MFP Proposals

Dos anyone in their right mind want to be like someone else?  Is life about being unique and different?  Is there no creative juice left in our industry? Thus why do so many sales people quote the same way time after time?

Stay away from quoting traditional lease terms of 36, 48 or 60 month leases

• Rather quote 12-, 24- or 39-month leases
• Quoting a shorter-term lease has two major advantages
  • If the client comes back and asks you for a 36, 48 60 or-month lease terms then the client is probably shopping your quote to compare with others. If the client or prospect asks you to change the quote 36, 48 or 60 months, then ask why?  In most cases this question will flush out the real reason for change.  That real reason is to compare apples to apples or quote to quote.  Once you know this you can amend your numbers if needed with quoting the additional terms.
  • If the objection becomes the monthly cost (meaning your cost is too high).  Instead of dropping your price you can quote a longer-term lease which gives the client the lower cost they want.
• In some cases clients or prospects may want a short term lease because they would pay less interest. No one likes to pay interest!
• A 39 month lease works in your favor for upgrades because lease upgrades will be more frequent. With a 39 month lease you can start planting the seed for upgrade at 30 months.  With 60 moths you'll be waiting 51 months and 63 month leases (OMG) will be 54 months.
• Your doing your client a favor because you'll be saving them money on the maintenance and supply escalation clause.  With a 39 month lease there will only be 2 escalations. with 60 and 63 month leases there will be four escalations.

-=Good Selling=-

Mini Ten Part Blog Series (1 of 10)

Don't quote the print/copy speed of your MFP,  rather quote the scan speed and features of your scanning because almost no one copies any more!

• Quote your duplex and simple scan speeds first/highlight them
• List features aka knock out features such a
  • Blank page scan detection (makes smaller files and uses less band width when scanning)
  • Batch scanning (you can scan many pages to a pdf even if you have a small document feeder)
  • Scan to thumb/USB drive (make those paper based documents portable for out of office use)
  • Scan2SDcard (look for a copy that may need this application)
  • Scan to url (reduces band width for scanning, can eliminate the need for a scan server)
  • Scan to cloud services (log in and scan to your preferred cloud host)
  • Browse to folders for scanning (select your scan destination folders from your MFP, saves mega time rather than scanning to email and moving to folders)
  • OCR (make each scanned page searchable)
  • Convert paper documents to Excel or Word docs (your gateway to workflow automation)
  • Paper based translation (scan your document in and print it out in the language of your choice)
  • Integration with MS Sharepoint (on premise or cloud to enhance business intelligence or business automation)

Why I Like to Quote Like This

• Scanning, most end users are not interested in copy/print speeds anymore. More clients and prospects are now looking for faster scan speeds and having some type of document automation (what I listed above).
• Give your clients and prospects reasons why your device is better when scanning. The reason for that is because most reps quote like this.
  1. Black and Color scan
  2. Scan to folder & email
  3. Price per month

BORING!

Ask yourself which proposal would you lean to when reviewing a proposal. A proposal that lists the benefits of scanning like I outlined above or a proposal that just mentioned the MFPs scan speed at “x” amount per images per minute?

BE DIFFERENT BE BOLD

-=Good Selling=-

Below is a blog I wrote about a year ago on the old blog site. I'll be moving these over from time to time.

As we still struggle to keep margins on equipment, maybe we need to become better advocates for presenting shorter terms for leasing equipment. I've been tracking all of my sales for purchases and leases; 92% of them involve leasing the equipment with a third-party leasing provider.

Of that 92%, 89% of the leases I've written were for 60 months. I would tend to think that, give or take a few percent, this might be applicable to most of us.

60 months/5 years is a long time, right?

Dang, I'm tired of my cell phone after two years and my car in about three. Technology changes so quickly nowadays that I want the latest and greatest new car features, whether it's better gas mileage, more comfort, or new technology. The same is true of my cell phone; after only two years, I would like to step up to new technology that may enhance my lifestyle or make me more productive. Wouldn't our customers want the latest technology with their copiers and MFP's also?

Why are we not quoting and selling more 24 or 36-month leases?

Look at it this way: if you put a customer into a 60-month lease, you'll have to wait at least four years until you or the customer has an upgrade path, and 54 months would be the prime time to upgrade. Even at 4 years, the upgrade path may not be as rosy of a picture for your customer.

Putting your customer into a 36-month lease means that the upgrade path is now reduced to two years, and 30 months would be the prime time to upgrade.

A lot can happen when you have to wait 48-54 months to upgrade the system. Items like a major breakdown, a poor service call, your contact being replaced by someone else, and the added pressure from other companies prospecting the same account can put your upgrade in jeopardy. A shorter-term lease will reduce these risks for you.

Take a $20,000 lease that is booked for 60 months, and the customer will pay $24,000 over the term of the lease. Compared to a 36-month lease, the customer will pay about $20,500 (factor of .0284). That's a $3,500 savings to the customer!

So How Can We Get Better at Selling 36-Month Leases?

There's a lot we can do. The first that comes to mind is the savings on interest; that should wake someone up. The second would be to explain the additional costs in maintenance/supply agreements that the customer would incur. Most of us sell maintenance agreements that have an auto-escalator clause that allows the maintenance/supply agreement or the cost per page agreement to increase every year. These annual increases can be anywhere from 5%-10% per year. Do the math!

We'll make it simple. That $20,000 copier/MFP that's pumping out 200,000 pages per year will mean the first-year contract cost is $2,000. With a 7% escalator clause, the 2nd-year cost is $2,140, the third-year cost is $2,289.80, the fourth-year is $2,450, and the last year is $2,621. Add them up, and over years four and five, the customer would pay an additional $1,071 for maintenance and supplies over a 60-month lease.

Invoicing: our customer will have to process at least another 24 invoices. With a small to medium-sized business, the cost to process that invoice and pay it is $15-$35 per invoice. Let's use $20 per invoice, and we've added another $480 over the 60-month lease cost.

In total, that $20K lease will cost your customer an additional $5,000! You've got to have this financial talk with your customer. In addition, if you upgrade the 36-month lease, you will lower the customer's cost of maintenance and supplies cost/cost per page with the new system, and there will probably be a few new features that will increase the customer's productivity!

Show the Savings to Your Account

That $5,000 savings over 60 months would be $83.33 per month. It's a no-brainer. Would the customer like to spend 25% more on a $20K lease? I doubt it. Keep in mind that the 36-month lease rate is the most competitive lease rate from all of the leasing companies; they score additional profit for 24, 48, and 60-month leases. I'd rather have a chance to go back to my customer in 24-30 months rather than 48 to 54.

-=Good Selling=-