Can Multifunctional Copiers or Printers be Infected with Malware?

Multifunctional Copiers or Printers be Infected with a Malware?

My first thought was….. this is AWESOME! 

Finally all of those tree huggers than complain about the world’s most re-usable resource (paper) may be affected by this new malware infection.  My second thought was, how can I get a hold of this and get this malware to all those rotten people out there that have hung up on me, not called me back (ever), or went with a cheap price!  Can we all remember this one, “the thought of a cheap price is long forgotten after poor service”. 

This also reminds me of the early days of faxing; this is when all plain paper/thermal fax machines were using roll paper.  Guys in the office would send an endless fax to a business that either ticked them off.  The trick was to take and original document, place it in the feeder of the fax machine and then roll the original and the tape the end of the sheet of paper to the front.  The result is that you would have a rolled original document that would be an endless loop.  You would then dial the fax number, press the start key and the document would be set to endless scan.  The result on the receiving machine is that it would continue to print until the roll of paper ran out!  I can remember that some of the paper rolls lengths were 500 feet.  Can you im agine walking in the office in the AM and seeing 500 feet of fax paper all over the floor, or sitting at your desk and just seeing the fax keep printing for hours!

Luckily there was no caller ID then, and one of our guys in the office got caught because he forgot to clear out the sender TTI, this actually told the customer where the document was being transmitted from.  It was not the professional thing to do, however some customers did deserve payback!

With this current malware named Trojan.Milicenso, the infected PC will print out pages of garbled data to the connected printer.  The article I read also indicated that this virus was most prevalent in the US, Europe and India.

The garbled pages of data reminds me of when I first started with installing print drivers, seems when I installed the wrong the print driver and then selected a file to print, we would then get pages and pages of garbled data and the only way to stop it was to turn the printer or multifunctional copier off!

So, can multifunctional copiers become infected with a virus? After doing a Google search and scanning through the first ten pages I came up with nothing. I’m thinking it may have something to do with Operating Systems that multifunctional copiers use that would make them less susceptible to viruses.

If anyone has any additional information on this I’d love to hear about it.

-=Good Selling=-

Top 5 Reasons Why I Collect Copier & MFP Proposals

I was asked the other day by one of the new reps in the office why I always ask for a copy of my competitors proposals.  The first thing that came to mind was... this would be an awesome topic for my blog!  Amazing where the ideas come from and I'd like to give thanx to that person in my office. 

Here's my top five reasons for collecting quotes and proposal

• Winning:  It's the feeling of accomplishment when you come back in the office with not only the order but a copy of the other(s) proposal.
• The Need to Know who my competition is and how they presented their information, sometimes you never get to meet with Mr. or Mrs. Right until the very end. 
• The Need to Know how my competition presented their pricing, were they just quoting leasing, did they have purchase prices, were they presenting a professional financial proposal or just winging it with a vague MS word proposal.
• Why did I win, did I win on price, did I win with professionalisum, did I have a better solution or did they just like me better :). You always need to ask yourself WHY I won the dealer or WHY I lost the deal.
• Knowedge is the key to winning right, if I run up against them again I may have been able to see some weaknesses in their quote/proposal or something they were vague on.

Something else I try to use is to not only get a copy of the proposal but to ask if they have a copy of the order form.  If you can get one of these always turn to the terms and conditions, you may be able to pick something out that will help you in future deals. I've said this before, basically we're all stealing business from each other. I get some of your business and you get some of mine, hopefully I'll get more of your than you get of mine.  On a recent order form that I found out that a competitor actually had a clause in their term and conditions that allowed them to charge "x" amount for scans if they determined this was appropriate for the account.  How much fuel surcharges, and additional training.  All of these can be found in either the proposals or the order forms.

Usually I keep these proposals for our Premium Members on the Print4Pay Hotel forums. However, I like to share 5 of them with anyone who wants them.  Just go here and register for the forums (it's FREE) and I'll send you a link for these five proposals.

Xerox workcentre 7125_Xerox workcentre 7535_ ColorQube 9301
2 bizhub950's & 1 bizhub 552
pricing on the street for Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE 4051
Xerox school proposal for 36 units
"Pricing on the Street" for Ricoh mpc5502A

-=Good Selling=-

Top 7 Solutions @ Transform 2012 DOCassess @ #5

I've been a little backed up lately with providing the last three "cool" solutions from the Global Transform Photizo show in Orlando last month. But, I'm back on track and the #5 slot goes to DOCassess. Now, while I'm not an expert with MPS, however I've been doing MFP fleet assessments for years many years.  One nice tip when doing assessments is try to visit every printer if you can and find out who uses that printer, and then interview them about the media requirements that they have. This information is very handy if you are upgrading the fleet, and also opens the door for additional print work flow opportunities such as print stream management.

This blogs a little different from the rest,  I actually asked Mike Lamoth to list some bullet points for his solution and I loved the fact that last bullet point addresses work flow so that you may be able to uncover work flow opportunities!

As Managed Print Services gains more momentum globally the need to have reps articulate whats involved with MPS, how it differs from the past "over promos under deliver" and actually perform a professional assessment so they can actually speak more intelligently about the customers environment has become a necessity. Not to mention, the Dealer or OEM is now on the hook because they are telling the customer I will manage your print environment for $$. So they require reliable resources to help them understand the TRUE picture and not pie in the sky.

What was once a nice to have has become a must have and that’s an assessment tool.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from dealer principles is that many of the tools in the market require an analyst to use and the dealer can't afford an analyst for every rep. So we developed a sales aid and an assessment tool for all sales reps to use.

How does DOCassess differ:

• Ease of use
• We have incorporated a Print Environment Balanced Score Card as a sales aid – this allows the rep to meet with the customer and discuss their print environment by asking 22 related questions. At the end the customers score will fall into one of three categories giving them some industry stats and suggesting they move forward with an assessment.
• Two types of assessments – Surface Level for SMB (small to medium business) and Advanced which goes so far as to offer individual device TCO's, a sophisticated carbon calculator, and much more.
• Interview section to asked end users questions that will uncover process and workflow improvements

One of the strongest financial sections in the market providing detailed current vs proposed options, blended service, financial comparison down to a CPC (cost per copy) etc.

 

Take a trip here to find out more about DOCassess.

 

-=Good Selling=-

Meet Sharp’s New President Doug Albregts

Meet  Sharp’s New President Doug Albregts

By Scott Cullen

(Editor’s note: The following interview appears in this week’s edition of The Week in Imaging.)

It’s been six months since Doug Albregts took over the reins at Sharp as the new president, replacing Ed McLaughlin. Somewhat of a surprise choice to many industry observers, Albregts’ background is mostly from outside the industry, but if one drills deeper down below the surface, his background is well suited to an industry that’s undergoing a tremendous amount of change. Throughout the course of his career Albregts has spent time in the IT space and had short stints in consumer package goods and financial services as well as managing MFP and IT products at Samsung. 

What do you think of the industry after six months, do you feel settled?

Albregts: I do feel settled. I think the industry is going through a definite shift not only from a manufacturer perspective but from a dealer perspective. You see a lot of companies acquiring other dealers and from a manufacturer perspective you see companies acquiring IT VARs. And the dealer community is looking to expand their business into IT services as well.

We’re at an interesting point where we’re seeing a land grab between IT and the traditional copier space. In terms specific to printing a lot of companies are looking at ways to save money whether it’s MPS or in-sourcing printing services, being able to print on demand, and those types of things. Plus having the ability to capture that demand internally is another big trend which is paving the way for production products and higher end products, which is ultimately good for us.

It seems to be mighty quiet on the Sharp front although I'm sure it's not. What have you been focused on for the past six months?

Albregts: One of the things I’ve done is examine where our business is today in light of where our business was and where the market is heading. I spent a lot of time trying to understand our model and what that model should be. First and foremost I’ll talk about product. We feel for the most part, from the product side, that we are about to enter into every category we need to be extremely competitive, not just in features, advantages, and benefits, but at all ends of the spectrum.

The most challenging part is what role we want to play in this industry. When you look at that, competitively speaking, a lot of manufacturers have taken an aggressive stance in not only competing with their dealers from a direct operation but in IT. Part of that is because they think the grass is greener, but they also think this is a revenue and profit opportunity. As a result, what has been lost in the whole equation from a manufacturer perspective is a focus on the partner.

When you go to our dealer meeting in July part of our theme and our intellectual property, if you will, is becoming an ‘irresistible partner.’ We think there’s an opportunity in that. It sounds a little clichéd, but becoming a good partner goes beyond better communication with dealers. It’s looking at things like how can we help improve their working capital for instance. At the end of halves and quarters manufacturers have become very aggressive in trying to incent dealers to load up on inventory and make bad business decisions. We’re looking at the entire equation and how we improve our delivery times and how we improve our dealers’ working capital that transform the business that’s not only good for the dealer but even better for the manufacturer as margins start to erode. We’re going to detail a lot of those things at our meeting in July. It’s that whole idea around ‘irresistible partner’ and how we change the way we do business. That’s the challenge we see today.

Click here to read the rest of the interview.

Click here to sign up for notifications of new content in The Week in Imaging. There is no charge to read and a password is not required.

-=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:

Can Ricoh be Everything to Everyone?

Can Ricoh be Everything to Everyone?  Well. it's the topic of choice for our Print4 Pay Hotel members.  We posted our thoughts and are waiting for responses from other Print4Pay Hotel Members. Ricoh is entering a bold new ambition with MDS, are they on the right track or traveling down the track to become the next Kodak?  This is members only content, please feel free to become a member of the Print4Pay Hotel, it's FREE.  Click Become a Member and Click for Can Ricoh be Everything to Everyone.

-=Good Selling=-

Is my Copier covered under the maintenance plan?

There's always one in every crowd, and usually it's me!  However one of the guys from my office (he's still a newbie in my eyes) sent me this with the caption "Is my Copier covered under the maintenance plan"?

Gosh, this about the worst one I ever seen, a real toner bomb so to speak, if anyone has photo's like this one, email them to me so I can post them on the p4photel forums.

Actually, this newbie is getting to be pretty good at sales and is actually does his homework about the industry.  BTW, he is working with one of the best :).  Kudos to him!

-=Good Selling=-

Top 7 Solutions @ Transform 2012 Print Audit Premier @ #4

Remember the Photizo Global transform Conference in Orlando?  Many vendors had excellent solutions for MPS and MFP vendors or as I like to say "We help companies put information on paper". 
Print Audit especially their Print Audit Premier Program is far an away the best SaaS solution that I've come across for MPS and MFP vendors!  Print Audit had the vision to package licenses of  Print Audit Facilities Manager, Print Audit 6, Print Audit Assessor, Print Audit Secure, Print Audit Embedded, Print Audit Rapid Assessment Key for one low monthly fee!  If you'd like to know more about the program please click Print Audit Premier .

So, where's the value?  The value to me (I used to own a dealership) is that I can sell the software for a monthly fee per device or I can built the software in to my current maintenance agreement billing. The model that I like best is the cost per page, you've gotta do the math, however adding .005 or .01 for every page printed or copied can generate a lot of revenue in a short amount of time.  Not only does this provide an ongoing revenue stream but your dealership will remain sticky in the account, meaning when the lease of the copiers or printers comes up for renewal, do you really think that the customer will go to another vendor if they lose the licenses to anyone of the Print Audit programs that we offered? 

As MSP amd MFP vendors manage the prints on the device, why can't we manage the software charge to the customer for a low monthly per device fee or the cost per page billing?  There's zero up front cost to the customer!  As vendors we could bill the maintenance, installation and professional fees for a monthly fee, charge the customer a one time fee or build it into the cost per page billing.  On another thought, let's say you're in on a new account, they have no need for MPS, hardware or services, but you've got a hit with let's say Print Audit 6.  They need 50 licenses, what would be easier to get approved a purchase order for $10,000 (guesstimate) or $4 per month per license for 60 months?  My quess and what I'd like to present is the $4 per month per license.

What I've seen over the years especially with lean times still among us (did you know that Obama stated the other day that "the private sector is doing fine", let him work my job for a month or so and then tell me how the private sector is) companies would like to have the benefits of the software solutions but are holding back because of the upfront cost.   Print Audit Premier gives us a unique way to have a creative financial software solution that will benefit the customer and the dealer.

BTW, yes Print Audit is a sponsor of the Print4Pay Hotel and I'm proud that the Print4Pay Hotel is partnered with one of the best Managed Print Corporations in the world!

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh MP 301SPF Review

Whoa! Ricoh may have finally almost gotten it right with the new MP 301SPF system!

Kudos for bring this A4 31 page per minute system to market; with an MSRP of only $2,960  (or $2.00 a day for a lease) you get a lot of bang for the buck!  Network Color Scan, Network Print, Network Fax, Walk up Fax, and Copy all in a neat footprint that covers a space of 19.0 x17.7x18.1 (WXDXH). 

However the REALLY BIG NEWS is that the new MP 301SPF which will scan color, print, copy and fax in black follows the A3 (systems that print 11x17) cost per page model for toner!!!  Get this; the cost per page for black toner based on MSRP is only .0041! Nice, very nice indeed!!

It’s my understanding that the MP 301SPF will be the replacement for the MP201SPF. I hate to see the MP 201SPF go, however I believe the MP301SPF is an excellent replacement choice.

Basically, there’s a lot that I like about this system and I’m exciting to have this in our product line.  There’s so much that I like I just can’t fit them all in this blog.  The likes far outweigh the dislikes!

What I Don’t Like:

Retraction, it just came to my attention that the system will be capable of scanning mixed sized originals, even I make mistakes, the 52 page manual only has one small line stating that the system will accept mixed sizes for letter and legal. The document feeder in the brochure seems to be the same that was used for the MPC 305 which did not have the ability to scan mixed sized document, special thanx to Grandma T for pointing this out to me! BTW, I also went through the 207 page operator manual and there was no mention of mized size scanning or copying.

User Interface Screen:  What’s with the 4.3” inch color LCD?  Color LCD screens are cheap!  Why skimp on something that is used every day,  when it comes to LCD screens BIGGER is always better

Wireless Card (option):  Ricoh, have you all gone mad?  The MSRP for the wireless card is $593?? Why even offer one for that type of price?  Best bet is to pick up a wireless router with an Ethernet port and direct connect to the MP 301SPF and it will cost you $80 or so.

What I like:

Batch Scan: Nice feature for a value system, batch scanning allows you to scan the more than 50 originals into a single file.  You’ll select the batch scan feature before you scan and when the document feeder empties you just add the additional pages.

ARDF (automatic reversing document feeder), enables users to automatically scan two sided originals, nice and it was much needed with the A4’s.

Scan Speed:  For the price, 31 pages per minute black @ 300dpi and 21 pages per minute @ 300DPI for full color.  Nice that Ricoh is now quoting scan speeds at 300 dpi and not 200 dpi.

Document Server:  The Document Server is a feature I’ve been talking up for years, the MP 301SPF can store up to 3,000 pages and can really reduce costs if used properly in the office.  I instruct users to put their most popular forms, or information on the document server.  This eliminates the time to find the file and print to the local printer and also reduces cost because you would print to the MPC305 instead of the higher cost local printer.  Plus, if people are constantly asking you to re-print documents (which decrease your productivity), you can point them to Document Server and have them print the documents themselves.

Scheduled Print:  Set the time to print and away you go, excellent feature for workgroups!

Auto Job Promotion:  It’s about time!!  I love this feature; too many times in the office I’ll send a document that is a mismatch meaning the paper orientation maybe the wrong way or I selected the wrong paper size and or the wrong media. If I did not go to the system to clear the print job, no one else could print.  The Auto Job Promotion allows the print job error to be parked and allows others to print!  Nice.

Scan2PDF/A: Is a file format and ISO Standard for long-term archiving of documents.

Access2Cloud:  The browser card is an option and is needed to connect to cloud solutions, it’s only $170 but well worth the cost especially for scanning to MS 365 with UDOCX!

Scan2folder, scan2email, scan2cloud, scan2documentserver plus you can also set up scan2dropbox (you can do this on your own and is not a Ricoh solution)

What Should Have Been Added:

·    Document Feeder that can sense mixed sizes of originals, thus you could put letter and legal documents in the feeder, scan them to a folder and when you open the document you have both letter and legal size scanned pages.

·      Larger Color LCD Screen

·     Wireless Card as a Standard feature,  go figure I can buy a wireless printer from staples or Office Max for $200$300 or so and they have standard wireless print, why oh why does the wireless card for the MP 301SPF cost almost $600!!

·     Browser Card as a Standard feature.

Tips:

·        You’ll need to add the HDD (hard disk drive) in order to have Internet fax, LAN Fax, IP fax and Forwarding to email.

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh Convergence 2012 Update!

When Ricoh Americas holds a dealer event like Convergence, it's usually something special.  The Convergence theme was born a few years ago in an attempt to merge the Savin, Ricoh, Gestetner and Lanier Dealers all into one dealer meeting.  Before the Convergence dealer meeting each brand has it's own dealer meetings.  I can see why Ricoh made the move to one dealer meeting for all dealers, savings.... and one unified message.  

Before the Ricoh Convergence Dealers meetings the Ricoh Dealers meetings were called Vision.  I can remember many excellent Vision & Convergence Meetings. Tops on my list was San Diego and one Vision Meeting that was held in Orlando at the Disney's Contemporary Resort.  Since 1998 I've been with Century Office Products and most years as long as I hit my quotas I was off to the meetings with the owners of the company. 

When hard times struck in 08 and 09 I was not there. 2009 saw Century under new ownership and since then I've only attended one meeting last year in 2011 (I paid my way to go). More importantly, I do want to stress that these dealer meetings are awesome and a lot can be learned from the seminars, workshops, exhibitors and networking with other MFP dealers and sales people.  I'm also concerned that more salespeople aren't asked to attend the meetings by the dealer owners. Taking a break from the day to day drudgery of sales and attending an event such as Convergence can enlighten, and invigorate sales people so that when they are back in the field they are excited, knowledgeable, and feel that the dealership is committed to their success. Hell, I'd jump at the chance again even if I had to foot the bill.

This years Converegence may not go as well as planned, numerous changes with the top execuvtives in the last year are giving many dealers an. uneasy feeling. Rumors are flying that after the Ricoh Convergence Dealer meeting there will be another round of layoffs for Ricoh. Ricoh also seems to be struggling with an identity crisis when it comes to Managed Document Services.  Just maybe there's some good news, the Ikon brand has disappeared, there's now one unified culture and Ricoh has started the transition to a business services model.

This year I'll be sitting out, I was not invited and felt that I shouldn't have to ask if I can go. No big deal!  However, as the Print4Pay Hotel continues to grow our membership we will have Print4Pay Hotel members at Convergence 2012.  These guys and gals will be giving our Print4Pay Hotel members updates through the Print4Pay Hotel forums. 
Unlike last year when I wrote many blogs about Ricoh products after Convergence, the Convergence of 2012 will only have media coverage from people who never sold a copier, never went through the sales process, never had to prospect, never had rejection, never lost to competition and never had to rely on commissions to pay the bills.  So, I ask you how can they communicate the value proposition of a piece of hardware, software or solution?  We all know the answer right?  I'll be attending the Info 360 and Print On Demand Show in NYC (member of the press) continue to sell Ricoh hardware, software and solutions until the bitter end.

-Good Selling=-

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....

Top 5 WTF Issues with Copier & MFP Salespeople

This topic has been on my mind for awhile and I wanted to share with others the time that it takes each week to complete sales activities.   Salespeople  have many metrics that we need to meet on a weekly basis, but I wanted to focus more on the time that it take to complete the basic set of metrics. Here I'll focus on my metrics cause I'm not sure of those who emailed me.

• Minimum of 120 phone calls a week:  Over the years it seems if I want to make quality calls, I average about 15 calls per hour, keep in mind that making the call is only part of the equation I still have to enter every call, close every call, post a follow up call and then enter the notes into our sales CRM program.  This takes 8 hours
• Minimum of 30 emails each week (new net business):  Whew!  This can take some time to set up the campaign, schedule the email, create the email,  send the email, log in to the CRM program, schedule the client for a return call, and research the email address if you don't have it.   I can spend up to 2 hours here per week.
• Sales Paper Work for the month:  For some reason we are not automated with our support paperwork for each sale, thus when I finally get the lease doc, sales order and maintenance agreement I could have another 10 or so forms to process.  On the average this can take 45 minutes for each sale.  I average about 7 sales per month.  This process alone takes about 1.3 hours each week.
• Appointments by the Week:  Schedule 8-10 appointments per week an usually schedule these for Thursday and Friday, easier for me and easier for the customer.  I will spend both days in the field for a total of 16 hours.
• In house Weekly Meetings: Usually around 4 of these per week and done with our call days. Takes 15 minutes each and 1 hour per week.
• Email Follow Up:  These can consist of customer follow up emails and internal emails and I'm guessing here with about 2 hours per week.
• Helping others with Product & Sales Questions:  I guess since I've been there the longest when I'm in the office I can get many questions about products, services, support of follow up sales. I'm going to give this 2 hours per week.
• Proposals: 7 sales per month would equal 7 proposals, we present quality proposals, from start to finish I'll give these 45 minutes each or another 1.3 hours per week.
• Mailers:  I try to send at least ten mailers a week, letters of introduction, brochures etc. 2 hours per week
• Enter Sales Appointments in CRM:  Enter notes, close appointments, schedule follow up, about 30 minutes.
• Research: Includes looking up specs for hardware, software, talking with our support people and going to any resource I have to find additional information so I can move the dealer or solutions forward. I'm putting 4 hours on this per week.
• Follow up Reports:  Especially commission reports, deliveries, installations, and can include getting additional paper work from the customer.  1 hour per week.
• Close Sales: If I did not close the sale during the week this would be all of those follow up phone calls and work to either close of get a fix on where we are in the ordering process.  5 Hours per week.

New Jersey Gives Copiers a Bad Name

Deleting data from the hard drive
And you're to blame
New Jersey
You give copiers a bad name

Just a little rearranged lyrics from "You Gave Love a Bad Name" by New Jersey artist BonJovi. 

Just a few days ago the New Jersey Assembly voted in favor of Bill A1238 which basically states that the owner (business) or the lessor or the lessee of Digital Multifunctional Copy Machine "shall destroy, or arrange for the destruction of, all records (means any material recorded or preserved by any means) stored on a digital copy machine which was purchased by that business, and which is no longer to be retained by that business, by erasing or otherwise modifying those records to make the records unreadable, undecipherable, or nonreconstructive through generally available means". 

I believe A1238 still needs to be voted on by the NJ Senate in order to become law, the bill would take effect on the 60th day following the enactment.

Here we go, this new law does not cover any systems that were sold prior to the enactment and would only affect those systems that were sold or leased on or after the date of enactment.  New Jersey law makers have nothing else to do than to create a bill that was based on an expose from CBS news more than two years ago on multifunctional copiers that were already 5 years old?  In short that means these copiers were manufactured in 2005.  Since that expose from CBS news, all copier manufacturers have stepped up to the plate and offered new advanced security measures like overwriting the hard drive up to 9 times or event driven data destruction to destroy the data on the hard drives.

Do we really need a law for this?  Did NJ lawmakers not do their research on all of the new multifunctional copier offerings from copier manufacturers and see that they have addressed the issue?  Did they not think about protecting the data on the existing systems that are in the field? Did they forget about the tens of thousands of computer servers that are also owned or leased by businesses, and how a million or more pc's also.  Most of the computers and pc's are not resold and carted off to the land fill (sneak in at night, grab a few servers or pc's and you'll never know what you'll find).  Data is data whether the images are stored on a copier hard drive, a pc, server, removal drives, back up drives and cell phones.   BTW, shouldn't this law also pertain to laser printers that have a hard drive?

Top 7 Solutions @ Transform 2012 PretonSaver @ #2

Big isn't always better right?  While on the Exhibitor Floor I came across PretonSaver. PretonSaver is a SaaS software solution that offers an innovative way to lower your fixed toner costs with toner optimization. 

Here's a quote from the brochure I picked up "Pixel Optimization is Preton's patent-pending technology that optimizes toner consumption by identifying and deleting overlapping pixels. By intelligently removing unnecessary pixels. Pixel Optimizer saves as much as 35% in toner and ink without visibly impacting quality"

At the booth Preton had sample books printing with using their toner optimization software, so far I've only had the chance to review the 10% toner optimization.  The booklet showed the print with zero optimization and then 10% optimization.  Hey, 10% seemed darn good.  The PretonSaver will allow MPS vendors or end users to extend the life of the toner cartridges. Thus creating additional profit for the MPS provider or additional savings for the end user.
As a subscription service, PretonSaver can comfortably fit into the pay-as-you-print pricing schemes of MPSs. The pricing for the PretonSaver service is based on the same chargeable clicks that an MPS is charging to customers.

Features at a Glance:

• Toner and ink optimization
• Print reports and statistics
• Print rules and policies
• Page coverage reporting
• Remote meter collection
• Real-time device service alerts
• Supplies level information
• Automated reports

I was also able to get some additional information about PretonSaver.  PretonSaver installs on the server, and the individual users can control the amount of of savings they desire.  Quality won't be degraded with up to 30% text and 10% photo (variable).   All in all, the samples in the book were greatly appreciated since anyone can claim a savings, with the book I was able to see the changes with the print optimizer software.  Preton also has a pretty cool ROI calculator, you'll need to give them your email address however I think that's a fair trade off for the value of the report.  Here's the link PretonSaver ROI Calculator.

If you're looking for a way to increase profits and or extend the life of your consumables I would definitely check out PretonSaver and see what they have to offer. You can also download a FREE trial here.

BTW, PretonSaver is not an advertiser for the Print4Pay Hotel, just a really cool solution that sets you apart from your compeititors.

-=Good Selling=-

Top 7 Solutions @ Transform 2012 Conference "Intellinetics @ #1"

Cost Per Page Billing for Document Management Services

Photiizo’s Global Transform has concluded for 2012.  I'll be attending the conference in Scottsdale for 2013. 

About two months ago I wrote a blog about "Managed Documents the Next Big Thing" which I related to Managed Print.  The thought was to have an MFP connect to the cloud, and then scan documents directly to a cloud based document management system or a folder in the cloud.  After the documents were there the dealer would then manage the documents to have them indexed, OCR’d.  The dealer could then charge either a monthly fee for the service or a click charge that could be added to the existing maintenance agreement.  The benefit to the customer would be no upfront cost, no training (except to retrieve the documents), no internal IT support, and no maintenance fees.  The dealer could then remain “more sticky” in the account and offer the value added service.

While at the Transform Conference I ran across an Enterprise Content Management solution that was right up my alley.  The Intellivue ECM platform from Intellenetics is available as a cost- per-page model where you pay a low monthly fee based on the number of pages you use to the software to manage.  There is no upfront cost!  Billing would be enabled on a cost per page model, there would be one cost per page for a black scan and one cost per page (higher than the black cost) for a color scan, the reasoning for the higher cost for the color is that the color scan created a larger file size. With this SaaS solution a company can realize and immediate return on investment from the first month Intellivue is deployed.

Another excellent benefit to the dealer is that they can charge professional services for the installation and training to the end user. I’m more of a fan of the dealer performing the indexing of the documents for the end user and I’m not entirely sure this can be accomplished with Intellivue.  I will be making a call to them to see if there is a way this can be done.

The concept is for the user to scan2file from the MFP, the user would then index the file and submit to the ECM on the cloud (this is the part I’d like to see the dealer do so you it could be a seem less solution for the customer and you would be able to bill professional services).  Intellivue then retains the document for Archival in the Cloud or Premise Solution.  Intellivue would then create a monthly total of Pages in the Archival tabulate the monthly bill based on the cost per page.  Intellivue can then feed the monthly page totals and cost to the MPS billing software (I’m hoping that this will also work with MFP billing software).  You MPS software would then generate the total bill including line items for hardware, supplies, services and Intellivue.  Royalties are paid to the reseller from the ECM revenues collected.

The power of this solution is that there is no upfront cost and I see Intellivue as a tremendous value for the SMB customer.  For too long the SMB customer has shied away from content management due to the upfront cost, the training, the IT infrastructure and the thought that they would have to dedicate and employee to operate the software.

BTW, this is the first blog in a series of 7 for the top 7 solutions at Transform 2012 Conference.

-=Good Selling=-

Transform 2012 Conference "Hotter Than Ever"

Day one had passed and then day two, and overall, I'm impressed with the event. I actually ran into a few Print4Pay Hotel members and finally after all of these years got to meet Lee Rummage from RJ Young. When I tell you the Transform Conference was HOT, well it was that and then some, just about 1PM there was a huge brush file that developed only a mile away on Route 4.  Traffic is bad enough in the Orlando area and this fire had four or five choppers in the sky and flames that were reaching 30 feet high (I'll be posting the video on the p4p forums in the next few days).

On Wednesday evening Oki hosted the evening reception @ Hiltons Signature Island. Food, drinks and networking, at this time I also had to the chance to meet Greg Walters (Death of the Copier) and now the newly elected President of the MPSA. I also ran across many new contacts and believe it or not many readers of the mfpsolutions blog.

I also had the chance to speak with Tim Brien from Oki, Lou Stricklin, Carl Mica and Jim D'emidio (President) all from Muratec. On another note representatives from Ricoh, Canon, Xerox, Oki, Lexmark and KonicaMinolta were in attendance. however there were no shows from Sharp and Toshiba....think about it.

On Thursday morning Ken Schmidt (Former Director of Harley-Davidson) presented and engaging keynote address about customers and how you need to break the mold and have them start talking about your company. Thursday evening we were rounded up and attended an event at the Orlando Harley Davidson dealership. Boy did that bring back memories of my 1980 Harley Roadster/Sportster.

There were also 16 different talk track seminars slated for Thursday and another 13 for Friday. I didn't have the chance to attend any of these because I was busy on the show floor along with a Press Luncheon/Press Tour and still had to close my month since we close on the 24th of the month.

I was also able to talk with Adobe about Leanprint (if your a Print4Pay Hotel member we have something special from Adobe in the next week or so), Preton about their SaaS toner optimazation software, Great America with Collabrance, Print Audit with their Premier program, ESP with an awesome new product that will allow you to do an enery assessment for all devices that are plugged in (even water coolers and refridgerators), Falcon Technologies with an awesome Cloud Ipad Sales Software app, BEI Service Providers, Oki and their Total Managed Print Solution and Intellenetics which has an awesome Cloud Based Document Management System that is......so unique that I'll have a blog dedicated to the solution.

Other partners in attendance American PrinterWare, BTA, ChannelEyes, CompTia, Digital Gateway, DocSolid, ENX Magazine, FMAudit, HP, In-Map, Intel, Intronics, Genius Bytes, Global Printer Services, LMI, Lexmark, Mirrored Image, MPSA, MWAi, N-Able, Newfield IT, Nuance, ODC, Parts Now, PREO, PrintFleet, PowerSource, Ricoh, Supplies Network, Synnex, The Imaging Channel, Xerox and YSoft.

I'm a copier guy, never really got into MPS (cause my dealership only dabbled in it), but like everyone else I know what MPS is about. MPS is facing the same set of issues as the MFP industry, so called declining page volumes, lower profits and how can we change in order to be prepared for the future.

I can see the convergence of elite/hybrid MFP and MPS dealers/companies that are or will make the transformation to MSP (Managed Service Provider). So while a lot of the talk track seminars were centered around MPS there were also a few that centered around MSP.

So, far I've enjoyed every minute of this show, I also wondered why there were not more MFP dealers here. We all put toner on paper right?

Forget about ITEX, forget about the Dealer shows, if you want the real spin on what's going on with the imaging industry (remember we put toner on paper) you all need to make the trip to Scottsdale, AZ next year. Whether your engaged with MPS, or MFP's we all put toner on paper. Photizo is committed to helping those that put toner on paper to become more successful, more profitable and enlightening us on the latest trends and technologies that affect our business model.

If you're considering going to a show next year I would highly recommend the Transform 2013 which will be held in Scottsdale, AZ next year.

By the numbers from Photizo:

Global Imaging Market:

$120B global hardware market revenue predicted in 2015 (forecast 360, June 2011)
1% rate of global hardware market revenue decline between 2010 and 2015 (forecast 360, June 2011)
$118B size of global supplies market in 2015 (forecast 360, December 2012)
2% growth rate of global supplies market between 2010 and 2015 (forecast 360, December 2012)
$78B global MPS market revenue in 2015 (2011 MPS Market Size, Share and Forecast Report)
20% rate of global MPS Market revenue growth between 2010 and 2015 (2011 MPS Market Size, Share and Forecast Report)
9 out of 10 most rapid MPS expansions are taking place in less developed regions like Asia Pacific, and Latin America.

More MPS:
$725 average cost per year, per employee to print (pre-MPS)
30% average percent of savings after implementing an MPS program
60% average reduction of hardcopy fleet carbon emissions after implementing MPS
50% percentage of office printing revenue expected to be under MPS contract by 2014
3rd rank of MPS engagements in relation to other IT projects
12% amount of IT budget represented by printing

Stay tuned for my top 7 solutions I liked from the Transform 2012 show.

-=Good Selling=-

10 Phone Cold Calling Tips for Copiers & MFP's

It's getting late and I need to get though this for everyone.  After 30 years of calling for appointments some would say I'm an expert and just like in the other blog I wrote, naw I'm no expert I've just gotten beat up so many times that I've learned well.... a lot.  Below are the tips and I hope they work for everyone too.

1. Don't slouch when you're on the phone,  keep a good posture and good position to the phone so your voice is clean.

2. Have a great attitude even if your dog got run over in the morning by a bus, just kidding attitude is so important, enthusiasm is contagious and by being upbeat you'll come across as a pro.

3.  Get rid of the ums and ahs, have planned script and memorize it so you don't studder.

4. Always be prepared to talk to Mr. or Mrs. Right, it's not often that we get through however if you do, you'll want to put your best foot forward!

5.  Break the ice with the gate keeper, remember you're not the only one making sales calls, and the gate keepers job is not to let you through, however you can break the ice by mentione what a nice or lousy day it is and make sure you get the name of the gate keeper for future calls. If the company has a long name you can also state "Wow, that's a lot to get through and it was a great job".  More often than not over time you maybe able to develop a rapport with the gate keeper.

6. We all know this one, calling before the gate keeper gets in the office (meaning before 8AM or after 5PM).

7. If you're stuck in address book and you're tried to get to Mr. or Mrs. Right and it's gotten you no where, then dial any extension and when someone picks up tell them you dialed the wring extension and ask to be transferred to the Mr. or Mrs. Right, in some cases the call looks like an internal call and can get answered by you know who!

8. Pick up the phone on Saturday (OMG, did I say Saturday), yup Saturday and sometimes you'll get lucky and have Mr. or Mrs Right answer the phone. Remember "The hardier you work the luckier you get".

9. In some cases I will send a mailer first, and then an email (if I can get it) and then I'll make the call.  Kinda prepares Mr. or Mrs. Right and if interested they will take your call.

10. Making 50 calls a week is a hobby (wonder where I hear that), we need to make as many as we can. This is not easy but we need to remember that ours is a numbers game and we need to roll through the dials. If you can get em done 100 calls a week or more should be the norm.

Bonus! 11. Don't BS the gate keeper always remain courteous and thoughtful of their job, on a few occasions gate keepers have actually stated that my call was the most polite sales call they have had in awhile!

It's not easy, but it's not that hard either, yes there is a lot rejection, voice mail, not interested, hang ups, LMTFA but it's part of what we do.  Above all have fun with the calls!! 

-=Good Selling=-

Selling MFP's "Making All the Calls"

Mondays are one of our primary phone days and to tell you the truth I pretty much don't care for calling on Mondays. I'll doddle and procrastinate to about 9:30AM before I pick up the phone.  I've been cold calling on the phone for 30 some years, so I guess I'm an expert at telemarketing right?  No, not really, I've just been beat up enough times to know when to call and when not to call. 

Before I get into my tips (by the way, I'll have the tips in my next blog) I'll tell you about something that happened to me this week on the phones.  There is a certain Direct Mail account in my territory and about 4 years ago I had cold called this company. It wasn't until about a year later that I entered them into my data base and started on a regular call pattern.  I had the name of the "right" person and roughly after 3 calls I go through to "Mr. Right", we had a long conversation probably in the ten minute range.  The potential customer told me about a bad experience and then I asked a few questions about different media that Mr. Right seemed interested in.  Actually I thought he was extremely interested in one of my solutions.  I was not able to set an appointment, but was confident that I would be able to call and schedule and appointment so I could present my solution.  Boy, was I ever wrong....three years later, 7 mailers, and 26 voice mail messages and I had squat! But, you know me, I pretty much don't give up, ever!  This week I called and was prepared to leave a voice mail as usual, however I was surprised because Mr. Right picked up the dam phone!! 

I stated this is Art Post with ......... and asked him if he remembered me?  Mr. Right stated "Yes, I could I not, you call me almost every month". With that I gave a short review of what we spoke about years ago (it's good to keep notes, but at this point I had pretty much memorized the first phone conversation that we had).  I closed for an appointment as was rewarded with one!

Mind you the appointment has come and gone, I didn't sell anything, however I was able to present my services, knowledge and expertise.  Before leaving I had taken a tour of the operation, identified every hardware system by age, lease, own and asked about their needs in the near future. I also closed more importantly how often to follow up.  The last thing I want to do is call every month again for three years.  So, while the appointment didn't out any money in my pocket it did help better understand the customers needs and what he does like and doesn't like with his present equipment.  I fell I'm pretty much on track to at least present a quote in the near future.

The moral of the story, if it's a big enough account that you'd like to get into, don't ever give up. Don't put them off and bury them for 5 or 6 months on your call list.  Make sure you make the dials every month and sooner or later you'll get the appointment.  This is not the first time this has happened to me, however it's been awhile since the last one.  Don't ever give up and remember "Winners Make Things Happen and Losers Wait for Things to Happen" along with "The Hardier I Work the Luckier I Get"!

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh "Where's the ICE"?

Ice Ice Baby, Ice Ice Baby
All right stop, Collaborate and listen
Ice is back with my brand new invention
Something grabs a hold of me tightly

First four lines of "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice, which brings me to Ricoh ICE (Integrated Cloud Environment)  solution or the lack of it. I was floored when I read the first three lines of the lyrics and I was tempted to change the lyrics for this blog.

 Last May 2011 at the Ricoh Vision Dealer Meeting we were told about Ricoh new ICE solution.  The solution in short would consist of three cloud solutions that would have an annual fee (need to make it monthly guys), the three packages were Silver and you get scan2email, scan2evernote (evernote provides it own OCE & searchable pdf), the GOLD packages adds scan2google docs, scan2box of OCR and Excel files (good for only 2 users and 4GB of space, PLATINUM increases users to 20 and adds an additional 16GB of space.

Last May Ricoh gave us a preview of ICE at the 2011 Ricoh Convergence Dealer Show,  I didn't go to the booth and I should have because I'm thinking ICE  was not even running at the time (I could be wrong). If you're going to run ICE or any othr Cloud solutions on a Ricoh MFP you'll need order the browser unit for $170,  I'm thinking that this should be standard with all of the systems, but a recent rumor had told me that the official launch is now slated for November of this year and not a Convergence which is set for the first week of June in Vegas.

I've been told that Ricoh Europe has had the browser units running on the European Ricoh MFP's for over a year now. I had know of one solution provider UDOCX is already supported Ricoh and Xerox systems with a "Cloud Based Document Processing Service" and today I just found Fabasoft which offers Cloud Integration to Ricoh MFP's.

I believe that Cloud Integration of MFP's offers end users a multitude of choices and services that can make companies just as productive as their employees.  While I'm at it I also believe that there needs to be open open operating systems for all MFP's.  Manufacturers needs to adopt the Andriod OS and I think you'll see terrific apps that will be developed for MFP's.

But, what I really wanted to talk about is that there are applications available right now that will allow your MFP to have some sizzle.  Dropbox, it's free, you can get 2GB of storage and guess what?  You can set this up as a scan2dropbox  folder right on the MFP. It's awesome, no more scanning to folder or scanning to email or emailing the document back to myself.  Wait.... Dropbox also has an Android app!  How cool is that, all of my files on my phone!  Walk up to the MFP press my dropbox button and away it goes.  How about adding a PS option to your customers MFP's, include it in the deal and make sure they set it up.  Then you'll be able to print from your dropbox account when you're at the customers office .

How about the UDOCX solution it's available in the US, it's not expensive and you'll have scan2sharepoint, cloud printing and scan2fax!
Point is, for most of us that are selling Ricoh or Savin, we're get our butts kicked with similar solutions that are already in place from other manufacturers.  Take the time to check out Dropbox, UDOCX and Fabasoft you'll be glad you did and you'll be on your way to selling cloud solutions.

Betcha I don't get an invite next year either :)

-=Good Selling=-

10 Tips for Recession Proofing Your Business

I emailed Chris Polek CEO @ Polek & Polek a few weeks ago to see if he would like to be one of our Guest Bloggers and Chris emailed me back with the article below. I can remember doing business with Polek & Polek back in the eighties when I had my own dealership. Polek & Polek is also a long time supporter for the Print4Pay Hotel forums and if you're not familar with them, just click on the banner ad for a trip to their web site.

1)            Always Run Your Company Leaner Than You Would Like Especially during the good times. When The Great Recession hit in 2008 most companies were forced to start running their companies leaner. Downsizing was painful, and as companies emerged from the recession they discovered they were able to still accomplish results with less. Many owners made remorseful comments such as: “I should have been running my company this lean even when times were good!”

 How do you know if you’re running your company too lean? When you start to hear your em-ployees complain (as long as they are focused on doing the right things), then you have probably

hit the point where you can run your company as lean as possible. If you are not hearing any of
your employees complain, that is good sign that you can run your company leaner; start looking
for what resources that you can live without.

What about areas that you don’t want to cut back? Any of the resources that help keep custom-

ers, and grow our customer base. We can grow the share of our customers, or add new ones; I
advocate doing both. Also, your top people who perform well, and are always there through
thick and thin, don’t cut back on that. Support those people, and give them plenty of recogni-
tion; even during the tough times. Everything outside of that should be considered discretionary
costs.

You need to relentlessly run your company lean, even during the good times. This will allow you

to be productive and efficient. You can build reserves to be prepared for the tough times.

2)            Customer Loyalty

Will they continue to do business with you, and do they (not will they) give referrals? If you can
answer yes and yes, that is the definition of a loyal customer, and you need to guard those cus-
tomers with your life! Do you keep track of the customers that you lose versus the ones that you
keep? If not, you need to take immediate action on doing that, and resolve to improve that
number in 2012 from where it is in 2011.

It is not just about finding customers, it is also about keeping them. The more customers that
you can keep improve your chances for overall growth!

3)            Identify Your Company’s Top 3 Goals/Objectives

If you want your people to be accountable, it will never happen unless they are measured against
goals. The goals need to be specific. Increase revenue in 2012 is not a goal. Grow revenue 10%
in 2012 versus 2011 is a goal. You need to identify the Top 3 Critical Goals in your business for
2012, make them specific, and everyone in the organization must know what they are. You want
to do that so your employees won’t spend time working on things that are less important. Al-
ways ask your employees: How is this project helping us achieve our critical objectives?”

4)            Managing Employee Performance

I believe if we were all honest, we would agree that we have a few employees that just can’t
seem to get it done. It is not the most popular problem to deal with, but you have to deal with it
head on. If you don’t, you end up increasing your cost structure because you have people work-
ing for you that are not getting done what you need to get done. When times get tough, you
look at potentially downsizing your work force, and you may not have needed to do that if the
people working for you produced the results that you need. Be tough on performance, and
make sure that you take care of your people along the way.

5)            Sales Productivity

When you break it down, sales is all about the numbers, and you want to be as productive as you
can be. You need to know at a moment’s notice which people on your team are on target for
their quota or not, so that you can work to consistently hit those quotas. Get senior manage-
ment involved to help close important new business. Also, make sure that your people are only
pursuing business that they can win.