Art,
I work in a Ricoh Direct (Lanier legacy) office located in an area where there are three local RFG competitors in our market. We have explicit instructions to disengage (turn around and walk out) if it's an IKON account or one belonging to the two other RFG dealers. Except for IKON, the dealers can compete against our MIFs and do so with no qualms. They kill us on price, too, which seems to be a different situation than is occurring in other parts of the country. As an example, a coworker is losing an account that was 1.5 years into a 3-year lease. They're "saving them money" by extending the lease out to 63 months, throwing in a dozen desktops and replacing the current fleet with essentially the same boxes that are in there. My guess is that the $30K + buyout doesn't matter to them because they can keep the machines and resell them used for a profit.
I read the large format proposal you posted the other day, went into our system and configured the machine (a W2400, I believe) exactly as your example. I was astonished to see that the quote was 32% below standard commission cost. Up to that point, I was having a hard time believing the rants on this list but I see your points now.
The odd thing is that all the training I received was based on selling value - digging in and trying to match the workflow and documents created to the appropriate machine. The whole notion of "slinging boxes" is looked down upon.
I'm new to the industry (6 months) and am hardly a threat to any of you who've been doing this for a long time. I've learned a lot, though, and have enjoyed this forum and what I've read on it.