RISO ComColor is a "Rising Star"

I was up at 4AM today to take a 3 hour ride to Corporate in the pouring rain today! Most times I would dread the ride, especially since sleeping the night before is impossible when you know you've gotta be up so early! However this ride was a little easier to take since I would be taking a look at the new Riso ComCOLOR devices! WHOA!!

When I first heard about this product I was not impressed and thought there's no need for a system like the comCOLOR.

A few months ago, I took some weekend time to learn more about the RISO comColor devices, such as speeds, feeds, technology, quality and what it can and can't do.

About three weeks ago, I had an appointment for an existing account, while I was with the account, they explained that they have a direct mail business and were having problems with a current Pitney Bowes mail system and their current printers the WP50's were slow and they needed to ramp up mailings. I probed and probed as much as I could about how they print, what they print, how many and uncovered the problems. While doing this I uncovered the fact that this client was purchasing 250,000 pre printed color envelopes per month and was paying around .13 cents per envelope. Ah, yes the wheels started to turn, the brain started to smoke, and there it was, a solution that would save the customer thousands of dollars per month!!!!

I want to keep this short, however the customer also wanted to make some other changes like adding spot color, and or full color when needed, but most of the time black was going to be the ticket. But they needed speed!!!

ComColor to the rescue!!

The solution was to add two comcolor devices that will print in black or full color at 120 pages per minute (they can also print in tandem at 240ppm), capable of variable data, and capable of handling the print stream from the PB mail server. The cost per page for black was .0056 and the cost for full color was .026 (consumables). But the savings, where was the client going to save?? We suggested pressure seal paper for those not familiar with pressure seal paper go here. With maximum discount we were able to price of pressure seal paper at .03 per sheet (legal), and then suggested that one panel be used for the outbound postal indicia and the another panel for the inbound postal indicia. The other panels would be used to print the data and the message for the direct mailer. Did you see the savings yet? The customer was able to stop buying a quarter of a million envelopes per month to the tune of $32,500 per month!!!

The end result is the customer could do every mailer in full color and still save .07 cents per piece or a cool $17,500 per month and have his investment paid off in 6-8 months!!!

What's the moral of this story, do your research on products, keep your eyes and ears open, and you'll find cool solutions like this that will help drive business.

BTW, the client loved the quality for his direct mailers!! Every direct mail company should have one of these!

-=Good Selling=-

Print4Pay Hotel Member "Biggest Deal of My Life!"

I had the opportunity to meet Brian, geez back in 2002 or 03 at a Ricoh event titled "Sell the Solution" in New Jersey.

We were all there to see who would win a trip to Japan. I won the trip, however Brian banged it out with this HUGE order!! Kudos to Brian. Brian has also been a member and proud contributor to the Print4Pay Hotel Forums and web site. If you're reading this, awesome job and congrats wish I had something like this to hang my hat on!!!

Allegheny County / City of Pittsburgh / and Allegheny County Airport Authority.

Worked on for approximately 5 Years. When first approached they were mid way through a 5 year Contract with TOSHIBA Equipment. The contract reached its maturity and was extended for 3 additional years. The people in charge of the purchasing for this constantly changed. When a solid team was in place, they went through a year long process to gather current needs from department heads and create a co-op for this bid between the three entities.

I had several meetings with their buying and influencing team before a formal RFP was sent out. We learned first what they felt was important to them, and then helped to educate their people on the specifics of their needs, learn about the difference between products, but more importantly providers. We had several discussions regarding different manufactures of products and helped to educate on the importance of realizing what is available not only at the time of the sale but during the entire contract period. There were also many discussions about the different type of dealerships, distributors, and arms of Manufactures; and how they operated. Most importantly how this would translate to their needs over the term of the agreement.

Two bids were executed. The first bid included a 15 day walk away clause to protect the buyer. At the last minute my powers decided not to bid. Due to a lack of response because of that verbiage a new RFP was sent out with a verbiage retraction.

With 12 days to complete a 350 Page Bid Response, we got busy. We competed against every manufacturer that you can imagine.

RICOH BUSINESS SYSTEMS
IKON – RICOH
TOSHIBA
SHARP – COMDOC and VAN DYK
VAN DYK was the incumbent.

The end result was the award to Amcom Office Systems for the value proposition that was delivered. The initial contact includes:

310 - 35 ppm XEROX MFEs

201 - 55 ppm XEROX MFE’s

16 - 75ppm XEROX MFE’s

7 - 95ppm XEROX MFE’s

7 - Vend Machines

Main Buying Criteria:

GREEN INITIATIVES:
Xerox Smart Kit Technology, EA Toner, Total Green Initiatives
Provide equipment defaulted to double sided print
Scanning in an intelligent format with a developed plan to decrease the amount of paper that was to be distributed, used, and reduce O-Zone emissions, and packaging from excess re-print.

TECHNOLOGICAL DELIVER ABLES
EIP Platform, Post Script Std Accessory, Job Build

SOLUTION TO PROVIDE DESKTOP PRINT REDIRECTION
All systems

SCALABLE SOLUTION
All Systems include print copy scan and fax where needed. All systems available to be upgraded with additional features as needed.


CHALLENGES:

Due to the nature of the size of this bid, and being a government agency, the most difficult piece of this was having to defend the proposed solution against slanderous accusations by defeated vendors. They had the right to review and challenge any piece. We had 12 days to put the package together and everything from using the right color pen to not missing a signature had to be absolutely correct.

Delivery:

The County had requested delivery be completed for the first leg which included 406 machines in 60 days.
We completed delivery and installation from Aug 10th to September 3rd.

BACKGROUND ON AMCOM:

Amcom Office Systems, located in Imperial Pa – a suburb of Pittsburgh, is a fully owned Subsidiary of Xerox Corporation. Amcom was founded in the late 70’s and operated as a privately held company until 1994 when GLOBAL IMAGING SYSTEMS acquired Amcom as core company.

Amcom has grown to a $25,000,000.00 Organization with 101 employees. Amcom maintains 2 Buildings with an inventory level of $3,000,000.000. Although Amcom is a subsidiary of XEROX, they operate under the Decentralized Business Model that GLOBAL IMAGING established.

All Decision Making, Inventory, Service, Supplies, Dispatch, Accounting, and Sales are located and managed locally. Amcom’s President, Anthony Massari, and Regional President for Global Imaging Systems, Dick Peterson, work out of this office as well as Amcom’s full team of executives.

BACKGROUND on Brian Miller

Brian Miller is employed by Amcom Office Systems as a Major Account Executive, where he has worked for 5 years. His career in copiers began in 2002 in Wilmington, North Carolina. Brian is 32 Years old and is an accomplished musician as well as business professional. He has and continues to serve on committees as a board member for different for Non Profit organizations; currently working with the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and holds a Bachelors degree in Jazz Music Performance with a Concentration on the Drums. Brian resides in Pittsburgh with his wife and two daughters.

-=Good Selling=-

MFP Sucess Story from P4P Hotel

Here's another success story that was posted on the P4PHotel a few years ago, from time to time I'll post some here for everyone to enjoy!

To Art and all that have helped, this is a small token of appreciation for the p4photel. I was working with an IT manager for a MAJOR TV Station in my area.

It became a very technical situation which stemmed from just a printer solution call. the IT Director wanted to replace printers that were running from a black box so that a job could be parallel printed onto 6 printers. As a result of every ones input at the P4PHotel; success stories, and guidance, I was able to turn this into a total workflow solution.

In all I have placed:

(GESTETNER)6 13fs6 9199L Fax Machines

7 45 ppm Laser Printers

2 9002 Copiers2 7502 Copiers

2 27sp copiers

1 213d color copier w/ fiery

4 38ud color printers

I wouldn't have been able to do this with out the support and knowledge that everyone shares on this site. So Thank You to all...

Note from Art: Go ahead become a member of the worlds only networking group for copier (2,000 worldwide members) salespeople http://www.p4photel.org/

MFP Wide Format Success Story with P4P Hotel!!

Thought I would repost this from the RFG Message Boards. Real story, real help, become a member, converse and share ideas and solutions with your peers!



This message was posted by Brian from Pittsburgh about a year ago.







After working on an account for close to 1 year, I finally had the opportunity to place a wide-format plotter. The Gestetner AO45. This is the first one that my company placed in the field, as we had just started to carry the wide-format line.

Although, they sent a tech, a trainer, and an IT guy to Ricoh Univ. when the piece went in which was configured with the print/scan controller / Post Script / and the 2 roll drawer with the bottom paper stacking contraption, the piece would just not work.

Murphy's Law kicked in. Anything and Everything that could go wrong DID!!!!!!! My support had given up, whispering stupid rumors that I had placed the wrong equipment which I knew I did not.

They made a tremendous effort to rectify the situation using the standard resources any dealer has. Even our local Wide Format Specialist was of NO HELP!!!!

I turned to the P4PHotel for help. Again, without the knowledge, real-world experiences, and community, this deal would have been dead. Because of the tremendous amount of support and feedback, I was able to, most importantly, get the customer to be happy, meet their needs, and personally be vindicated, and re-earn the respect of my support personnel.

This wasn't by any stretch of the imagination, a huge deal, but it meant a lot. And that means more than money. At the end of the day, if it wasn't for this community, this deal would have been DEAD..THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR HELP