MFP Copier Blog

Life as a copier sales rep is dynamic, exciting, full of surprises and financial rewarding. However, this field is also highly competitive, particularly when economic business conditions become tight or as most of you can relate to commoditization. Overcoming the odds and keeping your sales numbers high can be challenging which is why you have to actively work at improving your results. The good news is one way you can become a top-performing copier rep is by creating a personal business plan and putting it into practice on a daily basis.

"Unless commitment is made there are only promises and hopes; but no plans"

Peter Drucker

For me, a huge part of my personal business plan involves reading. For those who know me know I am a voracious reader. I read at minimum one hour per day. I found the key to my success came through self-education. However, this is not just found in a book, it’s my philosophy on life. I came to the conclusion early on in my copier sales career, if I wanted to become the best then I must make a commitment to self-educate myself. Your success is directly attributed to your work ethic and the commitment you make to yourself.

I do have to thank my dad for instilling this in me. I didn't realize how important this would be until later in life. My dad self-educated himself through two Ivy League schools to become a very successful Rocket Scientist for the U.S. Air Force. I kept hearing this quote from my dad over and over again...

"Invest in yourself, or no one else will"

As a copier sales rep I encourage you all to do the same. It all starts with making a commitment to become the very best at what you do. 

I have to thank my new friend Justin Dorsey for the inspiration behind this post. 

My book-shelves are lined with many great books, in fact too many to list, however; these 7 books will be great additions to copier sales reps book-shelves.

7 Sales Books For Copier Sales Reps to Invest in to Help Them Achieve Sales Success!

1. A Seat at the Table - How Top Salespeople Connect and Drive Decisions at the Executive Level. Your clients and prospects are looking for value in the form of help, specifically strategic help. Work to help them connect or reconnect to their strategies.

2. Rainmaking Conversations - Influence, Persuade and Sell in any Situation. Your conversations with C-level executives make or break everything in sales. Every conversation you have as a copier rep is an opportunity to find new prospects and engage in deeper conversations with your current clients.

3. New Sales Simplified - The Essential Handbook for Prospecting and New Business Development. Nothing kills a copier sales rep faster than a weak sales funnel. A weak sales funnel is caused by a lack of prospecting and the fundamentals around business development.

4. Not Taught - What it Takes to be Successful in the 21st Century that Nobody's Teaching You. I owe a lot to Keenan for his support, our conversations and his inspiration drove me to consistently blog. Simply put... "If you want to be successful in today's world, you need to create brand YOU and promote the **** out of it"

5. Slow Down, Sell Faster - Understand Your Customer's Buying Process and Maximize Your Sales. It is about creating lasting relationships with your customers. Furthermore, it is hard to sell anything to anybody if you can't take the time to build an authentic, personal business relationship.

"Reading is a starting step of many things, which build a more solid stairs for you to climb up achieving something big out there"

6. Start With Why - How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. As copier sales reps I am sure you can articulate what you do, why you are different or even better; but very few can articulate the WHY. Inspire your clients and prospects by sharing your WHY.

7. Fanatical Prospecting - The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, E-Mail, Text and Cold Calling. This will clearly open up your eyes to the number one reason sales reps funnels are ridden with holes - lack of prospecting! A must read in opening up more sales conversations.

Bonus Book for Copier Reps

8. The Start-up of You - Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself and Transform Your Career. Simply put, as a copier rep if you want to seize new opportunities and meet the challenges of today's fractured career landscape, you must think, act and conduct yourself like you are running a start-up, your career!

Copier Sales Reps Should Read Sales Books

One thing which distinguishes the highest-performing copier sales reps from the rest is a commitment to continuous learning. It doesn’t matter how many books you’ve read or sales techniques you’ve mastered; as the office equipment landscape continues to grow and evolve, there will always be new tools and best practices you can apply to take your career even further.

Please give thought to your upward mobility when reading. Numerous studies have proven leaders are readers. If you are content within your dealership and you want to stay this way, I totally understand and respect your choice (and it is your career). However, if you want to be in control of your destiny and your career, reading is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

The average CEO reads 5 books a month. Aren't these typically the people who work about 60 to 70 hours a week? Yet they make it a priority to read. How do they get time? This is very important to them so they make time to read. I have yet to read about a C-level executive, who mentions he or she has reached the top by watching TV.

If you need a gentle nudge or some guidance I am always here to help or lend an ear if you ever would like to have a conversation.

What is your favorite sales book? Please share in the comment section.

If you enjoyed please share your comments. Look forward to connecting and starting a conversation.

Check out more at the Social Sales Academy blog site.

Please enjoy my other posts on LinkedIn Publisher and on SlideShare

I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my LinkedIn stories. Integrating the use of LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive copier world. With great pride I transform and coach copier sales professionals to grow net new business by helping them tell their story and communicate on LinkedIn. My commitment is to help independent office technology dealers thrive in a changing marketplace. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, as well as at the Social Sales Academy 

Boy, do I have a lot of gripes,  was a thread I posted on the forums ten years ago.  That thread brings back memories of some of the bs that I've muddled through over the years. 

Thinking back, I remember what my wife tells me, "don't sweat the small stuff".

In the grand scheme of things commissions, money, sales, is the small stuff in life.  Family, and health is the BIG stuff, and is something I care about most.

Enjoy the threads from Ten years ago this week!

Sales positions in SE Wisconsin & Northern Illinois

The Internet of Things has been among the more widely discussed and hyped trends in corporate computing throughout the past few years, and is only continuing to gain steam given the explosion of new devices entering the market. Considering the fact that health care firms have thus far struggled to get a handle on enterprise mobility, which only entails smartphones, tablets and portable computer, leaders need to begin planning for the IoT as soon as possible with a specific focus on security. 

The health care sector has already begun to leverage tools that fall into the IoT category, such as for patient monitoring, telemedicine and physician assistance purposes, and these gadgets will generate highly sensitive information. Despite the fact that these tools pose significant threats to patient data security, medical firms have still aggressively deployed them, potentially creating a proverbial universe of vulnerabilities that will be difficult to monitor and identify. 

Networks will almost undoubtedly be the battleground in this trend, as organizations will need to quickly scale up their capabilities with respect to security, bandwidth and control given the IoT's unique demands on backend systems. With secure cloud services in place, this can be a relatively straightforward process, especially when provided by a reliable managed solutions vendor, but the ways in which the IoT will existentially shift the security conversation are massive and diverse. 

Change is going to come
Gartner recently released a statement on the IoT's impending impact on the cybercrime arena, affirming that the trend will take up greater portions of security investments in the near future, but the reason behind this is a novel one. According to the analysts, more organizations are likely to begin deploying solutions from the IoT category that are actually used to protect their operations, posturing novel gadgets as effective security tools. 

That, in addition to modernizing security frameworks to embrace the IoT without taking on excessive risk, will create a very different market landscape in the coming years. Gartner estimated that roughly one-fifth of global organizations will provision some form of the IoT-centric security solutions within the next two years, boosting what is only now beginning to be a fledgling industry segment. 

"The IoT now penetrates to the edge of the physical world and brings an important new 'physical' element to security concerns. This is especially true as billions of things begin transporting data," Gartner Research Vice President Ganesh Ramamoorthy explained. "The IoT redefines security by expanding the scope of responsibility into new platforms, services and directions. Moving forward, enterprises should consider reshaping IT or cybersecurity strategies to incorporate known digital business goals and seek participation in digital business strategy and planning."

In many ways, companies will need to ensure that they are taking the bull by the horns with these initiatives, working to not only capitalize on the benefit of the IoT, but mitigate any and all threats that might become an issue throughout the lifecycle of the project. 

Head start
Even when medical firms are not considering the prospect of deploying solutions for the IoT, they will still need to get their IT house in order with respect to backend infrastructure and software systems. Because of the unique demands of the modern workplace, including enterprise mobility, email encryption, telecommuting, big data and more, leaders ought to be leveraging secure cloud services that will boost the elasticity of their computing capabilities while simultaneously maintaining steady capital expenditures. 

With the right service provider, trends like the IoT can be faced safely and swiftly, boosting productivity and sustaining compliance with federal regulations at the same time. 

Just because you're at work, does that mean you're working? 

Over my many years in the copier business I've seen many copier sales people come to work, and I guess that's sort of an accomplishment because they at least they showed up.

I've also encountered many sales people who don't know how to work.  I'm thinking their comprehension of work, is that they showed up, they made a few calls, knocked on a few doors, took a late lunch and then knocked on a few more doors close to home. These sales people were happy that they sold 2 or 3 systems a month!!  When the heck did that become acceptable in our industry?

I get it, there's been times when I didn't  have the drive or the ambition to put in a days work.  But those days are few and far between. 

At one point in my life I didn't know how to work.  At 16, I was hanging out in downtown Iselin, nothing to do, but to get into trouble.  One evening I was approached by a person in his twenties, and was asked if I wanted to make a few bucks un-loading a produce truck.  Okay, since I didn't have any money and I liked having money, I went to work that evening, and ended up staying at that job for almost five years.

I can't tell you how many times, I was told to get my hands out my pockets, we don't pay you to think and there is always something to do when you're at work.  After many months of being verbally abused (that was OK in the seventies), I learned that in order to keep my job, I needed to think for myself and find things to do.  Thus, when I finished a task I didn't run to the owners and ask "what should I do next?", I learned to think for my self and find a task that would keep me busy.  From pushing a broom in the warehouse, making room in the dumpster, feeding the guard dog and picking up his poop. This is what I did to earn a buck. 

College was not an option for me, I was not a fan of school, however I was a BIG fan of making money.  Today, I contribute my success to the owners of the produce company who pushed me, yelled at me (gave me a thicker skin) and taught me how to work.

Today, when I've completed the follow up calls, finished the quotes,  and replied to the emails, it's automatic that I turn to prospecting whether it's phone calls, emails or LinkedIn, prospecting never ends. There is always something to do!

Which got me to thinking, why are there so many slackers?  Where did the mentality of just showing up meant that you are working?

Even though I'm not a manager (I was a Dealer Principal once), I get PO'd when I'm busting my butt, making the calls, setting the appointments, researching data, closing the deals and then watch others muddle their way through a day or work.

You know what?  I guess what it comes down to, is that I don't want to be average, I don't want to be like everyone else. I need and want to excel, don't you?

-=Good Selling=-

I'm not sure if Ray and I have ever met, however, we've been connected on LinkedIn for quit a few years.  Ray, is also one of those old copier dogs like me. Just the other day he posted a blog about the good old days of selling copiers.  

Thus, I asked Ray if I could re-post that blog here. We've got Ray's permission to re-post the blog. Enjoy!

“When I get old, I hope I remember my copier salesman days.”

I thought it might be fun to share some stories from my career as a copier guy. I will admit the industry has been interesting – I hope you enjoy.

Back when carbon paper was the thing every office used, and it was getting less and less, it was the age of the copier/printer. I started a career with Lanier Worldwide, of course back then it was called Harris/3m, and it is known today as a subsidiary of Ricoh. The industry has not changed very much, in the sense that it stills sells the means to put dots on paper. Well, I guess they also do a few other things - after all, there has been a lot of creativity to keep them relevant.

Although today, I thought it would be nice to reminisce the glory days of vans, coffin carts, stair climbers, dongles, mono component vs dual component, toner developer, paper cassettes, sales boards, quotas, Demos (2 every day), 100% commission pay plans, and the greatest thing of all - the Bell.

Of course, the bell came with the warning: if you ring it in jest, you buy beer for the rest. Once the sale was complete, you rang the bell, then colored in the line on the sales board with the green marker to highlight the dollar volume.  Yes, back then we actually drank beer in the parking lot - every night after daily sales recap. Man, those were fun times.

Some reading this will remember all the fun things that went with the job as a Copier Salesman (or saleswoman). Keep in mind, back in the late 80’s/early 90’s, regardless of your gender, you were a salesman. Remember the sales manager yelling! Through the entire office - every morning around 8:30. “Are you stress relieving or goal achieving?” This was his polite way of saying - get your van loaded and get the hell out of the office.

When I look back at the industry, I realize just how aggressive we all were to succeed. We literally hated the competition. The competitors were stealing food from our family’s bellies and no one liked that. One of the great ‘competition removal programs’ we had was to call pharmaceutical recruiters and give them the name and phone number of the competitor’s sales reps in our territories. This actually worked very well, as I remember.

Computers - what computers? Al Gore had not invented the internet yet - so what would we do with them? We sold word processors. Our Google machine was microfiche, and our CRM was a shoebox. Yes, a shoebox. If you used one of your own, having big feet gave you a bigger storage database. They called the shoebox CRM the Diebold file system. A-Z, 1-31, January through December, a glue stick and index cards – technology at its finest.

You old timers reading this know exactly what I am talking about. The rest of you really don’t care and it’s meaningless to you, so I won’t bore you with more technology of our day. If you really want to learn, watch the Flintstones reruns - we all did.

Back in those days... Wow, did I just say that? I thought only old people said that. Crap, I knew I would end up saying it, I just didn’t think it would be today…

Anyway, as a copier rep your day was filled with cold calls. There was no reason to make appointments - our job was to sell to people that had no idea we were coming. Yes - the famous “Cold Call Close” your grandfather talks about really happened. Which by the way, was an unbelievable high.

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. Clicks - the term for paper running through the copier. More clicks equaled more money. Once we found a prospect (basically was everyone in the world), we would sell the demo.

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.

Obviously, things have changed since then; however, one thing has not. That one thing: it doesn’t matter want you sell - just sell enough of it. Selling has never been all about the products; selling is the ability to make the product exciting and being creative enough to emphasis a benefit. Keep in mind your passion for making things exciting will always prove fruitful.  

The old is forever new.

R.J. Stasieczko

Building a logo is only one part of your brand, but it’s also an incredibly important visual representation of what you do. That sounds like a lot of pressure, but there are some easy steps you can take to make sure your logo has lasting power and conveys exactly your mission. Check out these tips.

Things to Consider
You may not be able to design this logo in-house if you don’t have the design staff—that’s ok. You can meet with a design group who develops logos and work with them to determine what you want. Some things to consider include:

• What types of colors are associated with your company currently, and do you want to keep them?
• What types of imagery come to mind when you think of your company?
• Do you want there to be words included with the logo, or just an image?
• What is your company’s tagline, your values and mission?
• What type of feeling do you want this logo to invoke?

Strategizing and answering these questions before you ever dive in will help tremendously with the direction of the logo. Throw out some words that you associate with your brand and figure out how you can tie them into a logo.

Use a Focus Group
It’s virtually impossible to get everybody on board with one logo. While you can’t please everybody, you can make sure to garner feedback that is constructive and helpful in the process. Bring in a group of outsiders who aren’t sure what your company is. Then, give them some different options and ask them questions about what they think you do, how the colors and the design make them feel, etc.

Redesign the Outdated
Don’t shy away from tackling a new logo if the times call for it. Often, brands change. The meaning of what you stand for changes with the times. If you already have a logo but it has been there for years and no longer suits you, it’s time to consider a redesign.

Sure, that’s a large task and it’ll take time to create. Plus, you might have die-hard supporters of the current logo. Present the logo redesign as an opportunity for growth and give your reasons for why it’s outdated. Somebody will be willing to listen, and you’ll hopefully be on the right track to creating a lasting logo and brand that will boost your marketing efforts.

I scrolled down on the list of threads and noticed a thread for the Aficio 1022 Digital copier.  The 1022 was a 22 ppm A3 device, got me to thinking how many models of copiers have been introduced in the last ten years by all of the manufacturers.  What do you think?  I'm thinking a thousand or more?

Enjoy the threads and links from ten years ago for our industry!

Bates Stamping w/Ricoh Copiers

In the past several years, the cybersecurity arena has been moving in the wrong direction, to say the least, and it does not really seem as though the story will change any time soon. Healthcare providers, retailers, payment processors, banks and government agencies have been frequently targeted by hackers of late, while insider threats and employee negligence have actually moved into the lead for the most common causes of data breach, and consumers are suffering as a result.

Identity theft has been the most economically damaging crime in the United States for years now, and this is largely the result of an increased prevalence of major data breaches that dump significant volumes of sensitive information onto the dark Web. Leaders in virtually every corner of the public and private sectors should seriously consider adopting more progressive defensive solutions, including secure cloud and email encryption services from a trusted provider.

Case in point
Regulators and law enforcement officials have begun to bring the hammer down on entities that do not do everything in their power to maintain security and compliance every step of the way, and one investigation turned up poor results this past week. California Healthline recently reported that state officials conducted an analysis of databases specifically used for patient information, and found that the vast majority of municipal departments were noncompliant with security standards.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, as well as the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, hold all entities that handle medical information responsible for protecting that data at all times. When public-sector firms are struggling to keep themselves in compliance with the law, it is yet another sign of the shoddy state of affairs the medical sector finds itself in today.

According to California Healthline, one study found that 37 of 41 departments investigated in a more thorough portion of the research not only did not meet the standards for which they are responsible, but reported to the state that they were indeed aligned with statutes. All in all, 73 of the total 77 departments across California were found to have mild to extreme issues in their compliance programs.

Getting assistance
Big Market Research recently released the results of its latest study on the managed security services industry, and found that these firms are experiencing healthy growth in demand and revenues as the years pass on. Considering the fact that a managed service provider can quickly help to improve the security and compliance of any firm, it only makes sense that more firms are taking this approach to fortifying their systems.

According to the analysts, the market will expand at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 16 percent between 2014 and 2020, while the increasing complexity and threat level found within the average IT departments appear to be pushing leaders in this direction. By partnering with a trusted security services provider, organizations can begin to reduce their risk of experiencing a major breach.

LinkedIn is awesome right?  Connections, information, ideas, collaboration, are just a few of the benefits for those of us that use LinkedIn on a regular basis. 

Which leads me to Martin.  Martin connected with me on LinkedIn and is curious if there is a need for his products here in the US.  We posted a survey a few days ago on our survey page.

Martin makes a great case for some features that we don't even think about here in the US. Below is what Martin wrote from us, please keep in mind that he is from the Netherlands and I give great props to anyone that can write or speak more than one language.

‘Make a Difference’ or ‘Make a Profit’

Locking in Europe

5 years ago the total volume of ‘Paper-drawer Locks’ sold in Europe was nearly zero.

Nowadays it is an indispensable ‘sales-tool’ that adds value (and profit)!

These specific accessories (PaperClamps & PaperLocks) turned from a pull- to a push market with incredible potential.

Locking is Selling

It started with specific requirements of schools, libraries & other public environments.

In many cases they ‘demanded’ that paper drawers must be locked because of the large amount of paper that was stolen. In some cases up to 10% of the total paper volume!

The European Copier & Printer market only acted when these requirements were demanded, and then still without any ‘conviction’.

These requirements where seen as annoying, problematic, difficult to fulfil & opposing the progress of the sales-path. Only the persistent sales rep fought his way to the end by searching for a solution.

‘Make a Difference’ or ‘Make a Profit’

Today the market in Europe changed completely and all kind of accessories are used to ‘add value’ to a quotation, or distinguish from a competitor.

It is no longer the prospect asking for certain requirements, it is the sales rep offering solutions that customers haven’t thought about.

I have seen actual invoices were PaperClamps are sold to end-users for more than $ 250!

With a wholesale price far beneath $ 100 everybody can calculate how interesting this can be.

With a PaperClamp/PaperLock you can either ‘Make a Difference’ or ‘Make a Profit’ (or both).

Implement Locking in your Security Program

I have no idea how many of you actively use the ‘security programs’ of the brands you sell, like ‘Ricoh Data Protection’; ‘Konica Minolta bizhub Secure’; ‘Kyocera’s Data Security Kit’; ‘Sharp Security’; etc. etc., but I do know that Physical Security Devices like PaperClamps & PaperLocks are very easy to implement in the existing security programs.

As soon as your customer is aware of the security risks of having his Lawyer-, Notary, Hospital, MD-, Pharmacist-, Insurance- or Bank letterhead paper ‘free to grab’, he is in for protection!

If you can offer, and your competitor can’t……………….

Locking in US

It is my expectation that the US market will adopt these security items the coming years, and it will become a similar sales-tool as it is in Europe.

Please check the survey on P4Photel and share your opinion about this.

Martin Hofman

When digital copiers first arrived on the scene, we were ecstatic that copiers were now capable of network printing, network scanning, and faxing. 

In the early days of digital copiers the largest benefit to end users,  was that if the copier jammed (and they all did) during a copy or print job you could clear the jam, then reset the system and the copier remembered what page was not copied or printed and you would be able to continue with the job.   When this scenario happened with analog copier systems,  you pretty much had to trash the entire copy job and start all over,  what a drag that was, especially if it happened with a demonstration!!!!

For those of us in the industry during the emergence of digital copiers, we saw the benefit of having one system that would replace three systems—the existing analog copier, the printer, and the fax machine. The cost per page of those  standalone fax machines and printers will always had a higher cost per page than our copiers.

Figuring Cost Per Page

I remember in the late nineties compiling my own cost-per analysis for each device in the office.   That my friends was no easy task.  You had to access specs from brochures, get cartridge prices and yields from industry published copier, printer and fax spec check books. After you had all of that data, you then need to crunch the numbers for yield, cost and image coverage.

Once we crunched the numbers and presented the cost per page analysis of the three existing systems compared to one new system, most DM's stated this was a no brainer. 

I’m thinking copier dealers started the managed print/copy trend by offering an all-inclusive, cost- per-page contracts with the digital systems and we didn’t even know it, someone just got creative, brought it to printers and gave it a name.

We did have our issues!

We were copier service and sales companies that really had no clue about printing on the network.   Most of the early networked copies never printed as fast as they were advertised, print drivers were awkward, and it seemed we always had some issue installing print drivers and addressing print problems

Most dealers were forced to stay ahead of the curve and to offer support and solutions for print/fax and scan environments. The learning process was somewhat slow, more than painful with many clients, however, we persevered, adapted, and changed to meet the needs of our clients and the market.  What comes around goes around and it seems many of us are in the cycle again with Managed IT Services aka MSP (Managed Service Provider).

Sometime in the late nineties and early 2,000’s we started to see third-party hardware and software solutions from companies like eCopy, and Equitrac. I’m sure there were more, however I can’t remember any of the other players.

Companies like eCopy and Equitrac allowed copier dealers to move into selling software, supporting software and also presented opportunities for professional services. Within a few years there were many other companies that emerged with additional solutions. All of these third-party providers added value to the digital copier. Thus salespeople had more opportunities to sell solutions in many different vertical markets and larger companies as well. The once ridiculed copier that took the butt of all the office jokes emerged as the central hub in the office for processing information on paper.

The digital copier industry of today is changing again and companies like Xerox, Ricoh, Konica Minolta, and Canon are making the transition to service-led companies. These companies will be the sole provider for documents whether they are created electronically or printed. They want to help customers with print stream management, forms, e-mail, archiving of documents (electronic and paper) and provide consulting to help businesses increase efficiencies and create easier work flows and reduce costs.

I’ll be back next week with Part 3.

Good selling!