MFP Copier Blog

Selling Copiers "What Would You Do"?

Art Post · 6/4/145:30 PM

I always strive to bring us ways to make additional sales. Just the other day I had a call from a cousin who needs "x" amount of systems in, well let's say a place that's not in "my territory". Better yet, he's more than a thousand miles away.

After my Cousin (Vinnie) and I exchanged the "how ya doins", we got down to talking about copiers. Speeds, feeds, cost per page, what program or app would like to scan to, are you using MS365, MS sharepoint, how about Docuware. When we finished, I was thinking woo hoo! Nice deal, ships out of state, but all in all, not bad for a 35 minute conversation with someone that wants to talk to me.

My Cousin, then dropped the bomb! BOOM! We don't want what you're selling! I said "what"? My cousin then explained that they have the same brand that I sell and they are frustrated with the lack of service, and how often the equipment is breaking down. I stated, "well we can find you another service partner, will that work"? My cousin stated that they had already gone that route and the company that they are getting support from is the only service facility for that brand for 100 miles. Geesh, I thought, my day has great to real bad in 30 seconds.

So, what to do....we only carry one brand and that's not going to happen, I can have the order if I can come up with a solution.

All good sales people seem to have the knack for making something out of nothing. Something is always better than nothing right? Thus, rather than me to tell you right away what I did, I'd like to post this question to our readers.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

-=Good Selling=-

-=Good Selling=-

Selling Copiers "Bring Back the Eighties"

Art Post · 5/29/1412:36 AM

Tonight I caught a award show on TV titled "Golden Gods Awards 2014". On the screen was one of my favorite singers from the eighties.

OMG, it was Joan Jett! At 58 years old, Joan Marie Larkin was still rocking out. Just hearing the lyrics for "Bad Reputation" brought back memories from the eighties.

Pac Man, Space Invaders and Donkey Kong were cool and everyone had to wear Raybans, Nike Sneakers and Members Only jackets.

In 1982 I sold my first copier, I started in the industry as a technician. I was fantastic at taking developer units apart to perform PM’s. My only problem was I could never put them back together correctly. Thus my career in selling copiers started.

Looking back I believe the first copier I ever sold was a Minolta EP310, moving platen, 1-99 copies, one paper tray (letter & legal) and an exit tray! I can also remember selling a few used Minolta 101’s early on (liquid plain paper). The EP 310 system copied at 10 copies a minute and if I remember correctly we were selling them for $3,000!

A typical day was to get into the office early, wait I forgot one of the pre-requisites of selling copiers, you had to own a station wagon or a hatchback in order to delivery and demo the copiers. Yep, I was the delivery guy, the pick up guy, the loaner guy and even brought copiers out for demonstrations!

I worked at a very small Minolta dealership, I always arrived early and by 9:30AM I would start calling potential clients to setup demonstrations for copiers, typically you would call for appointments in the AM and try to do the demo in the after noon.

When telemarketing, we always had our fair share of “I’m not interested” and they would hang up on you. Being young and foolish, I called those people back and told them how polite they were and then hung up on them!! What a time it was, I would never ever even think of doing that today.

In the eighties, we had no computers, and no database to call from from. Our database was a huge stack of Phone Books (Yellow Pages) for every county in the state! Every now and then we'd be able to sneak way a stack of service cards so that we could make calls to existing customers. Those were 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 index cards that had all of the customer contact info, along with the make, model and all of the service calls that were logged.

There were days when you were sick and tired of making the phone calls, you could pack a demo machine in the car and then knock on doors all day long. Just looking for the right opportunity to wheel the copier in for a quick demo. There were no emails to answer, no advanced training, heck we had two or three models and all they did was make copies! What a wonderful life! I must admit the thrill of knocking on doors, speaking to the right person and then being able to give a demonstration all in the same day was copier nirvana! The only thing that could top that was bring back a check and leaving the copier at their office! Yup, the eighties was a great time to sell copiers.

Looking back there were some funky brands of copiers such as Apeco, Royfax, Yorktown, Rex Rotary (this one hung on a wall) 3M VQC’s , SCM and of course Xerox. The Japanese were just starting to make inroads in the copier business then. I can remember a customer telling me once and stating that he was looking at a Ricoh. Back then Ricoh was a joke and we always responded with “What’s a Ricoh”? My how times have changed.

Let’s see, over the years I have been kicked out of offices, had a customer drop off a machine and smashed it on the ground at my office (bet you the leasing company liked that), had the hatchback open on the car while I was driving, the copier and the gurney went onto the highway and then into a patch of sticker bushes, dropped a machine and cart in downtown Princeton (not a good day), and then walked in on a lady who was nude sunbathing in her back yard (I had the wrong address for the demo). Yes, those were the days!

Back in the eighties we had time to sell, nowadays our time is spent answering emails, trying to keep up on 30 different models of copier, untold models of laser printers, fax machines, wide format, production, third party solutions software, and manufacturers solution software But let's not forget about these favorites of mine, the forecast sheets, delivery forms, Return Goods Forms, co-coordinating delivery, installations, and emphasizing with customers. Not to be outdone with the numerous calls that I'm out of supplies, and my copier is not working!

Technology stinks bring back The Eighties!!!

-=Good Selling=-

One Reason Why I Still Love What I Do!

Art Post · 5/27/1411:33 AM

Don't get me wrong, I still love selling office equipment!

However, my passion is to share information with others with the Print4Pay Hotel site for the Imaging Industry.

A few days ago, I was going through my "Who's viewed your profile" on Linkedin. I try to connect with all of my second level contacts, thus I sent an in-mail to that person. I was surprised and honored for what that person wrote back, and in the grand scheme of things...., it's in-mails or emails like this, that encourage me to continue what I do with the Print4Pay Hotel and the Imaging Industry!

"Hi Art,

I just wanted to say a quick thank you for the connection and for the p4photel.

I have been a visitor of the site for a number of year and recently joined as a premium member a month or so ago. I wish I had done it sooner, as in the last month the premium section of the site has given me inspiration for two new fantastic ideas that we will be using in the recent new venture of my career.

Over the years your site has been a fantastic resource for me in this quirky industry of ours. I strive to be involved in the industry for the next 25+ years, to help inspire and nurture other through their careers. I firmly believe that the only way to do this is though putting in the extra effort, keeping up to date with the latest products & solutions and providing 'that little bit extra' that the customer doesn't expect.

There is still much more for me to learn, but knowing that there is somewhere like the p4photel to go for help and encouragement is a real comfort.

Thanks again Art, keep up the invaluable work, your efforts are greatly appreciated."

Print4Pay Hotel Member

Note from Art: Special thanx for the awesome in-mail.

-=Good Selling=-

5 Substrate Solutions That Can Help You Sell More Hardware

Art Post · 5/22/143:23 PM

Just yesterday, I had to chance to visit my guru of envelope printing.

He produces full color envelopes of all sizes to the trade. The current process for hardware has been the use of LED color laser printers.

Business is so good, that he is now looking for higher (faster) printing hardware.

His believes ink is the future process for all printing and has show an interest in the comcolor devices. The comcolors are unique as to they can print up to 120 pages per minute. In addition you can also connect and industrial envelope feeder to the system. However, the draw back has been the image quality with bond envelopes. The quality is flat, and the image does not "pop" as he referenced. He, then showed me new inkjet envelopes from Relyco. The images were outstanding! He went on to state that the envelope is manufactured by Mitsubishi. The one drawback is the cost per thousand, however, he believes that buying in larger quantities and the ability to produce more envelopes per hour will offset the cost.

Thus I wanted to bring to you 5 different substrates that can help you win an imaging deal.

DURASEAL Envelopes for Inkjet Printers (memjet, comcolor)
WinkJET™ Wide Format Inkjet Rolls (great for special applications)
ULTRASEAL Pressure Seal Forms (these can run through black or color systems along with comcolor, cuts out the cost of envelopes and they'll need to buy a pressure sealer system from you.
Specialty Substrates How awesome are these? Knowledge equals more sales, knowing more about the media that is available can help you win extra deals!
REIMAGE Carbonless Laser Paper I've sold a few printers and copiers just because I knew they could print onto carbonless laser paper. There was no competition since I was able to provide a substrate solution for the customer.

Relyco is NOT an advertiser on the Print4Pay Hotel. I just like their stuff, they are always introducing new stuff and they are committed to putting ink or toner on substrate.

-=Good Selling=-

My Top 5 Likes with Buyers Lab Web Site

Art Post · 5/20/144:06 PM

Just about a month ago I was invited by Cheryl to view and drive the new Buyers Lab web site. My first comment was, "this is incredible".

I was able to search copiers by region, I then had the choice to pull a spec guide, first look (document) and even a photo gallery. In this instance I wanted to check out the KonicaMinolta

Now, we've all know that BLI is the place to go for test reports, specs and side by side comparisons right? BLI has now picked up their game to offer these additional features:

Manufacturers brochure: Awesome, no more searching out brochures on the web or going to the manufacturers site!
Manufacturers press release: Another great way to double check to see if the MSRP was lower or increased since the date of introduction!
Energy Calculator: If you don't think energy costs can add up, then you've never present a proposal for more than 100 units. With everyone so focused on energy this one calculator could make or break a deal.
Configure with option: Outstanding!!! When you select the Configure with options link, you'll see all of the options listed with radio buttons. Clicking these buttons will allow you to then configure the system with the options listed!! Want more? The MSRP is there for all of the options too! Want more? Once you've completed selecting the base unit and all of the options you can then export the file to a word or excel file, you can then save the file or print the file! Outstanding! The exporting of the file gives a nice line item pricing schedule with a picture of the system (very professional). What I like most is, that I now having the ability to configure a competitors model, this way I can see if the system will stack up with the right options.
Calculate TCO: To top it off, I've now got the best TCO calculator in the industry!! Input your price, percentage of discount, buy/lease, lease term, rate factor, and then you're off an running to the volume, maintenance and supply spreads.

As far as I'm concerned BLI did their homework and created a site that can save all of us a tremendous amount of time. I'm thinking I can save at least an hour a week, and that means I have an extra half day to prospect and close. You can here and get a FREE trial

Kudos BLI!!

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Dealerships Use of Tablet Technology Saves the Day!

Art Post · 5/19/149:11 PM

Rick Backus is a genuine genius when it comes to implementing time saving solutions for Copier & Managed Print Dealers. We're also proud to have Rick as a member and sponsor of the Print4Pay Hotel forums, many times Rick has stepped up and offered a solution when most of thought there was not one. This blog from Rick is a great example of how Rick's knowledge and expertise can help your company improve it's business processes.

Support revenue using mobile devices to capture signatures and data from the field

One of my clients was recently looking to refresh their field service technician's hardware and was considering whether they might be able to roll out tablets rather than upgrade the existing laptops.

Essentially the techs only needed storage for technical and part manuals, Internet access and email for communication. Tablets are certainly capable of fulfilling these requirements and are considerably less expensive which is always a powerful motivator.

During this same time period another dilemma was confronting the service department. They were losing a significant amount of revenue from chargeable, time and material calls where the customer was disputing the invoice and service could not produce a signed copy of the service call report to substantiate their invoice to the customer. It seems the existing procedure for processing the call reports no tracking ability to insure the techs a) Actually filled out and returned a signed copy of the report and b) once it was returned that it was properly filed and retrievable.

Many months ago I had setup a SharePoint site for them for a sales related project but at the time we also created a document library to scan date-batched service call reports to for archiving. You know, eliminate the paper and all... Well this process fell by the wayside and the department was losing revenue. A new solution was desperately needed.

Electronic forms would foot the bill but since they were using SharePoint Foundation they did not have access to InfoPath forms. After some research and testing on our in-house SharePoint Enterprise instance we came up with a solution to the problem. With a new mail-enabled, document library in the service department's sub-site we installed a new application to create electronic PDF forms. Using the original pdf file from the paper version as an underlay we inserted all the necessary data fields in the form including mapping specific fields to document library columns as metadata. The parts sales prices and final totals were setup to automatically calculate as well.

After some testing and training we rolled the solution out to the techs. It was a tremendous success. They have nearly 100% compliance, the completed forms are emailed back to the SharePoint document library and indexed automatically. Using views and/or filtering we can identify the chargeable reports, compare form count to tech closed calls as a cross check and we have all the customers emails for marketing purposes. The customers are impressed by the use of technology including using their finger to sign the forms which are emailed to them immediately. It was a huge win all the way around.

This technology opened up a whole variety of other opportunities with this client. The next step is to tackle the delivery and acceptance forms.

If this is something you think your organization could benefit from contact me here.

rick@cybercon1.com

-=Good Selling=-

A Morning With Darrell Amy of Dealer Marketing Systems

Art Post · 5/19/145:03 PM

If you've never had the chance to meet with Darrell Amy, then you're missing out on collaborating with an Industry Pro.

Darrell is the driving force behind Dealer Marketing Systems. I thought I had an unequaled passion for the office technology, however, I see that Darrell is just as passionate about what he does.

Today, while returning from the BTA Midwest event in Chicago, Darrell stopped by our office for an informal half day to speak with our sales team. True to form, Darrell brought his southern y'all and "are you trackin" to an educational few hours that was awesome!

Dealer Marketing Systems is a Managed Marketing Services partner provider built for office technology dealers.

I highly recommend Darrell and his team if your dealership needs an "evaluation" of your web site, or you need your site updated by a team that knows the office technology business, get noticed on search engines, generate leads and much more.

Think of it this way, if your dealership is facing problems with converting current hardware to managed service clients, competing with direct OEM locations, creating new sales opportunities, recruiting the best reps, or other business challenges then you owe it to yourself to give them a call or send them an email.

You can contact Dealer Marketing here contact page, if you want to check them out on the web click here.

Darrell, thanx for the time today, it was awesome!

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in the Copier/Office Equipment Industry 10 Years Ago Third Week of May 2004

Art Post · 5/18/148:44 PM

Randy Johnson pitches the 17th perfect game in Major League Baseball history in a 2-0 win by the Arizona Diamondbacks over the Atlanta Braves.

Kyocera Mita America Calls

5/24/04 7:50 PM

Topic by Guest

are gratified our customers, and their end-users are embracing our brand in ever increasing numbers, and we are proud to certify those numbers for public reporting purposes. About KyoceraMita America Kyocera Mita America ( www.kyoceramita.com/us

RE: Ricoh's Monster Garage

5/19/04 8:44 PM

Reply by Guest

At Vision we were handed a competitive analysis booklets vsCanon, Minolta and Xerox.03Cbr These were done by IA and gave the Ricoh's a great overall review of quality, speed and ease of use. However there is one troubling statement. MAX MONTHLY VOLUME

RE: Scan Router Pro vs Canon e Copy

5/19/04 8:26 AM

Reply by Guest

reaching from end office work. Are there any solutions now, where we can scan and have them land in a companys ERP. From a little research I find that KYOCERA MITA is about to launch that. Anyone know about other competitors or where we stand?

Sharp ARC260M

5/19/04 8:54 AM

Topic by Guest

Quote for New Jersey Sharp Dealer. Not the low cost color cpc with supplies. Does anyone else have a price like this with our CMF's?? This document has been archived, please send me an email if you would like to purchase. art@p4photel.comSharp_AR_C260M

KONICA 7145 vs Afico 45sp

5/25/04 8:32 AM

Topic by Guest

Does anyone have any input in real life situations with KONICA. I rarely compete against them so have done very little research. Any input would be great. Thanks

Ricoh ranks 4TH in customer loyalty

5/24/04 10:26 PM

Topic by bandit41076

See the link for the complete message!http://www.brandkeys.com/awards/

Canon To Boost Copier

5/24/04 7:56 PM

Topic by Guest

Canon To Boost Copier Line In U.S., Europe Provided By Pinnacor, 05.20.04, 12:22 PM ET Canon plans to expand its lineup of multi-function color copiers in the U.S. and Europe in an attempt to seize the top share in the global market for color-capable

Fastest Printers From Xerox Top 1,000

5/24/04 7:52 PM

Topic by Guest

delivers print files to the printers. The DocuPrint 1050 and 525 continuous-feed digital printers will be available in the 3rd quarter of '04 in Europe and North America through the Xerox direct sales force. U.S. list prices for the printers start at

Ricoh parts resources?

5/19/04 12:16 PM

Topic by Guest

Looking for Ricoh parts resources, online or by fax for distributors. Have not had much luck in finding how to order oemRicoh parts. Thanks for the feedback! M.D.White

Around the World w/Ricoh #3

5/19/04 8:48 PM

Topic by Guest

Post your items here. Click this link for the latest Technology Portal in New York City.Tec Portal

Xerox Wide Format 510DP & 8830 Quote

5/20/04 4:29 PM

Topic by Guest

Got this after I got the order for the FW240!! See attached pdf file This document has been archived, please send me an email if you would like to purchase art@p4photel.com Xerox 510dp end user pricingMay 2004

RE: Toshiba relables Ricoh 2090/2105

5/20/04 4:22 PM

Reply by Guest

Frankly, I am not happy about the "trade" that Ricoh did for theToshiba color product. According to our Ricoh DSM, Ricoh will have their own graphic machine out late 2004 and we are waiting for it since I do not want to "retrain" my tech staff to

bandit41076

Elite P4P'er

T-shirt transfer sheets

5/20/04 6:42 PM

Topic by Guest

I have a customer that called in and requested the Ricoh color laser printer that will print heat transfer paper for t-shirts with a straight paper feed process. The customer read this directly off the transfer paper that she purchased. I know the AC

Total Cost of Ownership - Printers versus Copiers ...

5/26/04 10:07 AM

Topic by Foxtrot

Hi, i'm looking for documentation regarding the above. I want to compare the cost of printing of the different printer models to ourRicoh copiers (MFP's) Thanks

Table for the new FW240

5/24/04 8:53 AM

Topic by Guest

For the FW 240 Ricoh lists a table accessory. Reading the notes at the bottomn of the pricing is often confusing. Is the Table also the manual feed tray and the paper catch (stack) tray? Thanx Art

RE: Ricoh's Monster Garage

5/19/04 8:28 AM

Reply by Guest

I just got a power point from some RICOH guys on this, How do I upload it?

RE: HELP HELP HELP QUESTION fOR THE IT GURUS"S

5/19/04 8:36 AM

Reply by Guest

Veolocity of Fiery won't work for Two Reasons: The elimination of a front end source (black box) 2. Canon can do it already.....CAN ANYONE HELP SHIP SINKING...........

RE: HELP HELP HELP QUESTION fOR THE IT GURUS"S

5/19/04 8:41 AM

Reply by Guest

How can Canon do it?

RE: Ricoh's Monster Garage

5/19/04 2:57 PM

Reply by Old Glory

At Vegas they said that, unlike the 1200 series, the maximum volume is much less critical. Does that mean you will get Ricohsupport on equipment exceeding that, I don't know.

RE: Service manuals

5/19/04 9:18 PM

Reply by BLAMB

You can get all of the manuals in pdf on cd.It is available fromRicoh for the unreasonable monthly subscription fee of $200. I may be off on the cost a little , but not much.

RE: HELP HELP HELP QUESTION fOR THE IT GURUS"S

5/19/04 9:26 PM

Reply by BLAMB

I don't know all of the fine points, but we just had a visit from Larry Stahl of DOT Office/Ricoh. This sounds like something that the DOT software might be able to capture and send to both machines.

RE: Printer Cost & Security Manager

5/21/04 11:51 AM

Reply by bnosbod

This in essence is an Equitrac solution. Print jobs can be captured utilizing the clients coding structure as well as copies. A PageCounter terminal is needed for each system to capture walk up copying. For print jobs, a code is entered for the client...

RE: T-shirt transfer sheets

5/24/04 9:16 AM

Reply by Old Glory

When I called Visual (an authorized supplier of transfer material) and asked what Ricoh's the paper is approved for I couldn't get an answer. I tried to get references of Ricoh dealers using the paper and all I got were 6513 references. That was

RE: Toshiba relables Ricoh 2090/2105

5/24/04 3:40 PM

Reply by Jayson Gilbertson

If Ricoh is working on graphics color they are sure tight lipped about it. At vision they kept telling me the market was moving to B2C. I was told that B2C machines will keep getting better and cheaper and that Ricoh is not working on any more graphics

RE: competitive quotes - important!!

5/26/04 8:22 AM

Reply by Guest

Wish I could help. Do not have any, I did post the one on theXerox the other day. Did you see that one? Art

RE: DOT Office Solutions/Business Forms

5/26/04 8:24 AM

Reply by Guest

Also Ricoh's own DOT Software is capable of performing what you need.

Top 5 Copier & Printer RFP's for Second Week of May 2014

Art Post · 5/18/148:33 PM

I'm thinking I may make this a weekly blog. If you don't get the chance to check the blogs that often, you can subscribe to this thread and when I post up a new RFP you'll receive an email within minutes.

Interesting that two of these RFP's also include a combine copier and managed print services. Click the links to access

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Print Management Services

Copier & Managed Print RFP for Colorado May 2014

Copiers Needed in New Hampshire

Copiers Needed in Tennessee

Copier Printers needed in Califorinia

-=Good Selling=-

Sales Sales Hacks

Is There Really a "Natural Born Salesperson"?

Art Post · 5/15/1411:24 PM

One of my first jobs was that of a paperboy when I was growing up in Iselin, New Jersey.

I started my first paper route at 12 and continued until I was 15. At a young age, I had to collect money, work for tips, and also face complaints.

Looking back, the best part of the job was being able to hop on my bike and pedal about 2 miles to my first customer. The job gave me freedom; I was on my own and I learned to interact with both good people and rude people at a young age.

Around the age of 17 (in the seventies), I took my first real sales job (kind of) selling Kirby vacuum cleaners. On my first day, I was trained on the features, advantages, and benefits. The manager demonstrated the Kirby as the state of the art in technology for vacuum cleaners, and I was impressed! At the end of the day, he told us that in order to have continued employment with Kirby, we had to take a demonstrator home and sell at least one Kirby to our family members at a price of over $300 each! Three hundred bucks in the seventies was a lot of money. I bought my first car for $150, so to say the least, the last thing I wanted to do was squeeze my parents for $300 bucks. I didn't take the demonstrator home and pretty much didn't go back. Sales was not for me.

I'm sure we've all had experiences in our sales careers like the ones I had. To tell you the truth, the last job I ever wanted was a sales position, and look how that panned out. At 23 years old, I stumbled into copier sales in the eighties. Prior to copier sales, I was trained for a good 12 weeks to be a copier technician. At the end of the 12 weeks, I got my first copier tech gig, and in three months, I was brought in for a review. The review went something like this,

"You've done a great job taking the copiers apart, but not so good at putting them back together, so we have to lay you off." I wasn't shocked since I knew it was the truth; I screwed up more copiers than I repaired.

Thus, in the same breath as I was being laid off, I was offered a job to sell copiers. It was either take the job at selling copiers or enlist in the Army. Since I was never a good rule follower, I chose to sell copiers. To this day, I remember one key question that the owner of the dealership asked me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a "C" note ($100 bill), then asked me if I'd like to labor for two days to earn the "C" note or try to talk him out of it. Without hesitation, I stated, "I'll try to talk you out of the "C" note." With that, I was offered a job selling copiers!

Over the years, I've seen many salespeople come and go. Most don't make it in our industry because there's too much rejection, endless prospecting, poor work habits, and the same monthly grind over and over. But every now and then, I'll meet someone who has that "Natural Born Salesperson" in them. They possess unique skills, such as the ability to communicate with anyone, being cordial, pleasant, intelligent, and able to offer vision to others when they communicate. They are very skilled at projecting a vision of the future to the client as to how their product and their company are the right path to choose for many years to come.

So, how can the Natural Born Salesperson become the Super Salesperson?

The Super Salesperson continually hits quota or above, is always prospecting, and has the desire, determination, and dedication to themselves to succeed (win).

To me, it's all about your work ethic. If you don't have an awesome work ethic, you could be the Natural Born Salesperson, but you'll never conquer being the Super Salesperson. You may think you have a great work ethic because you're always on time and you work your 40 hours per week. But ask yourself, do you really work 40 hours? I mean, you're at work, but does that mean you are spending 40 hours a week prospecting, setting appointments, reading about your products, or are you taking personal calls, texting, emailing, taking long lunches, or visiting websites on your BYOD?

The average selling month is 22 days, or 176 hours per month. Every minute that you're not doing something productive in the office or in the field reduces your selling time. When I'm driving to appointments, I'm losing selling time. It's safe to say that I'm in the car at least 12 hours a week going to and from appointments. For the month, that equates to one week, thus my selling/prospecting days are reduced to 15 days. If I were to chat at the water cooler or the coffee maker, check my personal email, text, or check out my fantasy baseball league every day, I could stand to lose another hour a day or 22 hours for the month, which is almost another 3 days that you would lose.

Your time is your most valuable asset when it comes to selling.

In order to be the Super Salesperson, you need to have a great work ethic and understand that sales is not a 9-5 job. When was the last time you picked up a product brochure and read it from front to back? Maybe a sales book, and how about the product launch book from the manufacturer? Did you ever read it?

Take some pride and outwork others. So maybe you're not the best closer or the best salesperson at presentations, but you could be if you spend the time and make the effort. There are many reasons that I'm still in sales (I like the freedom that I have because I hit consistent numbers), and I believe that over time I've learned that if I'm not working hard, then someone else is going to outwork me and take a sale from me.

There are some quotes that I've remembered over the years, such as "the harder I work, the luckier I get", "prospect by day and quote by night", and "winners make things happen, and losers wait for things to happen".

As to the title of this blog, "Natural Born Salesperson," I don't consider myself to be a Natural Born Salesperson; I'm just an average salesperson with an above-average work ethic.

-=Good Selling=-

ONE Awesome Solution that Can Sky Rocket Sales

Art Post · 5/12/147:55 PM

Let me count the ways I enjoy this business!

Just when you think you've seen it all, along comes an entirely FRESH new idea!!

Think about these openings for a phone or walk in cold call:

Hi Mr. or Mrs. CEO, I was curious if you have an environmental initiatives for the upcoming year?

Hi Mr. or Mrs. CEO, Do you have an environmental initiatives that would allow your copiers and printers to paper neutral?

By selecting our Dealership for your copiers and printers, you benefit by strengthening your commitment to sustainable business practices.

Our proposal offers a turn key solution that allows your company to have an environmental initiative in place with zero cost and business impact.

I'm sure if I had more time I could enhance these opening and proposal statements.

We're all looking for something new, different, standout from the sea of others right? I had the opportunity to view a presentation from Print Releaf, and it was smokin!

Print Releaf (catching name right) developed this really awesome software that works with PrintFleet that allows your customers to become what I call "paper neutral: Meaning, for every sheet of paper that is printed is also tracked. The genius behind Print Releaf is that Print Releaf guarantees every sheet of paper that a customers uses will be reforested at a rate of 8,333 sheets of standard letter (8.5 x 11 20lb paper) per tree.

What an awesome idea! We (dealers) can now play a vital part of a company environmental initiatives. If they don't have one, guess what? We can do it for them, or build it into our proposals!

I don't want to steal their thunder, if you have 15 minutes send an email to jdarragh@printreleaf.com and have him give you a tour of how the program works. I for one will be all over this. Thus, the reason why this thread is a Premium thread, don't want this getting out to the masses.

BTW, cost? Not much, Print Releaf will become another revenue stream for us.

Print Releaf if not an advertiser for the Print4Pay Hotel

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in the Copier/Office Equipment Industry 10 Years Ago Second Week of May 2004

Art Post · 5/10/1410:33 AM

The United States Department of Energy announces plans to build the world's fastest supercomputer, capable of a sustained performance of 50 trillion calculations per second (compared to 36.5 trillion for Japan's Earth Simulator and less than 8 trillion for the USA's ASCI White). The computer, to be federally funded to the tune of USD 50 million, will be built at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

2004 NEW Ricoh Printer Line-Up

5/14/04 11:00 AM

Topic by Guest

Download attached pdf. received this at the show in Vegas. CL1000N, CL2000N, CL 3000e to launch in June 04 (yeah right)!

RE: 2232/38 series productivity!

5/8/04 4:18 PM

Reply by Guest

Got back from Vision and Ricoh had a seinar on how to beat theCanon 3200. Hopefully I brought the disk back with me. 1. Thecanon take a tremendous amout of time to print. The 2238 is a lot faster for the first page. I'll look for the rest over the next

RE: New 31 PPM color

5/10/04 10:28 AM

Reply by Old Glory

I'll let Art give you his impressions of the unit but I will tell you that the control panal is Toshiba's, not Ricoh's.

RE: New 31 PPM color

5/10/04 6:35 PM

Reply by Guest

look of being dated, especially with the Toshiba key pad. However users will not be aware of this. In reference to the panels, all Ricoh did was put thier panels on the box. I hope everyone can make money off of this box!

2045 Background

5/10/04 6:54 PM

Topic by Guest

Ricoh Guru's, I have a 2045 scan/print/fax system that has around 85k on it, that suddenly started making prints with background over entire page. It makes background evenly over the page, even where it should have lead edge deletion. Almost looks like

SeriPrinter Update

5/13/04 8:34 AM

Topic by Jim Stocker

Thought y'all might be interested in this. I have just finished an analysis of the cost per copy to service the SeriPrinter, as Ricohhas not provided one. Unsurprisingly, Ricoh has incorrect service costs embedded in their marketing CPC tool

1045 SC 542

5/13/04 9:32 AM

Topic by Guest

I have a recurring SC 542 code on a 1045, happens overnight, we get call in the morning. It has fax option and print. I have replaced thermistors and the heat roller. As a Ricoh veteran, I can certainly say that we seem to get a lot more fusing codes in

RE: Smart Device Monitor Help

5/10/04 3:40 PM

Reply by Guest

machine that way. here is the problem though.. I need to somehow default the 90 to do to 3 things: 1. Parallel Print. 2. Always sort when a print job comes in. 3. Maintain 1 Click Printing with PCL3 Driver. Apparently CANON can do this with a 80ppm laser

RE: Around The World with Ricoh II

5/8/04 5:07 PM

Reply by Guest

Ricoh Cleans Up! Story Link Ricoh congratulates all its volunteers for their efforts on Clean Up Australia Day 2004 On Sunday 7th March Ricoh fielded a team of 106 volunteers to participate in Clean Up Australia Day, 2004. Numbers of volunteers increased

RE: Around The World with Ricoh II

5/8/04 5:08 PM

Reply by Guest

quote: Originally posted by Docusultant: http://www.ricoh.com.au/images/Bowls.jpg Ricoh Charity Bowls Day 2004 Ricohs 5th Charity Event In Support Of The Sunnyfield Association. With the continued support of sponsors and donators,Ricoh Australia will be

RE: New 31 PPM color

5/11/04 7:32 AM

Reply by JasonR

When Art is saying "panels" he means the plastic side panels that say Ricoh on them, not the control panel where you enter information. He's just saying "they put a new shell on it" meaning there are no different features, etc.

RE: New 31 PPM color

5/12/04 5:41 PM

Reply by Old Glory

BERTL gave the Toshiba version of this a 4 Star "Highly Recommended" Rating mostly based on cost/value equation...not high tech but fast and cheap.

RE: Urgent Need help!!!

5/13/04 8:14 AM

Reply by Guest

Art, I checked ROL and those were not valid Ricoh product numbers. I was going to search by description but I had to get off, our inventory person came in. I will check again later, for the blue ink are you referring to the reflex blue?

RE: JP4500 Quality !

5/13/04 9:03 AM

Reply by Jim Stocker

This is such an exciting product, due to the new master technology. Can't wait for it to filter up to the new HQ series in 400 & 600 DPI. My information tells me that when this happens, Ricohwill choose to market these products not as resolution based

RE: Imagerunner 105

5/13/04 6:21 PM

Reply by Amanda

just ran up against this one for a school print shop - 2 Canon IR 105 together $71,095 1 system with paper deck N1, Saddle finisher K3n 1 System with paper Deck N1, Finisher K2N Don't know the exact service rate, but know it was lower than $0.0065 incl

-=Good Selling=-

Print4Pay Hotel's Top 5 Favorite Copier Videos

Art Post · 5/10/1412:46 AM

In not any particular order, however, "Verbatim: What is a Photocopier, just maybe my favorite of all time! I ran across this video almost two weeks ago and also have it posted in the forums. I've also had to chance to share this in the office and it's been a huge hit!! Enjoy.

This next one titled "The Photocopier" is kinda far fetched by haven't we all dreamed about "if only a copier could copy.......

Ah, analog copiers...I'm thinking this clip from TV sitcom "Spin City" is probably 15 years old. But you can resist a well kept copier in an office of sirens. Enjoy!

"Rico Photo Copier", so just a tad bit lengthy, however, the copier jargon is spot on! Plus the I love the two joemowps talking each other down!!

"Top 5 Copier Sales Tricks of the Trade", ah, the thought of a cheap price is long forgotten after poor service. This video brings to life how poor and ruthless customer service can be. Enjoy!!!

If you know of any additional videos that you like, please post them in the reply section.

-=Good Selling=-

Copier Dealers Need to Embrace the "Next Big Thing"

Art Post · 5/7/1411:49 PM

I was born in the late fifties, by the time I was three years old, Xerox had introduced the first plain paper copier.

The Xerox 914 was capable of producing 400 copies per hour!

The speed per minute was under 7 pages per minute. Fifty some years later our current plain paper copiers can achieve speeds of up to 314 image per minute.

Hey, I was three, and the first copier I remembered was at my local library, copy quality was terrible, the paper was curled and it was so slow! I think that library had the same copier until I went to high school. Did I ever think that I would make my living in the copier industry while growing up? Hell NO! I had bigger dreams and aspirations.

The emergence of the Xerox 914 plain paper copier has evolved into a 24 Billion dollar industry with more than 1.5 million copy machines sold each year.

Here's what I can't believe about our industry, we've all been scared straight that the white sheet of paper that we've made a living on all these years is going to go away. In fact, many copier dealers have added alternative revenue streams such as Managed Network Services, Document Management, and Backup Disaster Recovery services.

From a sales persons point of view, chasing pc's, servers and backup recovery is challenging. The thought of having three plus meetings to chase a handful of pc's, servers or BDR is killing me!! The thrill of writing a lease or having an order signed for a copier or multiple copiers is still exciting and it still pays pretty well. Chasing a small recurring revenue stream is a real snooze, at least for me. If you're entering the industry now, there can be some tremendous revenue streams as long as you stay with the same company for a number of years. For me, it's too much work for too little pay-off.

Which leads me to my final question: Why are most copier dealers not entering or embracing the emergence of 3D printers? Some are, but most aren't, why is that?

In a recent article I read, the statement of "3D printers are too unreliable, slow, rough, and manufacturing large objects is cost-prohibitive", reminded me of the Xerox 914 plain paper copier. Slow, rough, expensive to own and expensive to operate. Yes, I know that 3D printers are not really printers, they are prototype manufacturing devices. Yet, they have consumables, they will need to be serviced by skilled technicians, and the market potential could be just as explosive as the copier industry or bigger.

The article went on to point out that the 3D printer that we see now could evolve to be the Star Trek replicator one day.

Who is buying these 3D printers today? Sales are being made to manufacturing companies. larger AEC firms, Colleges, Universities, High Schools, Vocational Schools. Medical Companies, the list goes on and on.

I can remember back in the eighties, the dealership that I owned signed on as a Brother Dealer. It wasn't a big deal at the time, however, the opportunities that came from being an Authorized Brother Dealer exploded. Having the that Brother Authorized shingle enabled much bigger companies to find us, because they wanted a Brother product. I guess you can say we back doored ourselves into these larger accounts and months later we were able to place copiers in those locations.

I believe the same is true with the 3D printer industry today. The time may be right now to get Authorized as a sales and service facility. You can kinda of compare this to the those first handful of office equipment dealers that were selling and servicing typewriters. They were able to see the futureof the plain paper copier. The future of 3D printers is the revenue streams that will come from the 3D printers consumables. Much like toner, developer and paper, companies and businesses will still need to print something, maybe just not on paper.

-=Good Selling=-

New Ricoh MP C401 C401SR Spec Review

Art Post · 5/6/1411:18 PM

I was surprised to say the least.

I knew there was a 40 page per minute color A4 (letter & legal size paper) due soon, but, I thought it might be an entirely new clean sheet design since the older MP C300 & MP C400 were never big movers for us.

As I reviewed the specs of the new MP C401 I realized that not much has changed at least feature wise since the MP C300/400. Yes, you can now add an optional 10.1 Wide Super VGA Smart Operation panel that supports drag and drop. Yes, there is an OCR option for creating searchable .pdf's. You'll also be able to set up customized work flows for scanning from the home screen. But, where the heck is the knock out feature, where's the sizzle?

As far as I'm concerned, I would like to have seen the 10.1 Wide Super VGA Operation panel and the OCR as standard features.

Thus here's some quick specs for everyone.

Print Speed is 42 letter size pages per minute
Scan speed through the 50 page ARDF is 35 IPM for black & color
Standard one 550 sheet paper tray (letter & legal)
Scan2usb and Scan2sd card
Print from USB & Print from sd card
Copy resolution 600 dpi
Print resolution up to 1200x1200 dpi
Duplex up to 90 lb index
2GB RAM and 320GB hard drive
Standard Color Copy/Color Scan/Color Print

Options? There are too many to list, however, the MP C401SR comes with internal stapler. There's one more feature that I need to read up on, and that's the Mandatory Security Information Printing feature. I'll have to read up on this one. It's getting late, good night!!! Need the brochure? It's here

-=Good Selling=-

Newer Posts

Older Posts