If you follow industry press releases like me then you're aware that the King of MPS aka Greg Walters recently released his Arc Drive.  Yes, I was curious as to what is the Arc Drive and what does it do?

A few nights ago Greg and chatted about Arc Drive and below is how our chat went.

Art: Hey Greg, okay first question for you, where the heck is Oconomowoc, Wisconsin?

Greg: It’s in between Madison and Milwaukee in lake country. A quaint town, there are 12 bars within a square mile or so. I occasionally write about the town, https://ocondomowoc.com/

Art: Is an Indian word that’s used for your town?

Greg: Yes, that’s right.

Art: Do you know what that translates to in English, I’m betting it means land of managed print, right?

Greg: It means “falling waters” or something like that

Art: Cool, you never know what you’re going to learn from day to day. Your ArcDrive, would that be similar to a Datto box?

Greg:  You’re on the right track if you see the similarities. ArcDrive provides hybrid storage of documents and Datto provides hybrid BDR services. Today’s ArcDrive convergences three disciplines; advance capture, managed print services & intelligent workflow.

Art: So could a dealership that’s a little challenged with MPS increase their footprint/market share with ArcDrive?

Greg:  Yes I designed ArcDrive to help dealers defend the base, easily add income streams, and enhance monthly recurring revenue in MPS. ArcDrive is intended to bring in those devices most ‘down the street’ sales rep walk by everyday.

The idea is to embed managed print services with easy to use advance capture

Art:  Okay, I hear workflow tossed around a lot, what do you mean workflow when it’s comes to the ArcDrive?

Greg:  A great example is in Accounts Receivable. Imagine a local insurance agency, with five agents and one admin. As UPS delivers invoices, paper documents, etc., the admin will typically sort

Art: Is there a monthly subscription price for the client or the dealer?

Greg:  Dealer cost is extremely affordable.

Art:  Who is InkCycle?

Greg:  US based toner manufacturer out of Kansas. I’ve known the company and Brad for years.  They are obsessive about their customer experience, and eager to share a new story.

Art:  Alright, the DCA tool that you use, will it have challenges with windows updates like the other tools?

Greg: For two reasons: The DCA does not utilize .net, so upgrades to Windows have no effect.  More importantly, because the DCA resides on the ArcDRive, the risk of losing DCA connection due to inadvertently powering down, is reduced.

I thought this was awesome for Greg to do this for our members.  Greg thanx for the time and hoping we can connect sometime in the near future. If you have additional questions you can visit Arc Drive here and I'm sure Greg would be more than happy to chat with you.

-=Good Selling=-

"We're telling a story. And the demands of that are different from the demands of a documentary. The audience must believe in order to keep faith in the story."

Bradley Whitford

We all love a great story. If you want to successfully sell your products, your vision, or your ideas, you must recognize the power and importance of storytelling.

You must become an expert in telling your own story! You do have a story and it deserves to be told.

Here lies the question, how well do you know your own story and how well are you sharing your story?

If you want to sell, you have to make people want to listen to you AND storytelling is a must have sales skill.

Reflect on this for a moment... Many of you tell stories just to tell them. However, when you start asking people why they listen to and then share, there's always a reason. It might be to encourage or inspire you to think differently.

Do you believe stories help you sell?

If we agree stories help you to sell then what makes up your sales story? Sit for a moment and self-reflect upon your sales story.

Why should you do this?

• People retain more through stories
• Stories appeal to our emotional side
• Stories create visualization
• Stories encourage action and inspire

So... if we're in agreement that stories sell...

• Is your story real, relevant and relatable?
• Is there a point to your story?
• What's the message behind your story?

PEOPLE BUY STORIES

Stories are all about people and the relationships between them. Is your sales story worth telling? Can it influence your clients and prospects in some way? Can it inspire them on a journey to better business?

Michael Margolis is one of the world's leading experts in Narrative Strategy. A 2x TEDx speaker. A strategic advisor to Silicon Valley's biggest brands.

• People don’t buy a product, service, or idea; they buy the story that’s attached to it.
• Storytelling is our most basic technology, turbocharged through 21st century innovation.
• Storytelling is like fortune-telling. The act of choosing a certain story determines the probability of the outcomes.

Stories are memorable, but more importantly are your stories tugging on the heartstrings? Let’s move our focus away from B2C or B2B. Let's realize that every business interaction is H2H, Human to Human and Heart to Heart.

MY HEART, MY BREAK THROUGH, MY STORY

Allow me to take you back to spring time 2007. I found myself amongst hundreds of middle school aged kids, my son being one of them, listening to someone pour their heart out as they shared their rags to riches story.

I didn't realize it but this event would trigger my a-ha moment. I love sales. I'm a sales nerd. I love everything about sales. So you all know, I was 20 years into my career inside what many call a crazy sales channel (I'm being nice), the copier channel.

MY A-HA MOMENT

Weeks later I found myself in a conference room. I was in yet another boring sales training with a bunch of unmotivated reps where management attempted to drill scripts into our heads urging us to regurgitate it back word for word. I know you get what I'm cooking up!

Sitting bored to death in the middle of this training, the lights came on. I realized that my best clients didn't really care that much about the specific brand of the product they used.

What they cared about was me:

• Was I trustworthy?
• Did they get the sense that I cared for them or was I reeking of commission breath?
• Did I seem like someone that could truly help them, not just an empty suit with a blank sales order?
• Would I be there for them to take care of issues?

I realized that the key to my success was not spitting out scripts but being authentic. It was about being me.

In fact, if you boil it all down, most of the corporate sales training you experience is people asking you to be fake. It's all about fitting into the corporate mould: say what we want you to say, act like someone you aren't, become a sales robot as you puke out corporate fodder.

Guess what? This old school crap just doesn't work. Sure, we need to know our product. I ask all of you to set this aside, our clients need to know we care about them and their business.

I needed to do SOMETHING different, otherwise I might just explode!

REMEMBERING THE MIDDLE SCHOOL MOMENT

Before my head exploded, I reflected back and replayed in my mind what I listened to weeks prior at my son's middle school. If someone in my community can go from drugs and gangs to becoming a multi-millionaire by the time they were 21 then what was preventing me from getting to the next level in my career? The answer... it was me. I was holding myself back.

I reached out to the individual who spoke at my son's middle school and asked if he would speak at my company. He obliged and I soon found myself again listening to his story.

Fascinated once more, I asked him if I could speak with him in my office. I didn't know it but it was at this moment, my life would forever change. I poured my heart out to him, became vulnerable and asked for help. I simply asked him, "Would you ever considering coaching me?"

A COACHING MARRIAGE

It was at the point I took my own money ($10,000) and hired my coach and everything changed. 

• My coach showed me things that I couldn't see on my own. He exposed me to blind spots.
• He brought out the best in me.
• He challenged me to take action. He encouraged me.
• I was able to be vulnerable with him in ways I simply couldn't be with my manager. 

What are you thinking right now?

What's holding you back?

Can you relate?

BECOMING THE BEST VERSION OF YOU

In my heart, I know I wouldn't be where I'm at today without becoming vulnerable with myself and allowing a coach to step into my life.

I encourage all of you to follow your dreams. Becoming the best version of you does matter. New opportunities sit right in front of you. I understand what you're going through. I've walked a day in the life in your sales shoes. I'm here to help.

 "Every story you tell is your own story."

Joseph Campbell

ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY

Once I accepted responsibility and it was up to me to make it happen. My coach helped me to uncover it was not all my fault. I became a product of my environment, the culture of my company was holding me back. New opportunities lie ahead.

We must set aside our fears, our egos and our bravado. I get it what you're thinking. I've been there.

What are you afraid of?

OWN YOU

Let's face it, you live in a sales world where people don't trust you, they're skeptical of you and their B.S. radars are constantly on. I get what you may be thinking right now as your suspicious mind is thinking the same thing.

I overcame my suspicious mind by succumbing to vulnerability. I am asking you to get vulnerable. Get to know you. Become the best version you. I'm here to help.

I took a stance against poor, inconsistent training and support. I did something about it. I stood up to me. I said to myself, "enough is enough". I hired a coach and threw mental rocks at bad sales training.

I get it. Some of you understand what I'm sharing with you and some will understand but fail to do something about it. Failing to work on you and you're throwing away golden opportunities to catapult your sales career.

CARING: DO YOU CARE?

If you fail to take care of yourself then how can you take care of your clients?

If you take yourself for granted, sit back, become complacent, fail to continually educate yourself and build upon the relationship with you, you’ll lose you.

Today, your clients are asking so much more of you than they ever have before. They're holding you to a higher degree of accountability. If you fail to nourish yourself and continually bring value, I flat guarantee somebody else will eagerly step right in.

One of the best ways to ensure your clients feel valued and appreciated is to show them you care.

Caring for your clients is not that hard. It's looking them in eye and saying, "I'll be here for you at all times. I have your best interest at heart."

I care about you. I care about your success.

Having a coach who cared changed everything for me. I'd like to coach you to get to the next level in your sales career. I'm going to ask and encourage you to invest in yourself.

Thank you Ryan Blair. I love you! I wouldn't be where I'm at today without you doing what you did for me and stepping into my life.

I understand and I get it. I get where you all are coming from. Every day, I walk in your shoes. I'm fully committed to helping your sales team integrate social aspects through the eyes of a practitioner into your current sales process to grow new business. I want you to get results. This is why I am passionate about doing this the right way, the genuine way, the authentic way! It's about understanding value before visibility.

Selling From the Heart is making a difference! I poured my heart into every page of this book and I think you're going to love it. You can find it on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. You can click on the book image below and this will take you to Amazon.

I encourage you to find out more about Selling From The Heart.

In a world full of empty suits, I'm passionate about helping sales reps succeed by getting valuable before they get visible. I help sales teams understand the true value they bring to the market. 

I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my stories. Integrating the use of social and sharing my story on LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive office technology world. With great pride I transform, challenge, coach and inspire sales teams to grow new business by helping them share their story and how they communicate it out by integrating the use of social inside the sales process. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter and on my podcast by clicking on Selling from the Heart.

Oh how I miss "bandit", taught me so much about wide format.  Hoping "bandit" can get back in the industry one day!

I posted "Selling Copiers (A week in my life) 5 years ago. This thread starts off with Monday and what we do on Sunday.  Because any good sales person needs prep and plan going into Monday AM. Check it out.

Enjoy these threads from 5 years ago this week!

Let's see ten tear ago Polek & Polek was celebrating 35 years in business. Thus in 5 more years Polek & Polek will be celebrating an amazing 50 years of giving excellent support.  Polek & Polek is a fantastic sponsor of the Print4Pay Hotel and I urge all members to click on their site and see what they have to offer. Back in 86' I was buying 50% of my generic Mita toner from them.  Please check them out Polek & Polek.

Enjoy these threads from ten years ago this week!

Each week I try to go back and pick out an interesting thread from many years ago.  The one I reread for this week was "Sell Solution - Not Price".  Dang it's been fifteen years since that thread.  There are many excellent responses from Steve, Scott, Neil, JSWin & Old Glory.  What's old becomes new you can view that thread here "Sell Solution Not Price".

Enjoy these most excellent threads from 15 years ago this week!

-=Good Selling=-

I was surprised when I saw this video on my facebook feed early today. As you  know I'm a big fan of @Ray Stasiezcko,  and post his content on a regular basis.  My main reason for that is Ray preaches change and gives is insights on a regular basis that we can't become irrelevant in our industry!

Ray thanx so much for posting this it makes all of hard work worth it!

Thanx to those Print4Pay Hotel members for email me these quotes and proposals.  I really enjoy evaluated these because they can give me a picture of what the competition may be doing with hardware and service pricing. I'll even go as far calculating what the average cost per page is for black and color.

In most cases there's not that much I can do with my the published cost per page.  However if you think out of the box and add some creativity you can alter your cost per page in competitive cost per page opportunities.

One of the ways to lower the cost per page would be to buy it down. If you'd like to know more about buying down the service cost per page shoot me an email and I can explain.

One other item, if you have any proposals and quotes that you would like to share I can comp you a one month Premium/VIP for each one. Of course all of the information would be redacted (if you want).  Believe it or not some don't want it redacted because it's more like a badge of honor when you win the order and get a copy of the other quote. Shoot me an email if interested apost@p4photel.com

Enjoy

Ricoh IM C2000 & Ricoh MP C307 pricing additional

Ricoh IM C3500 pricing proposal

Ricoh MP C307 pricing

Ricoh Pro C5200s proposal

Ricoh MP 4055SP proposal

Multiple Canon MFP's with papercut 40 devices

Ricoh IM C2000 & Ricoh MP C307 pricing

Ricoh Pro C7200SL

Ricoh Pro C5210s

Ricoh Pro C7200e Graphic Arts Edition

-=Good Selling=-

I caught one of Ray's video last week and I was surprised when Ray made mention of his copier career. Yup, Ray also slung copiers just like most of us. I reached out to Ray a few days ago and asked if he'd like to be give us some insight as to what it was like to sell copiers in the eighties.

Selling Copiers in the Eighties

Ray, what year did you start in the industry, what company and what position did you start out with? 1989

Did you work for a dealer or direct ? I worked for Lanier Worldwide Tampa Office.

What was the percentage of copier sales people that made it past two years? 10-15%

What did you like the most about your job in the eighties? Really the 90’s but still 30 years ago. It was a great experience learning how to sell. Lanier was a world class operation and had the industry’s best training in those days. The comradery and the fun of business was awesome.

What did you dislike the most about your job in the eighties? I really liked the job, as all jobs sometimes the people can be challenging to one’s happiness. One of the greatest things in those days was that many prospects did not have copiers. I remember selling a lot of gas stations copiers with coin ops.

What was the compensation plan like, was there a salary, what is just commissions or was there a mix of salary and commissions? $2,000.00 a month all draw and if you went two months in the hole your draw was eliminated until recovered.

How did you go about finding new business, and what was your favorite of those methods and why? Knocked on doors and looked through newspaper for new business licenses. I loved cold calling that’s what we did most of the time in those days.

What was the first sales book that you read that and what did you take away from it? Tom Hopkins “How to Master the Art of Selling.” Lanier made that book part of their training on day one.

What type of car did you use for your demonstrations and how many demonstrations would you perform in a week?  A Chevy mini cargo van it held two coffin carts so I could leave the office with two machines and come back with none. 

The demo! Yes, we did Demos and lots of them. Every successful sales rep knew that it took twenty cold calls a day and ten demos a week just to survive. It was the copier industry that came up with the saying “if you show it, you will sell it.” With a loaded van, you headed out to your geographical territory, and keep in mind we used paper maps to navigate around neighborhoods, looking for that lonely church. We all knew churches ran tons of bulletins. Every time you drove by church, you could practically hear the sounds of clicks.  More clicks equaled more money. Once we found a prospect (basically was everyone in the world), we would sell the demo.

Can you tell us a couple of funny story about selling copiers?

The craziest demo I ever did… Tony the Crab salesman had a van on a street corner. The kind of street corner where you wouldn’t want to even think about buying a crap from the back of a van. Although buying crab wasn’t the goal. Selling Tony a miniature Crab Flyer printing press was.

Remember, before you could sell Tony the copier, you had to show Tony the copier. This is the sole reason all successful copier reps carried long extension cords. Yes, Tony may have had no power in the crab van, but the gas station parking lot Tony called his storefront did. Once the cord was plugged into the lonely outlet in the men’s room with no door, it was time to start making copies.

I know everyone is asking themselves - what the hell does a Crab Sales Guy makes copies of? You may have guessed, of course - it would be one of the crabs. So as I began my pitch that included explaining how every crab vendor should have flyers, and why outsource that, I quickly grabbed a big blue crab from the cooler in Tony’s van (it smelled like shrimp to me), and I immediately set the crab on the glass and hit the big green button. Out came a picture of the blue crab, well it wasn’t blue - color capabilities were not available yet - but once Tony saw the crab printed on that sheet of paper he was sold.

What happened next is something all copier reps face occasionally. You may have guessed, he couldn’t get approved for the 5 year lease. He was able to muster up enough cash and of course a few crabs for trade, so Tony quickly became the proud owner of a slightly used machine, the one that had been rolling around in the back of my van for months.

So when I think back on those good old days, I ask myself what Tony would think today. He more than likely went paperless, has a Facebook page, his van is probably in a junk yard, and Uber drivers deliver his crabs. Yes, I am also quite sure Tony has a crab app.

What is the biggest problem you seeing facing the industry today? The reality that over 80% of the market is vulnerable to innovative disruption. A4, lowering volumes, and new challengers will cause disruption. 

If you had to would you do it all over again, if so, what would you change? I would say that doing it all over again in these times would not replicate anything of the past. However, I would do it all over again regarding the education, and excitement of an evolving industry.

What’s the one piece of knowledge that you’d like to share with reps entering our industry? The advice a district manager told me. Gary Moore, said “When you are successful selling copiers in your future you will not need to interview for a job, you will interview a company and decide if you will work there.” Rest in Peace Gary.

If you'd like to know more about Ray, you can get his bio on Linkedin. I would also suggest that you follow Ray because he posts excellent content and is also a regular posted on our site.  Thanx for this Ray!

-=Good Selling=-

I think I've got 15 or so quotes under my belt now for Perfect Copier web quoting tool. Everyday I use it means another day of falling in love with.....the web quoting tool.

• Ease of Use:  Yup,  it took me a little bit of time to get things down, but things are straight forward and easy to understand because a copier guy put this together!  Take that other quoting tools!
• Time: OMG, the time that I save is incredible. I can put together a quote in a few minutes rather than 30 minutes or more the old way.
• Constant Upgrades: Yea! Plus they come free.  The last update was for adding multiple devices. Thus you do one, and click another tab to add 5, 10 or 15 more.
• Increase Revenue & GP: Okay, so we all know there are many additional options on copiers. In most cases it's hard to talk about each one. Not with the web based quoting tool!  You can list all of the options and then review each of them with the client.  If the clients elects to add a few more options the lease pricing is automatically calculated.  How about when you're in the clients office, you're prepared with a quote for 36 month lease and the curve ball comes over with, "can you show me pricing for 24, 48 and 60 months?". Yup in the past out comes the phone, then the calculating, the scribbling and presto changing you've lost the buying momentum. Perfect Copier allows you to click one tab and all of the terms will appear with monthly pricing.
• Side by Sides:  We're back in that clients office and here comes the slider! "So, how about quoting a black copier along with the color and maybe also quote something a little slower in color?"  I'm reading your mind now (wait for it) and out comes another sigh because doing all of this will mean either a trip back to the office or lose the buying moment because you're fumbling with your pricing book, software, and notepad. It kinda goes like this, "sure Jim, give me a moment as a matter of fact, just wave your hand over my ipad and I'll populate your quote in 20 seconds".  Not BS'ing you, it's that easy.

I'll keep brand names out of this, but I can't stand the pricing tool that I use. It's cumbersome, hard to read, if you move the mouse the wrong way you'll screw yourself. The list goes on and on.  When you're all done then it's time for populating the proposal, which is another real drag.

I'm including a link for everyone below. Jesse sent this to me a so that I could review on my own time and learn some of the new features. If you have the time, check it out, you'll be glad you did. If you're interesting in Prefect Copier, please email Jesse or follow this link. Make sure you tell him that you read this blog for the special Print4Pay Hotel experience!

-=Good Selling=-

https://www.loom.com/share/511c62058a7b4c0e97cc0d1f7325eef4