myself because I'm not sure if the person I spoke wants me to release that information to the public at this time. The other item would be emergence of "smart" MFP’s (multi functional product) that are capable of communicating to the "cloud".

In my way of selling and I'm always thinking about how to reduce a clients cost and how to get an immediate ROI so a decision can be made in a timely manner.

Here's my thinking with faxing when it comes to existing MFP's. Let's say I'm on an appointment for a new SMB (small to medium business) account, one of their requirements is that they need a fax option on the MFP. Depending on the cost of the MFP would also dictate the cost of the fax option. Most faxes for me are in between $995 & $1,375. We’ll take the middle of the road at $1,200; putting this on a 36 month lease we’d have a payment of $35.52 plus tax for a total of $38 even.

Since most fax lines in SMB accounts are dedicated and not VOIP (Voice over IP), typically the cost of the line, dialing plan, Federal Excise Tax, State Tax and other BS fees. An average fax line can cost $45-$78 (Verizon came in a $78 with unlimited local and long distance) per month. Here’s an interesting fact I found out when researching the “additional charges”, the Federal Excise Tax was passed in 1898 to fund the Spanish American War, and it’s not gone away. World War I saw the establishment of the Long Distance Tax and World War II saw in an increase in both Taxes and they’ve never gone away!!!

So, if you’re going to add a fax option to an MFP you have the monthly cost of the fax module at $38 and let’s call the monthly fee to have the line with $55.00. I think I’m being fair in calculating a total cost of $93 per month.

Let’s move onto a “smart” MFP, which is any MFP that can communicate through its browser with Cloud Services. The one that I have in mind is Fenestrae UDOCX Fax application. I’m mentioning them because I’m more familiar with that product than any other and at this time I don’t know of any other Cloud based Fax Solution.

The cost to buy the UDOCX fax application is $30 per month. For the $30 per month you don’t need the fax module for the MFP and you can do away with the fax line, thus a savings of $68 per month! Plus there’s a heck of a lot of additional features that are offered that can help improve any companies efficiencies. If you’re the Big Brother type and you want to see all inbound and outbound faxes, or send faxes and have notifications in your mailbox, then you’re in luck.

The main point I’m trying to make is that in today’s economy more clients want simple cost saving solutions. If you’re on the cutting edge of selling solutions, you can take this information and solution to bank. You won’t have to discount your hardware because you’re already $2,400 or so less the competition with a “smart” MFP Fax based Cloud Solution. So, I ask you who’s gonna get the sale, the rep with pick axe or the rep with the jackhammer?

There was a post on the Print4Pay Hotel forums many years ago, in the thread was this statement “Peter Drucker says, "Every business needs to prepare for the total abandonment of everything that it does."

Lastly, I had a conversation with someone today who spoke with a manufacturers rep and something to this effect was said “Why would we do this, we’ll lose all of our fax module revenue”. Pretty dumb huh?

Sell cost savings solutions, find ways to give a client and immediate ROI without sacrificing service, or productivity and increase their efficiencies, it’s a no brainer!!!

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers "How did we Get Here"???

When you've been selling copiers as long as I have, well..... let's say that you've been able to learn a few things along the way that help lead the way to a sale. So, a short story on how one of my recent sales went.

Almost two months ago, I had a call from an existing account that had leased and A4 MFP device from me about 26 months ago.  The account had upgraded a few PC's in the office and the OS was Windows 7, it seems that the older (2 years) had a problem scanning to Windows, thus the door was open for a possible upgrade. 

One of the biggest issues I had to overcome was the fact that there were still 36 months of payments on the lease, as we all know those payments just don't magically disappear.  We end up building the payments into the new and pray and hope the numbers aren't too crooked that would halt the upgrade process.  In this case the numbers were crooked, so crooked in fact that we needed to get another $80 per month with the new lease.  It was a no brainer that I had to dump the color MFP and come up with something else or I wouldn't have a sale!



I would have to say one of the most important strategies that I use is to find out as much as I can about how the customer uses the existing equipment, or if there is additional equipment, how they create there documents and even ask if the send documents out to be printed!!  BANG!, BANG! When I posed the last question to the account I found out something I didn't know about the account!

It's always good to dig right? What I mean is to  keep asking questions like who to do this, why do you do it that way etc. For this particular account I uncovered that they were outsourcing 120,000 prints a year to a print shop.  They were single and double sided prints and they would get 2,500 - 5,000 printed on color paper, and then have them tri-folded by the printer. 

What was my solution and how much money did I save this account?  You'll have to log in the the Print4Pay Hotel forums and read the rest.  Click hear to become a member of the faster growing social network of copier professionals in the world!!!  Print4Pay Hotel forums

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh Copiers that Scan to Sharepoint

If you're a Ricoh Family Group Provider, you've got to check out UDOCX. No software, no server, it's pretty much a lock out feature and gives you something more to talk about than speeds, feeds and more importantly it seperates us solutions sellers from the box sellers. Offer solutions, and value in turn command a higher price for your knowledge to being state of the art solutions to your customers. 
I went through one of their webinars about a month ago, just today I was trying to get one of my customers to move to a larger system. For the life of me, I could think of any additional items that would make them go with the larger (mp6001), I then asked the IT person "are you guys using sharepoint", the answer was yes, and I directed them to the www.udocx.com site. While he and I were on the site, my statement was that the new larger unit will be able to support UDOCX. The head of IT was impressed, so impressed that he was moving the MP6001SP and UDOCX solution up the ladder for approval.

We all know we need to seperate ourselves from BOX sellers and become more value added to the customer. UDOCX can help!!!!

We'll have a blog from them next week and then we'll be having webinars for P4P HOTEL members only!!! We all know the CLOUD is HOT and it's all going in the right direction!!!!!

http://www.udocx.com/

BTW, UDOCX is now a sponsor of the Print4Pay Hotel forums. Log in here and become a member of the largest social group of imaging professionals in the world!!!


-=Good Selling=-

MFP Wars "Dealer Channel vs Direct Channel"

Whichever side of the Channel you're on we've got some sizzling content posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums in the last few days. In particular SalesServiceGuy posted and awesome document outlining 13 points "of a few things to consider" before buying from the Direct Channel. 

SalesandServiceGuy also serves up that "the statements vary in different markets and would appreciate any clarifications".  Yeah, I can agree with that, different market places equal different policies.

Here's few tidbits for ya:

1).  Except for Xerox, expect to pay .....

2)  Many National copier vendors will charge you full....

3)  Should you unexpectedly run out of toner and need a new supply the same day, most National copier vendors will....

4)  You are being offered Free Copies/ $$$ Vouchers/ TVs/ Cameras, etc. to help convince you to choose a copier vendor. Well, nothing is ......
5)  "Professional Services" fees ranging from $125.00 to $195.00 per hour are often charged.....


There are 13 of these great tips, I've got 32 years in the business and thought they were awesome!! As of today some 48 hours after the post we've had over 100 downloads of the documents.

Well, not to be done in by the Dealer Channel, we've already had a rebuttle from a member of the Direct Channel from SJM, there's a short post on the forum, however I received via email the full rebuttal with 15 points!!!! I asked SJM that they post this on the Print4Pay Hotel forums for everyone. I haven't checked in a few hours and it might already be uploaded.

I've been a dealer guy all my life, and yes I feel that the Direct Channel has an unfair advantage, however I feel that the unfair advantage has made me better because I've had to work harder at beating the competition.

When it's all said and done, both pieces are great reads and if you're in the industry these are MUST Read threads!!!

-=Good Selling=-

 

The Customer Isn’t Always Right. . .

Guess who's back for our guest blogger for October?

If you guessed Matt Espe........well YOU'RE WRONG!

Leslie Simone gave us "You know what they need to do, so why isn't your team selling?" back in April of 2010. Leslie's back and packing heat with.......

The Customer Isn’t Always Right. . .

Many of us work painstakingly to live by motto ‘The Customer is Always Right.” That’s generous and customer service-oriented, of us, right? Sometimes, . . .No!

Often, executives have stopped having hard and necessary conversations with their clients in the name of ‘good client relations’, and therefore their clients don’t benefit from the very specialized expertise they originally sought. In working with our executive clients, we have heard time after time, things like “the customer will never go for it,” or “the customer said ‘No’ so we have no choice but to give them this. . .” When faced with these responses, let’s challenge ourselves to dig deeper and speak our truth with grace and respect.

· First, check your integrity. Ask yourself ‘is there definitely a compelling relevant advantage to THEM in your solution vs. what they’ve requested?’

· Next, check if there is anything you need to own or admit about what you’ve offered in the past that didn’t meet their needs. I recall having to explain to a customer that we terminated an application we had formerly touted as exceptional because we found it no longer able to meet our customers’ dynamic needs. Typically if you are up front about your proactive response to emerging liabilities, you gain substantial credibility and give the customer peace of mind.

· Then, empathize with any potential fears they might have, and explain what you will do to move them through to success.

· Next, make your request to consider the alternate solution that you genuinely feel would be best for them.

· And finally, be willing to negotiate. Yes, you are there to serve the customer and they have the right to the final call. Lets just make sure to speak our minds and give our expertise boldly, without hiding our feelings in an attempt to “keep the peace.”

If you are still unsettled about challenging your customer, ask yourself a few questions: “Am I and my company really executing my current philosophy of the ‘customer is always right,’ without exception?” “Do we ever complain, gossip internally, or begrudgingly carry out requested implementations that we judge to be foolish or shortsighted?” “Are we resigned to only limited success with the transaction because we see the flaws in their requested designs?”

If you answered Yes to any of these questions, ask yourself, are you ultimately acting in the customer’s best interest -- giving their requests your 100% best energy, attention and can-do spirit? We teach that it’s better to stand toe to toe with your client and have a hard conversation than to passively participate in something that you secretly believe is doomed to fail. Plus, the mutual respect generated by speaking your opinions will either create deep lasting partnerships, or might signal that you should part ways and find other partnerships where your true strengths and contributions can and do shine.

To continue this conversation, please either send comments, or follow the link below to experience an unparalleled immersion into leadership development at the Handel Group’s Executive Boot Camp 2010 at Per Se Restaurant in NY: http://www.handelgroup.com/executive-coaching-boot-camp-in-new-york-city/

Bio: Leslie Simone, Senior Consultant of the Handel Group, has been working with the Handel Methodology for over ten years, co-hosts a monthly TV segment on topics of interest to professionals in the Northeast, leads crash courses to executives in New York, and consults executives one-on-one throughout the country in developing extraordinary leadership.