MFP Copier Blog

Hand feed a wide format sheet of paper to be scanned, baby sit that sheet of paper while it's being scanned, then remove the scanned sheet of  paper from the scanner. Wait, we're not done yet, and then place that scanned sheet of paper in the "scanned" area. 

Imagine having to do this one to three hundred times a day, and five days a week.  What an incredible waste of time, right?

When it comes to wide format scanners and most wide format multifunctional devices, our clients are doomed to that mundane scanning process.  For some unknown reason scanner manufacturers an wide format multifunctional manufacturers never developed and automatic feeder for wide format documents. There's certainly a need for them because more and more clients are scanning those legacy documents.

Thus, what is a client to do?

About a month ago I had a chat with Rich Gigl (Vice President of Sales & Marketing) of National Azon for an interview.  In that interview,  Rich mentioned the "Zero Turn" Scanning Productivity Center (I placed that image at the top of this blog) and that they were going to be launching the product in the next thirty days or so.

Yesterday, Rich emailed me a link for the video of the Zero Turn SPC, along with a link for the brochure. I LOVE IT!  Especially, when a company can develop a product that enhances an existing piece of hardware and solves that mundane process of scanning wide format documents.

With the Zero Turn SPC clients can now achieve the "one touch" handling of the wide format sheet for scanning.  Feed it once, and don't touch that sheet of paper until the entire document has been scanned. 

The Zero Turn SPC system that mounts around Contex IQ Quattro and HD Ultra wide format scanner models. There is a top tray to stack your wide format originals and then a bottom tray that catches the scanned documents to achieve that "one touch" feature.  In addition, there are two additional mounts, one that will hold a flat screen display and the other to hold a keyboard and a mouse.  Thus, we have a complete scanning station to process those legacy documents in a timely manner.

Value

The Zero Turn SPC adds value, and in most cases no one else will be offering the product. In addition the Zero Turn SPC relieves pain when processing wide format documents for scanning.

I'm already thinking that maybe just maybe this may work with some of my Ricoh devices.  Going to investigate this further.

The Zero Turn SPC can start and entire new conversation with AEC clients and prospects. 

Video below, and you can go here to download the brochure from National Azon.  Maybe give them a call also!

-=Good Selling=-

Moritz of Fort Worth, a large car dealership, implemented DocuWare to simplify their work processes, bringing transparency to repair orders and the processing of warranty claims. Consolidating paperwork from four locations to one digital archive improved customer service, increased efficiency and strengthened document retention standards, shielding the company from fines for missing documents during an audit.

Moritz is a large, privately owned new and used car dealer group with four locations in the Fort Worth, Texas area. The dealer group has three Kia dealerships, as well as a Chevrolet, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge Ram group. For more than 40 years, Moritz has provided their customers with quality cars and trustworthy repair services.

Requirements The service department is a large profit center in any dealership, so ensuring all repair orders and supplemental documents have been correctly recorded was one of Moritz’s primary goals. Additionally, Moritz follows each manufacturer’s requirements on how documents are filed, when date and time stamps must be used, and when signatures need to be ink or digital. Failure to follow document requirements can leave a dealership open to large fines from a manufacturer.

Solution Moritz reached out to their IT vendor and Authorized DocuWare Partner because they have in-depth knowledge about car dealership documentation requirements and their existing dealer software, Reynolds & Reynolds. They provided Moritz with a vision of how they could integrate DocuWare into their current IT landscape, cost-effectively storing electronic documents that were not created in-house with the ability to add them to a repair order or other information packets. Their dealer software’s document management system could not perform this feature.

DocuWare’s functionality, flexibility and price point were influential. Dealerships typically have a high employee turnover rate and Moritz knew that they would constantly be training new employees to use the system, so ease-of-use was critical.

For the Service team, a repair order is created when a customer pulls into the service bay and the Service Advisor begins the paperwork for the scheduled repair. This document follows the car into the repair shop; the mechanic may add other documents such as test results, repair or replace analysis worksheets, or sublet repair invoices. The mechanic signs and dates their work and then passes the packet back to the Service Advisor. The customer signs the repair order when they come to pick up their vehicle.

Once the customer picks up their vehicle, the repair packets are scanned and indexed. DocuWare collects information from the Reynolds & Reynolds print file to help automate indexing. If additional documents need to be added to a repair packet later, they can be electronically “stapled” to the packet.

If a customer pays for the repair, the workflow is complete. For repairs that need to be submitted to the manufacturer or a third-party provider for a warranty or extended warranty payments, documentations is reviewed and submitted electronically.

Benefits DocuWare was so successful in the Repair Shop that the system was replicated in Moritz’s Body Shop. Since the Body Shop has even more incoming invoices, moving everything into DocuWare was a logical step.

Moritz can now easily meet manufacturer’s document requirements. Filing, retrieving and purging repair orders filed by VIN number was a lengthy and arduous process when working with paper files. With DocuWare, Moritz staff spend significantly less time scanning than they did filing, virtually no time retrieving documents while reducing storage space.

DocuWare helps the dealership stay profitable by quickly identifying missing documents or incomplete repair orders. Any needed management approvals are done electronically, speeding up the workflow. Waiting for warranty and extended warranty payments can slow down a dealer’s cash flow and increasing the transparency of these important processes is critical.

Conclusion “Once we digitized our repair paperwork, we were able to completely eliminate one file room and use that footage to expand our waiting room into a nicer, larger room to improve our customer’s experience with us. Pair this with our ability to track long service issues and access complete vehicle information from any one of our other locations, has made customer service rise to new levels of satisfaction. Internally, we benefit as well, now that warranty audits are stress free. We know every document will be in our system eliminating the worry of large fines for missing documentation,” said Jeff Robinson, Fixed Operations Director.

---------------------------------------Bulleted Lists-----------------

The Tasks

·         Implement a flexible document management solution that can     store scanned documents

·         Simplify filing and retrieving

• Share information between dealer locations and departments

The Benefits

·         Transparent processes ensure warranty payments are received

• Better customer service
• Simpler workflows generate happy, more efficient employees

DocuWare Corporation | 4 Crotty Lane, Suite 200 | New Windsor, NY 12553         (888) 565-5907 | www.docuware.com

What does it take to be among the elite sales people at your branch or your dealership?

For starters you've got to have a passion for being ICHIBAN.  Nothing floats my boat more than being at the top of the totem poll each and every month. I like to win, don't like to lose and will do the extra work to make sure my numbers are the best they can be month in and month out. More times than not you will eat the bear rather than the bear eating you.

Too often I see reps that will slack off once they've hit their number. The phone calls, the appointments and the opportunities drop. On the other hand I also understand why this can happen, our business unlike any other is filled with rejection, riddled with price driven customers and reps, along with countless hours of research that can lead to failure.

Geesh, 10 years ago we were all hot for color printers.  All of the manufactuer's have come a long way since 2007.   I read my forum post titled "Important All RFG Dealer Sales Reps & Owners!", and I was reminded of the time when Ricoh Direct was capturing dealer accounts at an alarming rate.  That year I lost three of my biggest accounts, because I could not compete on price.  My how things can change in ten years.

'Xerox, Ricoh, Konica Minolta Top Color Printers'

Peyton Manning, the true personification of what it means to be a quarterback in the National Football League. He was the first one at the practice facility to work out, first to watch game film and then off to the practice field for 3 hours. He not only studied offensive schemes but he would also study the defensive coordinator he’d be facing in the next game. He wanted to know what the defense was preparing to do. 

Imagine a sales rep studying their competition to know how well to sell against them?

Peyton Manning never rested on his laurels. I encourage sales reps to please take notes. He prepared like no other quarterback before him. He didn't care about how many Twitter followers or Instagram likes nor how many sports cars he owned; he stayed true to himself on what mattered most, preparation to play the game.

He built a football legacy on the field and off the field he built a branding empire. What I admire most about Peyton Manning was he stayed true himself. He was genuine, authentic and was definitely not fake when it came to building his brand.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

Peyton Manning

SALES REPS CAN BUILD A BRAND JUST LIKE PEYTON MANNING

As sales rep, your brand whether you believe it or not is extremely important to your success in this highly connected, digital business world.

How much time and effort are you dedicating to building your personal brand? 

You do have a brand. It is what people associate with you; it is WHY your professional and personal network seeks you out for information.

Social media is everywhere. It is deeply rooted in our society and it is not going away. You have not only the ability but you now MUST manage your own reputation both online and offline as a sales rep. When you interact with your prospects and clients they'll build up an image of who you are over time.

Personal branding is about taking control of the messages your prospects and clients get back. I guarantee, if you don’t control those messages then someone else will and it won't be pretty.

YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND

• Your online reputation is your reputation
• Who you are in one area will be how you are perceived in all areas
• Reputation is often more important than money
•  Other people can more easily make their opinions of you go viral

The question becomes, how do you become more recognizable? How do you build your authority? How do you build becoming the subject matter expert? How do you create your following?

"How do we differentiate ourselves enough that they (prospects) want to talk to us and not feel they are getting the same story they hear from every other sales rep?"

3 THINGS TO CONSIDER AS YOU BUILD YOUR BRAND AS A SALES REP 

Understanding who you are is your launching pad and how this relates to opening up new conversations with your prospects and clients. How you communicate your unique promise of value is what will separate you from your competition.

BE AUTHENTIC

How hard would it be to build a brand around a facade? Some do, as you would have to act a certain way, appear a certain way and even communicate a certain way. 

Your brand must be a reflection of who you are. You must believe it. You must own it. You must know what it stands for. You must know your strengths and your weaknesses. Wear those emotions on your business sleeve. 

People connect with other people. It is all about the personal connection. If you are "blowing smoke" at people what is the likelihood they will come to trust you? 

Your clients and prospects deserve an authentic experience. B.S. meters are at an all- time high as people can tell the difference when we they see sales pitches from salespeople who do not care. There is no passion, the sense of “why” is missing. Those exhibiting a heart for sales and a focus on their clients bring an air of authenticity into the room. 

BE THE REAL DEAL

Be genuine and not a fake. Be real, sincere and honest. Prospects know when you're being yourself. Prospects are more likely to respond favorably and will more likely come back to you again and again when they see you as a real person or even a friend- instead of just as salesperson.

Being genuine is a rare quality. Today's business world is full of phony fads, social media hype, virtual fake personas as nobody’s content to be who they are nor are they willing to admit to it.

BE HELPFUL

If you are truly being yourself, instead of being an "all about me" sales rep, you are going to seem like an interested individual, in the minds of your prospect and client; not like a sales rep who is looking for another commission check by leading with their wallet not their heart. The foundation of who I am as a sales professional is built around being helpful.

“Offer to help without expecting anything in return as this will come back tenfold.”

BUILD THE PEYTON MANNING BRAND

Your brand as a sales rep is everything in the business world today. I encourage you to take your online and offline presence seriously. You get one shot to make a great first impression. Observe and pay attention to the people that have large followings and influence for the right reasons.

Maintaining and marketing your unique personal brand assists in building trust and credibility with your clients and prospects. Buyers today have come to expect a certain quality of sales professional. A recognizable sales brand and reputation spreads like wildfire. Word spreads through customer communities and greatly improves opening up new conversations and relationships with new prospects, as well.

Your personal brand is like a garden. Once you lay the groundwork, plant the seeds, fertilize along with continuous water; you'll be in a great position to eventually reap the benefits of your hard work.

I ask you to send some time and reflect upon how you portray yourself through your clients or prospects business lens.

As you think about your personal brand, I ask you to think about this ...

"What is the perception of your value through the eyes of your buyer and existing customers?"

I understand where you all are coming from. I have walked a day in a life of your shoes and still do on a daily basis.

Over the last few months, I've been able get up close and personal with the Epson WorkForce C20590.  I'm a fan and a believer that this device and others like it will be a better fit for Enterprise accounts.

Keep in mind that this is a spec check and by the time this device comes to market (soon) that some specifications may change.

Scanning

• Color Scanning
• Dual head, single pass scanner means that you can scan duplex (two sided) documents in a single pass up to 110ipm (images per minute)
• Maximum scan resolution is 9600 dpi
• Scan to PC (USB & Network)
• Scan to cloud
• Scan to email
• Scan to network folder
• Scan to memory card and flash drive
• Scan to PDF
• Density adjustment
• Remove shadows/punch holes

Almost everything you'd ever want in a color scanner right? But wait, there's even more!

• The optical resolution is 1200 dii
• Max scan bed size is 11.7"x17"
• ADF simplex scan speed is 60 ipm (images per minute)

Printing

• Who can argue with 10o letter sizes pages a minute in full color & black!
• Maximum print resolution is 600x2400
• PrecisionCore 4-color drop-on-demand line head ink technology (pretty cool technology, the print head is stationary and the paper moves under the print head)
• Print features include simplex (dingle sided), duplex (two sided), collating, rotate-sort, mixed paper sizes, secure printing, watermark and poster printing (I would love to see the poster print, thinking this might be a neat feature for 13x19 in house signage).

Copying

• Maximum Copy size is 13x19
• Maximum Copy resolution is 600x1200
• Device can produce up to 999 copies at a setting
• Additional copy features included ID Copy, collate, auto reduction and enlargement, fit to page (unique feature), automatic one sided to two sided, adjustable copy density, one sided to two sided, two sided to one sided, two sided to two sided. 
• Adjustments for density, contrast, color, sharpness, text enhancement and mixed size originals

Some really nice features for copying, but who copies anymore?  I can't remember the last time I made a copy and I'm in the business.

Connectivity

• SuperSpeed USB 3.0
• Wireless (now this is something you don't get as a standard feature in most A3 MFP devices)
• Wi-Fi Direct
• Ethernet 1000Base-T/100Base-TX/10Base-T
• NFC (near field communications)
• Operating systems Windows 10, Windows 8.1 (32-bit, 64-bit), Windows 7  (32-bit, 64-bit), Windows Vista (32-bit, 64-bit), Windows XP SP3 (32-bit), Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Server 2016, Mac OSX 10.6.8 - mas OS 10.12.x

INK

• DURABrite Pro pigment ink
• 5 individual cartridges (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black x2)
• Fade resistance and print longevity is up to 84 years (that's pretty incredible number of years)
• Replacement ink cartridge yield for black and color is 50,000 pages

ECO Features

• Uses up to 50% less power than color laser printers
• Saves up to 50% of your paper with automatic two sided printing
• Energy Star qualified
• RoHS compliant

There are many additional features for the Epson WorkForce C20590. If you'd like to glean additional data, I suggest you go here for the press release from Epson.

-=Good Selling=-

Begrudgingly, I was off to Monmouth Park (thoroughbred horse race track) about mid day last Saturday.  My wife was adamant about my attendance since it was an in-law family event. Arrggh!

Now, I don't mind going to Monmouth Park.  While in my very early teens, my Father invited me to go with him to the track.  The first item my Father purchased was a race program, and in that race program was so much information that I had never seen before.  So many abbreviations, no columns and a language that I didn't know.  Furlong, blinkers, place, show, exacta, trifecta, the list went on and on.  However, I was a fan of making money at an early age and picking horses seemed to be an easy task, right?

After many trips to the track and listening very closely to my Father,  I was able to disseminate the data from the race program.  Looking at the length of the last races, what time the horses ran, where they finished in the last x amount of races, the jockeys wins/losses and their race times almost made me a handicapper (lol).  Alas, I was never able to place a bet, only circle the horse that I thought would win, place and show.

At or around the age of nineteen I found myself back at Monmouth Park one evening.  I was leaning against one of the building poles, my head buried in the race program and trying to remember what my Father had taught me many years ago.  I can't remember if I won or lost that night, however I do remember that one thing that happened.  With my head buried in the program, I heard a female voice, I glanced away from my program to see a woman in front of me and she stated, "this is a very good place for you". I glanced back at my program, then looked back up and that woman was gone. Whoa!  I thought that was strange.

So, what does any of this have to do with selling? 

Well, a lot of it does.

1) The desire to make money, it's my opinion if you don't have the desire to make the extra bucks, then sales is not the place for you.

2) Learn their language is what I had to do in order to understand the data in the race programs.  Understanding that language educated me with horse racing.  Learning their language holds true when working with clients from different vertical markets.  Architects, Engineers, Law, Health all have their own unique glossary of words and terms.

3) Listening, probably the most important thing I did with my Father at the track. I was an excellent listener.  Same goes for selling, if you're not listening to the client, then you're not going to hear those pain points nor their needs. Plain and simple, let the client do most of the talking.

4) Repeating the process, by going to the track many times I was able to become more knowledgeable about horse racing. 

Years ago, I picked a vertical market that I wanted to know more about.  That vertical market was the AEC (Architect, Engineer, Construction), Market.  I consistently made only cold calls for that market. After a period of time, and with some listening, researching and learning their language, I was and still am the guru of wide format devices for the AEC market.

Back to the races, just about twelve years ago I visited Monmouth Park for the first time since I was nineteen or so. You bet big you win big, no $2.00 bets for me, however there are no $100 bets either. 

My fellow sales buddy and I arrived about 20 minutes or so before the first race. I had my race program, however not enough time to try and remember the language I once knew.  I focused on the second race,  picked three horses and made a $20 straight trifecta bet and $10 each on win, place and show.  I hit and I hit pretty big to the tune of $3,700.  I then left the race track, no more betting from me.

One or two years later, I was back at the track with the same person.  We arrived somewhat late, and only had a short time to look at the second race. By the time I picked my straight trifecta, I didn't have enough time to get additional cash. I had Ten dollars in my pocket and placed a ten dollar straight trifecta bet.  Well, I won again.  Not as large as the last one, however it was a cool $1,800 or so.  I then left the track again.

Making a long story short, I missed two straight trifecta bets by one place each. I blame my losses on my distractions from the family event. I believe if I was not distracted I would have won on both accounts.

But, isn't that what sales is all about, you need to have confidence that you can win every time out. Of course if you don't you don't get down, you just go out and make your self better!

-= Good Selling=

Hope everyone here in the US had a great Memorial Day weekend.  Tomorrow starts the month of June for me.  Hard to believe almost half of the year is almost in the books.  Enjoy these threads from ten years ago this week.

RICOH INTRODUCES PRINT & COPY VENDING

"I think the most rewarding part of the job, and I think most coaches would say it, is practice. If you have it, a very good practice in which you have 12 guys participate, and they can really get something out of it, lose themselves in practice."

Phil Jackson

What a fantastic quote from the Zen Master which epitomizes the importance around practice and why sales reps need practice - We're Talking 'bout Practice... Yes, Sales Reps Need Stinking Practice!

Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan had Phil Jackson. Tom Brady has Bill Belichick. What's the common denominator?

BEHIND EVERY GREAT ATHLETE IS A GREAT COACH

Behind every great team you’ll find great coaches. With every great coach you’ll almost always find their life was influenced by one or more impactful coaches or mentors. Can we make the same comparison inside sales teams? Who are the mentors to sales managers? Who impacted them?

Their success comes from their commitment to consistently practice certain disciplines less successful coaches aren’t willing to practice. The same holds true for elite athletes. Can the same be said for the sales community? Is there a great coach behind every successful sales professional?

GREAT COACHES GET THEIR ATHLETES TO BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES

Phil Jackson and Bill Belichick inspire their players to do more than they think they can. They stretch their limits, beliefs and challenge them along the way. Phil Jackson built up Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. Bill Belichick has built up Tom Brady's self- esteem rather than undermine it. These coaches don't praise mediocre effort. What they do effectively is practice catching elite athletes doing things right. They don't get caught up playing head games leaving these athletes questioning their abilities.

Can any of this apply to the sales world?

There may be a fine line between a good coach and a great coach but they can make a world of difference to professional athletes. Can the same be said in the sales world?

Hall of fame coaches -

• Are effective communicators
• Are compassionate
• Have a passion for the game
• Get to know their players
• Are true leaders

Hall of fame coaches give their athletes direction and motivation helping them to reach their goals. They have a game plan, they are organized and always find a way to encourage the entire team to believe and work together. These coaches lead with an enthusiastic demeanor, excelling and growing the team by personal example.

All of this got me thinking...

Why do sales managers have difficulties doing what hall of fame coaches are paid to do? What makes a sales manager AND how they go about doing their job any different than a hall of fame coach?

My answer to you all is quite simple - most sales managers manage as opposed to coaching and leading.

THE CHALLENGE

Previously I asked the question, Can You Imagine A Professional Athlete Operating With A Sales Reps Mindset?

Can you image a hall of fame coach operating with a sales managers mindset? Is there a difference in mindset between a manager and a coach? What makes a great sales manager versus a sales leader or coach? I am not here to bash on sales manager's as they play an important role, however; I am here to challenge the status quo in how they grow, nurture and enhance the lives of their sales team.

“Management is transactional, while Leadership is Transformational.” 

Brian Tracy

I encourage more sales managers to take on leadership roles within your sales team. Open up your mindset to lead and support your people in a way in which will ultimately allow them to achieve, be productive, and experience growth.

Here lies the challenge for most sales teams - great sales reps often times get promoted to sales managers. The challenge is most promoted sales managers are familiar with the transactional side of the business as this is what their sales mindset is accustomed to achieving. This is polar opposite of leading others in order to achieve results.

This is why I feel there is such misalignment inside sales departments. Sales managers who lack leadership qualities fall into the habit of managing off of to-do lists, activity reports and a "what will you close mindset?"

A SALES MANAGER OR SALES LEADER

Is there any correlation between hall of fame coaches and sales managers? More often than not, sales managers operate with a "boss" type mindset as opposed to a coaching mindset. Phil Jackson and Bill Belichick are leaders and exceptional coaches as they enhance the lives of the athletes around them thus achieving outstanding results.

• Coaches and leaders spend more time listening and asking questions. Sales managers spend more time speaking and giving directions.
• Coaches and leaders invest serious amount of time observing. Sales managers make quick assumptions and are quick to point fingers.
• Coaches and leaders are support outlets in assisting to develop growth plans. Sales managers give the plan and tell their people to follow it.

DO HALL OF FAME SALES MANAGERS EXIST?

Just as professional athletes need great coaches so do sales reps. Sales managers must adopt a coaching mindset. Therefore, I encourage executive management to develop hall of fame sales managers.

Phil Jackson had Jerry Reinsdorf and Dr. Jerry Buss. Bill Belichick has Robert Kraft. How many in executive management encourage, support and coach their sales managers to become hall of fame sales leaders?

"My personal coaching philosophy, my mentality, has always been to make things as difficult as possible for players in practice, however bad we can make them, I make them"

Bill Belichick

Hall of fame sales managers can exist. With the support of executive management, they can build a growth oriented sales department by:

• Building and enhancing the relationships with their sales reps
• Providing and personally assessing their sales reps strength and weaknesses
• Challenging their sales reps thinking and assumptions around personal growth
• Supporting and encouraging open communication
• Driving results through written action plans and daily practice

MINDSET WILL LEAD THE WAY

Become a master of a changing mindset. The biggest and most challenging task of a sales manager is to prepare the sales team for a constantly changing marketplace. Hall of fame sales managers:

• Earn their sales team trust
• Provide positive feedback
• Build enthusiasm amongst the team
• Get involved with their team
• Grow and develop their entire team
• Lead people to constantly be improving, never accepting mediocrity

HALL OF FAME SALES LEADERS

Leaders who lead are true mentors and role models, building business results through relationships and integrity with every member of their team.

Hall of fame sales leaders lead by example, demonstrating their values through their actions. They build relationships by mentoring and providing guidance, creating cohesive sales teams by earning the loyalty of each team member.

Hall of fame sales leaders who lead by example are competent and drive business results for the organization while building strong relationships with their sales team, customers and vendors.

I understand where you all are coming from. I have walked a day in a life of your shoes and still do on a daily basis.

I am fully committed to helping your sales team integrate social aspects and modern strategies into your current sales process to grow net-new business. I want you to get results. This is why I am passionate about doing this the right way.

In 2016, Larry was recognized by ENX Magazine, “The Difference Maker” as someone who is making a difference inside the copier channel. Larry is passionate about helping sales reps succeed in creating their online brand image

Back in the Eighties one of the first lessons I learned was that of "page coverage" and how to explain it to the end user.  Back in the day there wasn't a single copier dealer that included toner in their maintenance agreements. 

Clients had to buy toner, imagine that!   However, with the buying of the toner came the questions about the yield of the toner bottle or cartridge.

We would field calls like, "You told me that the toner cartridge would last 10,000 pages, and I'm only getting 3,000 pages, you need to come pick this piece of crap up or fix it".  Yup, in the early days I had no clue what page coverage meant and when someone asked, "how long will the toner last".  I went to my spec check guide (anyone remember Hanson's Guidelines?) and relay  the yields of the toner bottles/cartridges. 

I had no clue that page coverage played such an important part with toner yield and cost per page. Neither did I know that one to two page print jobs will use more ink and toner than multi page print jobs.

After getting a few brow beatings, I made sure that when I stated the yield of the toner cartridge that I also added, "based on 5% coverage of the page".  That statement led to another series of questions like, "what the heck does 5% coverage of the page mean?". I then explained that if you were to condense all of the black toner on the page to a small square, then that square could not cover anymore than 5% of the white area of the page. 

Most clients then stated, "well, that's not much at all, we put three to four times that on the document", and I would state, "you see, that's the reason why you are not getting the yield out of your toners.  Your ten percent of coverage means that you'll only get 5,000 pages of yield from that toner bottle.  It was a learning curve for all of us.

One of the files that I keep in my dropbox account (also have a hard copy with me at all times), is page coverage document.  This document shows samples of 5%, 7.5%, 10%, 20%, 25% and 50% coverage for black and color documents. 

Our prospects are doing much of their research with out us when it comes to find the right MPF device that will meet their needs for volume, speeds and features. 

In recent appointments, I've had a number of prospects that finally figured out their little A4 printer (color & black) was robbing them blind with the cost of those toner cartridges and consumables. 

Validation

Most SMB accounts can't or won't dig up the invoices for the cartridges for that $400 printer.  They make statements such as, "this is our third drum in four months and the cost of each drum is $130.00".  Statements like that sounds like music to our ears, right?   But, it those statements that can actually bugger up the sales process, because they don't have a validation of their costs. 

One such color printer from a sales call the other day was a Brother color laser printer. Once the prospect showed me the printer, I then checked the model number, obtained a meter read from the config page and then asked the client how long have they had the device for.  With that data, I can quickly determine the volume of that device.  Simple stuff, right?

My next move is to that come to Jesus meeting with them about page coverages.  I would then break out the sample book and have them tell me which documents best describe your out put on a daily basis.  Once they have picked the document I then explain how page coverage works with the manufacturers.  In most cases black documents are more like 15% and color seems to average about 25%. 

The reason I go through this process is for the validation, I need them to agree and buy in that they are using more toner on their documents.  Thus the yields of the cartridges will drop and their costs will increase.  These clients have un controllable expenses with these devices.  I want to makes these expenses controlled and fixed with new devices.

Once I have the validation or buy-in, I can then use my GAP TCO and produce a report that shows them their costs for that device or many of their devices. 

The point that I want to make, is that with SMB accounts it can be harder to get to that validation process for costs (especially with single A4 devices).  Having a document that shows the prospect page coverage samples can help you validate their existing costs without slowing down the sales cycle because you are waiting on invoices that may or may not be found.

You can go here and download the same sample book that I use.

-=Good Selling=-

Seems that every new day brings a new set of issues for Toshiba Corporation, which is not to be confused with Toshiba Tec.

You might ask what does Toshiba Tec offer besides copiers?  After a short visit to their site I was surprised to see so much diversification of products.  Software, POS (Point of Sale) Systems, Printers (thermal, mobile and more), Self Checkout Kiosk, Displays, and Digital Signage.

So, who could benefit?

Almost two years ago, we posted up a survey for "Who Would be a Viable Buyer for Toshiba Tec?".  Seems anything with Toshiba nowadays seems to be a hot topic. In recent months we've had a flurry of activity with the voting.

Kyocera was the top vote getter with 23.9%, surprisingly "other" was second with 23.2%.  Rounding out the top five was Samsung, KonicaMinolta & Ricoh.

As I thought more about these players, I came to the conclusion that why would any of these companies buy Toshiba Tec.  They all have their own brands of copiers, Samsung sold the Imaging Division to HP. Oh! Wait a moment, would HP not be a viable buyer?  HP & Toshiba Tec do have many similarities in the products that they offer.  As far as copiers goes, HP could have that BTA dealer network they've wanted.  But, the word around town is that many of the Samsung dealers want to get out of Dodge and don't want to parlay with HP.  It's interesting to day the least.

Dark Horse

One dark horse that only accumulated 1.4% is Muratec America.  If you're not familiar with Muratec America they are owned by Murata Manufacturing in Japan.  Murata Manufacturing has a market cap of 30.7 billion dollars.  Toshiba Tec's market cap is 1.5 billion dollars.  Seems to me that if someone was going to buy Toshiba Tec, that Murata Manufacturing makes a lot of sense. 

However, in order for any of this to happen, Toshiba Corporate would have to be willing to part with their 52% share of Toshiba Tec stock.  There's been no talk of that, no reports of that and lastly no rumors either.

Times Are Tough

But, times are tough for Toshiba Corporation.  Many articles from the web have Toshiba Corp bleeding cash.  From someone who reads almost every article regarding Toshiba it seems like they are hedging their financial freedom on the sale of their valuable semiconductor unit.  An article from tonight states that the second round of bidding is under way for the semiconductor unit.  Bids are as high as $20 billion US.  What I could do with $20 Billion US!

The thought of $20 biilion US could cure a lot of the illness that Toshiba Corporation has developed in the last two years. But, there are issues here also.  Western Digital recently  filed for arbitration because they believe they have the authority to negotiate a sell-off (could tie it up in the courts).  Another sticking point is that the Japanese Government does not want to lose another Tec company to a foreign firm (Foxconn bought Sharp).

Thus, there seems to be no quick fix for Toshiba Corporation.  Toshiba Tec on the other hand is doing quite well.  Just not sure how much more of a beating can the brand take.

Wow, I started out just wanting to keep everyone updated on our voting by Print 4Pay Hotel members.  Enough of my thoughts, take a trip here and see how the voting is panning out.  You may even want to cast your own vote also.

-=Good Selling=-

What were you doing in 2007? Below are the all of the threads for the last week of May in 2007.  Enjoy!

Is Ricoh Corp Unfair to Ricoh/Savin/Lanier/Gestetner Dealers?