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8 Tips for How to Keep You Copier Clean

Here's another interesting thread that I found on a forum.. 

 

This company had purchased a small brother MFP to only find out that the system died in about six months because of the environment that the system was placed in. 

 

The industrial environment is a Rock Quarry!!  OMG, besides a concrete factory I couldn't think of a worse place to have a copier.  This particular user was asking for direction to what type of system he might be able to get that would give better performance.

 

Here's my reply:

 

Rock quarry = very bad environment for any MFP. The Brother that you bought is considered a "throw away" system. Years ago I placed several units at a cement factory equally as bad as the rock quarry or maybe worse. You need to step up to an office system machine take a look here.

 

All laser based MFP copiers use heat and pressure to fuse the toner on the paper, thus when the system is on, the system is always heating, cooling and drawing in air from the environment.

 

Kev840 made a good suggestion lease or buy a more robust system like I pointed out and buy a maintenance agreement, but do keep in mind that if the environment is too dirty the dealer can and may cancel the agreement because of the environment.

 

Here's some types you can do to help your copier run cleaner:

 

1. When not using the copier, turn it off and place a cover over the system. (years ago, a cover came with every new copier)

 

2. Buy some Silica Gel Bags and place them in the copier paper tray to keep the moisture out of the unit.

 

3. Find the air intake area to the copier and place a strip cheesecloth over the air intake and replace this every month or so.

 

4. When you find the air intake there is usually and air filter in the better systems, see if you can buy a few extra from the dealer and change them every month.

 

5. Clean the optics (glass) and the slit exposure (usually located next the main copy glass and is maybe an inch wide at most) and the document feeder area every few weeks or month, you can use glass cleaner for the optics and soap and water for the feed tires (they feed the paper into the document feeder).

 

6. If they system has been sitting awhile, before you print or copy remove the old paper and put new paper in the system. Dust, dirt and grit will settle on the top page and you don't want those foreign particles going through the copier.

 

7. Once a month take a can of air and blow out all of the dust and dirt from the paper trays.

 

8. The Paper feed tires in the auto document feeder can be cleaned with soap and water, prepare a damp rag with a little soap on it and rub up the feed tires. When finished take a clean rag and dry the feed tires.

 

Always keep in mind that any laser based copier/MFP works on static electricity an electronic charge is applied to the drum and paper for every print, dust inside of the unit can become charged and then adhere to other areas of the device where you don't want the dust to be.

 

If you take these precautions and get a system that is more worthy of your needs, I believe you can get many years out of another system. Hope this helps!!

 

-=Good Selling=-

A Few Reasons Why You Need to Enabling Secure Printing

Lurking in the shadows of your office is a disgruntled employee, he or she has already interviewed for other sales jobs and last week accepted a sales job at a competitor. But this sneaky son of bitch negotiated that he or she can't start for another 30 days. 

 

Why is that?

 

Or how about this one, you printed out an account list to work or some additional support documents for accounts you went to the printer and the prints were not there. Where did they go, did they ever print, is there an audit trail?

 

Most likely someone has stolen that printed data, account list or intellectual property. In the above case it was the person who is making plans to leave the company and in the mean time is gathering information on as many accounts as possible from as many reps or managers as possible.

 

Let's not stop there, this employee may also be picking up invoices or information that has personal or business credit card information. 

 

Everyone has put up such a fuss over the securing their

hard drives, wiping data from the hard drives or even replacing the hard drives on leased copiers and they ignore the easiest loss of data, accounts, and intellectual property which is left on paper at the copiers and printers in their office!

 

With recent trends in the office to eliminate desktop printers and mandates to use workgroup printers that have a lower cost,  many companies are open to identity theft and account theft.  

 

The question i, s are you having that discussion with your existing accounts and prospects?  If not I'd bet dollars to doughnuts your competition is.

 

Just in the past month, I've had more requests for secure printing that I've had in the last six months.  All of our MFP manufacturers offer some time of secure print feature with their print drivers and their systems, but what happens when your prospect or customer wants to secure print their existing fleet of printers. With Ricoh systems I can handle the MFP's with Ricoh print drivers that have a secure print offering, but securing the fleet of printers or copiers from a host of different manufacturers is a horse of a different color.

 

One Print Management Solution that I like is Print Secure from Print Audit.  Print Secure captures and hold print jobs via client software that is deployed to individual work stations, and a server component must be installed to a single computer on the network.

 

Users can also release their print jobs at the printer (prox card reader) or manage their jobs by logging into the secure web portal through any device with web access.  Thus you could release your job via your smart phone, a web browser on the MFP/printer, pc workstation or a tablet.  The Secure Web portal also allows users to view detailed information about each print job in the queue such as document name, user, time printed and the printer that was used and more.

 

Print Audit also has some neat programs for dealers to help them win business with their Premier Program.  Dealers can take advantage of a monthly billing that will include "x" amount of licenses for all of their products.  In the case of one client that I'm working I would be able to bill month or quarterly for "x" amount of Print Secure license to the end user.  The main benefit is the customer will not have to layout the entire cost of the licenses, they can enable a payment plan where they can add licenses as they need them. This is awesome for companies that are growing at a rapid rate.

 

It only takes a few seconds to have the print secure talk with your prospect or customer, and who knows you may uncover some pain in their printing process or it may lead to other print management solutions.  There's an old saying "if you don't ask you don't get", make you ask!.

 

-=Good Selling=-

Good Copier Lease vs Bad Copier Lease

Hey P4P'ers. Jesse emailed this to me the other day.  If you have time you can "follow" Jesse on this site by clicking his name and then click "follow"

Art
If you are in the market for a copier and have been trying to understand what would make a copier lease "good" vs "bad,"  we are here to help!  
There are several facets that make a lease good vs bad:
  • Does the lease contain provisions that are designed to benefit the supplier or the buyer?
  • Is the lease using "fair" lease factors?
  • Customer service of the leasing company
  • Customer service of the copier service company
Let's take these quickly one at a time:
Does the lease contain provisions that are designed to benefit the supplier or the buyer?
If you read your lease, and you really sure, there are always provisions you need to be careful of.  We look for certain common items which make leases more expensive by nature when evaluating a copier lease for our clients
  • Rates can increase (will increase) a certain percentage due to factors we have no control of (nor a desire to control) - Typical is 5% to 10% per year.  If you start at 200 a month, by year 5 you could be at $300 a month.  Lease creep gets expensive.
  • "You have to notify us in writing no more than 90 Days from Lease term and no Less than 60 Days" or the lease automatically renews a year.  You should always try and get this out of your contract if possible and put a reminder in your calendar if you can't.  
Is the lease using "fair" lease factors?
This can get tough to define, but while you are getting quotes, you can always ask what the lease rate factors being used are.  We saw a site with current lease rates that you might be interested to see.  There are other factors involved, like is it new or used - what your credit rating is - is it a company lease or personal guarantee, etc.  If it is way out of line, keep looking.
Customer service of the leasing company?
Everyone says their customer service is great.  A good check is to find out what leasing company the copier uses and then call that company as if you had a problem and see how long it takes to talk to an actual person, do they speak English, do they seem like they want to help.  You are going to be dealing with them in one form or another for the next 5 years, so it does matter.
Customer service of the copier service company?
Many people think the beauty of leasing is that when you lease if there are major problems, you can stop paying.  That is not how a lease works.  A lease is a financial agreement between you and a bank and doesn't assume the quality of the equipment being financed.  Some performance metrics can be inserted into a lease to reduce your costs for extremely poor performance, but the bank will not forgive your lease if the copier isn't working.  This is why it is critical to have a solid maintenance agreement on your copier lease.  
If you are not getting great service on the copier it will FEEL like a bad lease, no matter how good the leasing company is.  The bank expects you to check the quality of both the equipment and supplier.  They are merely financing the obtaining of the copier.
When looking to lease a copier, a good lease will not be filled with disadvantageous terms for you, will not use excessive lease rate factors, will have great customer service and great service from the company providing the copier to you.  If you are not comfortable with all 4 of the above factors, get another quote since you will be working with that copier company for the next 5 years.
Jesse Harwell is a copier sales professional and owner of the blog Copier Lease Center which gives advice on how to get a great copier lease for your company.
-=Good Selling=-

31 Ways to Close More Sales (#15 of 31)

 

Thus with the 15th post of this series, we're just about to the halfway point. I may be adding a couple of additional closes that I've written down in recent weeks.  Starting sometime in December I'll start our new series "31 Ways to Garner Net New Business".

 

15.      Don’t close now, Close next week: Sometimes you’re to the point where you can’t go any further with the sales process, you have delivered several closes several times and nothing….you can then walk away, however you need to walk away with a firm commitment to meet next week on “x” day and time to give the customer time to “think about it” and restate that the reason for the meeting is to see if we can move forward. 

 

-=Good Selling=-

Can a Digital Copier Scan to Dropbox?

Most copiers do have this capability now, in most cases when purchasing or leasing a new copier you'll need to purchase some type of app in order for the copier to access your dropbox account.

 

Depending upon the manufacturer and the service offered you may also have the ability to print documents from Dropbox, just make sure you check with your Imaging Professional first. 

 

With our Ricoh systems you'll need to purchase ICE (Integrated Cloud Environment) for about $240 per year.  You'll only be able to scan to a repository/folder, thus if you need to put the file in another folder you would have o log on to dropbox from your smartphone, tablet or PC and then manually move the file to the desired location.

 

What many uses may not realize, is that since dropbox sets up as a folder on your PC, you can point the copier to scan to the path of your dropbox folder on your PC.  You can do this without buying ICE and you can do this with older Ricoh MPF's that are do not support a web browser or Ricoh ICE.  I've been using this with an older Ricoh MPC4000 and it's worked perfectly for the last year or so.

 

 

-=Good Selling=-

 

 

This Week in the Copier/Office Equipment Industry 10 Years Ago (3rd Week of November)

Yup, ten years ago today Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger was sworn is as Governor of California.  I'll take a line from a Mel Brooks movie and Arnie might have said "It's good to be the King"!!!

 

There are 28 selling days left in the year, if your month closes earlier then you'd better have December sales set to go since we tend to hear all the excuses why customers can't buy.  We need to find the prospects and customers that need to spend money before the end of the year.  Thus we pretty much need to touch base with everyone in our CRM.

 

          November 10, 2003 6:03 PM
 
          Topic by Boston Mike
          RAMSEY, NJ - November 4, 2003 - Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc.'s (KMBS) Minolta dealers are ready to assist financial institutions with a cost-effective and productive way of digitizing, storing, viewing, sharing and transmitting...
 
          November 10, 2003 6:05 PM
 
          Topic by Boston Mike
          New Cost-Effective Business Color Solution Offers Maximum Speed and Productivity With Excellent Image QualityIRVINE, Calif., (Nov. 3, 2003) ¡V Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc. (TABS) today announced the introduction of the Toshiba...
 
          November 17, 2003 7:25 AM
 
          Topic by Guest
          Hewlett-Packard To Announce Copier Market Entry Today - FTSunday November 16, 7:15 pm ET TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ - News) will announce Monday the first of a new line of high-end corporate copiers that will intensify...
 
          November 13, 2003 7:33 PM
 
          Topic by Boston Mike
Easy-to-use StreamPunch(tm) Keeps Pace with High-Speed Digital SystemsWest Caldwell, NJ, November 11, 2003 - Ricoh Corporation, the leadingprovider of digital office equipment, today announced that it has formed arelationship with General Binding...
 
          November 11, 2003 3:52 PM
 
          Topic by Mike N
          Does anyone know what the staple positions are on the 6513.  I need to know if it will staple 2 in the side.  All of the documentation I find does not tell me the positions, only that there are 3.  If anyone also knows this info for the Canon CLC1100...
 
          November 10, 2003 6:01 PM
 
          Topic by Boston Mike
          West Caldwell, NJ, November 10, 2003 - Ricoh Corporation, the leadingprovider of digital office equipment, and Documentum, the leading contentmanagement provider for e-business, today announced the integration ofRicoh's GlobalScan solution into...
 
          November 12, 2003 7:28 PM
 
          Topic by Guest
          First On-Line Die Punches For High-Volume Multifunctional Printing SystemsEasy-to-use StreamPunch(tm) Keeps Pace with High-Speed Digital SystemsWest Caldwell, NJ, November 11, 2003 - Ricoh Corporation, the leadingprovider of digital office equipment,...
 
          November 13, 2003 3:50 PM
 
          Topic by Scott Holloway
          Does anyone have any experience in a high volume print shop with the SR90?I have placed 2 2090 and a SR90 and it periodicly does strange things. When this has happened we have learned to reboot the system but I am wondering if we are missing...
 
    November 16, 2003 5:02 PM
 
          Topic by Guest
          Does anyone remember that conversion softwarew for prodcut names between RFG orginizations. Greg from Wilmington found it and psased it along. Since then I have moved out of state and am missing that program tremendously. If anyone has it I'd be...
 
          November 13, 2003 8:02 AM
 
          Topic by Guest
 
 
          November 11, 2003 11:50 PM
 
          Topic by Jayson Gilbertson
          Ricoh has a lovely little site for us to send our customers to for rebates for the printers we sell them and then they put link to online resellers there. Oh don't worry if your customer what to find you the local dealer all they have to do is call...
 
          November 14, 2003 9:47 AM
 
          Topic by Guest
Where Can I Get The Internal IPDS Solution For My Aficio Product? Question I've got a host computer that sends IPDS data. I also have the following machines on my network: Aficio 1022, Aficio 1027, Aficio 1035, Aficio 1045, AP3800, Aficio 1060, and...
 
          November 12, 2003 2:32 PM
 
          Topic by Ted
          I was trying to set up the 2022 we got in today, and I can't get it to staple.  The machine has the 500 sheet finisher.  I had to load the drivers from the Savin and Gestetner websites (Ricoh doesn't have them yet).  I loaded the RPCS and PCL.  When I...
 
          November 18, 2003 11:14 AM
 
          Topic by tnorris
          I NEED HELP FAST! MY CUSTOMER WANTS TO ORDER 3 2610N WITH THE IS100e SCANNERS ATTACHED OF COURSE RICOH DISC. THE 2610 WILL THE IS100eFIT ON THE 400N?
 
          November 14, 2003 5:36 PM
 
          Topic by Guest
          SAP Printing   Question  Do you have any information regarding SAP printing using Ricoh's Device Type?   Answer  Yes, the attached document will provide some good information about SAP printing using the Ricoh Device Type. In addition, some AS/400...
 
          November 14, 2003 5:35 PM
 
          Topic by Guest
          How Can I Access Certain Machine Features, Including Auto-Tray Switching, When Printing From My AS/400 Without Modifying The Original Data?   Question  I am printing from my AS/400 to many different types of printers and multifunction machines. While...
 
          November 13, 2003 7:36 PM
 
          Topic by Guest
          Priport JP750  It's never been easier to enjoy fast, affordable digital copying and printing. With the Ricoh Priport JP750 you can benefit from clean, clear copies and prints produced automatically on one single unit, which can also add (spot)...
 
          November 14, 2003 9:45 AM
 
          Topic by Guest
          What Is An IPDS Printer Or MFP?   Question  I've heard the term "IPDS" used with host printing and I'm curious as to what is an IPDS printer or multifunction device. Can you help me?   Answer  IPDS is an abbreviation for Intelligent Printer Data...
 
          November 13, 2003 7:30 PM
 
          Topic by Guest
          Special Offer: Free Black Toner for 12 months With any Ricoh Colour Printer purchase  Colour Printing is now even more affordable when the Black is FREE.* Yes that’s right. Ricoh is offering FREE black toner for 12 months on the complete range...
 
          November 11, 2003 1:13 PM
 
          Topic by Old Glory
          I decided to post here portions of an an email I sent out to our company reps. This applies to this small dealership but has poinient remarks all of us need to realize...Do you realize how many 2035/2045 series units we would have to have to cover...
 
          November 11, 2003 10:33 AM
 
          Reply by merlin
          PS: Were are also a Kyocera dealer. In the KM line KM uses a I/O 5435e print server for IDPS printing. I do not know were KM gets this print server. If you can find out the third party vendor it may work on the Ricoh line-up.
  
          November 12, 2003 7:59 AM
 
          Reply by merlin
          I've heard about RA2K software from Ricoh, but when I ask our sales trainer from Ricoh she knew nothing.An to this day she has not got back to me about this. I have a customer that is using 3 IBM 40 printers to do there statements that I am trying to ...
 
          November 12, 2003 4:19 PM
 
          Reply by Scott Holloway
          RA2K software works with the Next Generation of Ricoh Aficio output systems such as network printers and MFP's . At this time it works with the 22 to 75 ppm mfp's with the 90 and 105 being available soon. Basically the software convers IPDS print...
 
 
          November 13, 2003 3:43 PM
 
          Reply by Guest
          The Ricoh Response(Gene Olszanowski) - 11/13/2003 10:40 AM Thanks for your email. Please set the paper size in the drawers for the RPCS driver before you try to staple. Go into Printing Preferences and click on the Printer Configuration button. Then...
 
          November 13, 2003 3:58 PM
 
          Reply by Guest
          Scott: we had to get Ricoh invloved on our first SR90 install, we all had a tough time of making it work right. We still have problems with the auto fold feature. How can I help? Art
 
          November 14, 2003 10:16 AM
 
          Reply by Ted
          Maybe I'm stupid, but didn't the RPCS driver used to see the accessories and how the machine was setup and do all that you said we now have to do?  I figured it out yesterday and did set the paper sizes in the drawers, and it works now.  I used to...
 
          November 11, 2003 10:21 AM
 
          Reply by merlin
          The last I know Ricoh does not support IDPS printing. Sorry
 
          November 12, 2003 8:01 AM
 
          Reply by Guest
          Analog Sorter, I do not have the specs, however I am going by memory (eek), I believe it staples in two positions. One for legal and one for letter. Can any one else help to clarify and help with the Canon. I believe if you do a search (here at the...
 
          November 12, 2003 8:33 AM
 
          Reply by Guest
          Jay: thanx for the info, there was an post on the league about this. All of the posts that are listed as Anonymous are only anonymous to the readers. Ricoh and the web master knows who actually posted the thread. Just and FYI
 
          November 13, 2003 9:19 PM
 
          Reply by Jim Stocker
          I wonder if this is the unit that I've heard has the Ricoh product designation "Titanium"? If it is, it's closest market to us is Latin America, and Ricoh hesitates to bring it here due to that fact that it would undermine the low end duplicator ...
 
          November 14, 2003 8:01 AM
 
          Reply by Guest
          Plus no platen glass, on a trip to Japan a few years ago, I had the pleasure if meeting the DSM for LAD, can't place his name right now. He had been trying to persuade Ricoh to make a less expensive duplicator for the Latin American market.  This (the...
 
-=Good Selling=-

Can I Copy Mixed Sized Documents on a Copier?

Even before the dawn of the digital copiers there some were a few copiers that allowed you to mix different size originals in the copier document feeder. For instance if you had a mix of letter, legal and ledger size documents you could place them all in the feeder an as long as you had the corresponding paper in the paper trays. The copier would then pull the right size paper from the correct paper draw.  However, this feature with the older analog copiers slowed the copiers copy process down to a crawl!

 

Today, there is not that much of a need for copying mixed sized originals, but every now and then we do get someone that needs to enable that feature.  The good news is that all digital copiers should have this as a standard feature.

 

I sell the Ricoh brand of copiers and the mixed size original feature is located in the "special features" ( I think that's it ) on the home screen of the system.  It's not a feature that a user will see from the home screen.  Users will need to select that feature and then place the documents in the feeder and the press the start button. I'm still amazed at how many customers are still "wowed" by this simple feature.  Copying mixed sized originals is not as slow as the analog systems anymore however you do need to allow some additional time since the paper is drawn from different paper trays.  Usually if a customer needs this feature we will put it into a program key for easy retrieval.

 

BTW, for those of you that scan a lot, you can scan mixed sized originals with most of the Ricoh systems.

 

End

 

Can a Copier Feed Paper from Additional Paper Trays?

This question came up today at an account and I can understand why, the system that we're going to replace is over 10 years old!!! 

 

Years ago before the digital age of copiers, the answer was no way no how. Most of todays copiers (which are all digital), allows for the user enable auto tray switching from one tray to another.  Thus when one paper tray has emptied the copier will feed from the next paper tray that has the same size of paper that is loaded.  The benefit is that you don't have to run back to the system to fill the tray that emptied.

 

In most copiers this feature needs to be turned on by the end user. I sell the Ricoh products and in those devices you'll need to access the "user tools" key, once accessed the end user will be able to allow "tray switching". If you're not sure of the correct setting call your sales person or call the company that you bought or leased your copier from and they'll be able to guide you through the programming sequence. 

 

End

Oh my, when selling copiers door to door was so simple?

Guest Blogger!!!! Harry's back with an awesome blog that takes us old timers back to a simpler time in the industry and all you newbies are probably wishing you had a station wagon to cart a copier around!

 

BTW, Toyota pic on the left is what my demo car was in the early eighties!!

 

Oh my, when selling copiers door to door was so simple?

 

For those of us who have been in this wonderful industry for 30+ years, I thought I would take you on a trip down memory lane and put a smile on your faces. Even though much has changed from the “good ol days”, this business remains as lucrative as ever. Remember, there are not too many industries where a healthy “double digit net” can be earned. The difference is that we all need to be more strategic, organized and focused to obtain the prize and exceed our goals. The days of winging it and simply selling yourselves out of slumps are dwindling.

 

Let’s have some fun!

 

Remember when?

 

  • Your prospect and customer files were in your favorite Converse shoe box. It was always in your possession, just in case a fellow sales rep in your office decided to go cold calling in your shoe box.
  • You had to have a station wagon to get hired. Forget the fact that you did not have a suit or conduct simple multiplication
  • Sales training consisted of sitting down in a dark room and watching “BLITZ” tapes
  • You earned to right to have your own business card after making it past the 6 month employment mark. In the mean time you had to use white out on the reps card who recently left your territory
  • Your competitive knowledge came from the infamous BLI bible and Data Pro. Everything was at your finger tips including pictures and specs of the devices. Some Copiers were even rated “unacceptable”, what a concept.
  • Lease Rates, they were the wild wild West. Every deal, monthly payment and term changed with the wind. Remember the Hertz Leasing Book?
  • Xerox copiers IE: 3100 LDC cost per page was >.04 all you had to do is show the client that a new machine could be paid for in less than 12 month. Oh the beauty of the pencil sell
  • Your office had 5 desks and one phone. Your manager yelled at you to get out the office and make 50 cold calls a day. Work the number and ratios and the rest will happen
  • Demo night and sales meetings. How about those demo nights from 5-8 pm on Thursdays and sales meeting on Friday afternoon, just to be sure that you were not at the beach or making new friends at the mall
  • Your boss said “find the deal, and then call me”. Let a pro (in the business for a year) show you how it’s done. Move over rover! You won’t be here in 6 months so I cannot afford to lose my commission on this deal. Let me sell it at cost so I can hit my team revenue goal lol
  • If you did not sell, you did not eat. After trying to learn the business in 60 days, you were already “in the hole” for $2000 because your compensation plan was 100% draw vs. commission. How many people did you know that quit or were fired owing the company money. Oh, by the way ,we are holding your last expense check since you did not make enough calls
  • Service on copiers was simply a courtesy. What do you mean you want prompt service? Call us today and we will be there sometime tomorrow.
  • You only needed to learn how to demonstrate and sell 4 models. How simple. Accessories included the catch tray and stand. If I give you the stand, do we have a deal?
  • You had a demo at 5PM and had to transport the machine up a narrow flight of stairs. You ripped your pants, scratched walls, and tore carpet, only to find the prospect had 2 other machines already on trial.
  • Xerox won most deals because “nobody ever got fired buying a Xerox”. Sharp, Mita, Minola- who are they?
  • You had Monday morning team blitzes. All ten reps went into one territory and saturated the geography with business cards. Somehow word got out and most office buildings were sure to put out their “No Soliciting” signs.

Thank you for joining me on a trip down memory lane. As we approach Thanksgiving, we all have so much to be thankful for. This business has been good to many of us and will continue to change and thrive. Thirty years from now, many will look back and laugh on how we conduct business today, really? Email and Cell phones, what are they?

 

Harry Hecht, Business Coach and Consultant, has more than 32 years of Business Technology/Business Imaging industry experience. His extensive business experience includes a 22 year distinguished career as the Vice President US Dealer Sales for Konica Minolta Business Solutions and 5 years as VP/ General Manager for Global Imaging Systems, a Xerox Company. Harry Hecht is a member of the MPSA has been actively involved for over 10 years in the development, creation, implementation and growth of Managed Print Services programs throughout the independent dealer channel. harryhecht@gmail.com and www.linkedin/in/harryhecht  609-636-9893

 

-=Good Selling=-

Me, Sadaaki, Mitsuhrio & Brian

It was the first snow of the season in New Jersey, the snow was short lived and didn't stick to the road surface as I drove to the office. 

 

Today's agenda was to meet two Ricoh Product Marketing Reps from Japan along with the Wide Format Product Manager here in the US.  Our day was prescheduled to meet with three wide format accounts that had either the CW2200SP and or the W3601.  I had three appointments scheduled however once cancelled at the last minute.

 

Our first appointment has us visiting a Land Surveying company in the New Jersey Bayshore area, where we were able to interview the staff on what they like and how they use the CW2200SP. 

 

I'm no stranger to these types of appointments, in the past I've been able to do these two other times for duplicators and one for wide format many years ago.

 

I always find these appointments fascinating, for one I get to meet new people, two I get to listen to their line of questioning to the customer (which can sometimes clue me in to new products that may come down the road), and of course the most important is that I have an audience with the manufacturer and can either state the ineffiencies of a certain device, or recommend improvements for future devices.

 

For lunch we went the Famous Bahrs Landing in Highlands where I was also able to catch up with Jay and his father (owners) and have an awesome lunch.

 

Our second appointment was at a large architectural firm near Red Bank. Our customer their has had a Ricoh W3601 for about 18 months (before PW), and basically the same line of questions were in order for that customer also.

 

I did have time to grill them on future products and since I don't have these products to sell now it's kind of worthless to talk about what may or may not happen.  But, I was able to add what I'd like to see in future products.

 

  • On the CW2200SP & the CW3601 there are three or four original guides that protrude from the rear of the system. I would like to see these extended so originals would stack and lay flat when they are scanned.
  • For both systems again, give us the ability from the MFP screen to browse folders on the network and scan directly to that folder.
  • For the W3601, give us USB print.  The USB print works like a charm with the CW2200SP and would be a great addition to low volumes users so that they would not have to purchase a print controller. Especially good for customers that only need to print .pdf
  • Both the CW2200SP and the W3601, enable printing from Mobile devices.
  • W3601, develop a vertical stacker for the rear exit system. Prints would still exit to the bottom tray, however there would be no misfeed issues. This is big because I believe many W3601 users are send out larger jobs because both exit areas can't stack that well, especially the bottom tray.  The end user actually agreed and stated that if Ricoh had something like they would send less print outs, thus more clicks for the factories.  Adding a third party stacker like the Tameran is not an option in many companies since the foot print is so large.

I'll be back to selling tomorrow, however today was a pleasure and both of my accounts enjoyed the opportunity to talk about their business and what they would like to see in future systems

 

-=Good Selling=-

 

31 Ways to Close More Sales (#14 of 31)

Some sales organizations elect to re-write the book on leasing, they have ideas that they can do it better and make it more efficient for themselves.  What they forget is the fact that they have effectively tied the hands of their creative sales people.  I'll save the rest for a blog later..  Enjoy #14!!

 

13.     30/60/90 Close: Some customers don’t like to lease and they would prefer to buy, if they offer an objection to the full amount, then offer them the 30/60/90.  You get 33% on delivery, the other 33% in 30 days and then the balance in 30 days. Most dealerships won’t do this however you can’t get it if you don’t ask.  Talk with your sales manager to see if this is offered.

 

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh Spec Review of the MP C300HW & MP C300HT MFP's

Ricoh recently added two additional MFP's that are specifically designed for the Healthcare Industry.  Loyal readers may remember that a few years ago I mentioned that the next "Big Thing" is that manufacturers would start designing and introducing vertical market imaging systems. It seems Ricoh is practicing what I preached at least for the Healthcare Industry.

 

Both of these systems are similar to Ricoh's MPC300 (Color) MFP system that was launched a little over two years ago.  The major difference between the MPC 300HW and the MPC 300HT is that the "HW" model will be able to print patient wristbands (from the paper tray) from electronic medical records.  It's my understanding that this feature will enable users to eliminate expensive single purpose thermal printers.  Both the HW and the HT model are both equipped with Teflon Coating paper trays which can assist in minimizing paper misfeeds and the ability to print on wristband stock

 

What we'll do is go over a few of the specs for these new devices:

 

Print Features:

 

32 pages per minute: Color & Black

1200x1200 dpi

160 GB hard Drive

1.5 GB RAM

1 GHz processor

Adobe PS3, PCL 5c and PCL 6

Locked Print Feature:  (enables users to select a pin code at the printer driver before sending the print job to the MFP, the print job is held on the hard drive and is "locked" until that users inserts their pin code).

Hard Drive Encryption:  Will encrypt passwords, address books and other data stored on the device

Data Overwrite Security:  This features enables the system to protect information on the Hard Drive by overwriting images on the hard drive.

 

Paper Handling:

 

Maximum Paper Capacity for the MPC 300HW is 2,000 sheets

Maximum Paper Capacity for the MPC 300HT is 2,300 sheets

Auto Duplex (two sided) for letter and legal

Utilize Media up to 8.5" x 14"

MPC 300HW standard paper supply is one 250 sheet tray and one 100 sheet by-pass tray

MPC 300HT standard paper supply is one 550 sheet tray and 100 sheet by-pass tray

Media weight is 14 lb - 58 lb bond/120 lb index for standard and optional paper trays

Media weight is 14 lb to 68 lb bond/140 lb for by-pass tray

 

The above specs are some of the specs for the device, more specs for scanning and copying can be found on Ricoh's web site.

 

My Take:

 

Ricoh's Healthcare imaging systems now stand at 10 systems including MFP's and printers.  I like the take on the vertical market strategy to introduce printers and MFP's that have certain feature sets that are designed for that vertical market.

 

When I was pouring over the brochure for these systems I did notice that two important features where not included on this device that were included on a couple of the 52 page per minute black MFP models.  Tray Lock is not an option on the new HW & HT series (the tray lock provides a key and lock to restrict access to the media in the paper tray) which is invaluable if you are going to use the MFP to print prescriptions.  Another feature set that is not available on the HW & HT is the "Portable Print Configuration".  This feature allows the user to set up an MFP device with paper trays configurations, sizes, media, etc and then copy the MFP configuration to an SD card, IT can then take that SD card with the print configuration to other MFP's and duplicate the setting for each additional device.

 

I would have also like to have seen a secure print stream feature, this would allow prescription departments in medical centers to stop purchasing secure media (which is very costly) and would enable MFP's and printers to print prescriptions on regular bond paper.

 

10 Ways to Make your Copier & MPS Proposals Standout!

Over the years I've seen a lot of really bad copier and MPS proposals and some very good ones. The very bad ones far outweigh the very good ones.

 

AS much as we always try to get in front of the decision maker(s) there are many times when we just can't get the access to the DM and we have to submit a proposal to the gate keeper that will then forward the proposal for a decision.

 

What can make your proposal stand out from all of the others?

 

1. Make sure the proposal is perfect, no misspelled words, no wrong model numbers and no abbreviations.  I'd like to point out that abbreviations can make you seem lazy because you didn't take the time to type out the entire words,  and this can be seen as taking shortcuts, the last thing I want is the DM thinking is that I'm lazy or not putting the full effort in on something as simple as a proposal.

 

2.  Action items which can include value points, list of features and benefits to the prospect.

 

3. A lockout solution/feature, if you did you an awesome assessment you'll probably have one or two solutions or features that will make you stand out. Make sure that you list what your solution or feature is going to do for them such as:  "On our assessment we noticed that there are many prints being left on the copiers and printers that are never picked up, in addition these documents have personal information on them.  Our device agnostic Print Secure software will eliminate those pages being left on the printers and copiers, and in additional all of the pages that are printed will have a banner on the document stating who printed that document."

 

4. If you have multiple systems to quote add a floor plan showing the existing systems and what systems will be moved, replaced or retired.

 

5.Out line the prospects existing costs and then present the expected replacements costs along with any savings.

 

6. If the customer is leasing, provide them with all of the leasing information, 24, 36, 48 and 60 month lease terms (unless the customer has specified that they only want you to quote a certain term)

.

7. Include a SOW (scope of work), what they can expect from you and what you expect of them (this is especially crucial when upgrading or buying out leases that are not in your portfolio).

 

8. Pictures can help tell a story, add a picture of the system or even pictures of the options.

 

9. Cover letters are always a great way to show them that you and your company is professional in everything that you do.

 

10. Proposals are just that, nothing binding, along with the proposal present them with a filled out order form, maintenance agreement and lease.  If you're really committed add your sign here sticky notes and them that you expect the order!

 

Remember that you are presenting you, your company and your manufacturer on a piece of media, make it easy to read (larger fonts), highlight key points of the proposal, make sure the prints are perfect (no shading, spots, or banding), present in a folder, binder whatever you feel comfortable with. 

 

-=Good Selling==

 

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