Tagged With "Ten Years Ago"
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Re: 57 Days of Selling "Day 44"
Love it Art! I had a day of running around with a networking luncheon followed by a training for a new device that I sold earlier in the month and stole from Sharp. I was extremely late to the party with this deal but they already had a canon that was very old and decided they wanted another canon and on top of that wanted someone to deal with local over Sharp and Ricoh direct. Then I was walking into the grocery store on the way home and got a call from a person I quoted a machine to about...
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Re: Top Ten Copier & MFP Quotes for November 2016
What’s happened to our membership? I didn’t opt out! Sue at Copy-Fax
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Re: COVID19 "Remote Working" Day Twenty-One of Sales
An excellent webinar on how to virtually prospect. https://vimeo.com/407322860/7ef91c5b72 What to say, what to do from America's #1 Sales Outsourcing Provider of the Year. https://www.koppconsultingusa.com/
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Re: Post-Virus We Must Defeat The Zombie Companies!
Although I am 60% on board with your move to A4 strategy, most of the rest of the stuff you are posting is "knocking it out of the park"! I would like to see a poll. As a business owner, during COVID-19 would you prefer? 1). No lease payments for 90 days 2). 1/2 price lease payments for one year The auto industry is pushing no payments for 90 days but I think business owners are more concerned about cash flow for the next year. I think the correct strategy is to offer as part of your...
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Re: Post-Virus We Must Defeat The Zombie Companies!
I have to dial back the 1/2 price payments for one year. Most SMB business will only get lease approved for a six month Step lease. So for those customers wanting to preserve cash flow, a six month 1/2 price lease cost followed by a 60 month regular cost lease would be the best offer. On a $5k lease this would add approx $139.00 to the total finance costs spread over 66 months ($2.00 month).
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Re: It’s The End Of The Day With Ray! 2020 Who Will Educate Endusers
HI Ray and Happy New Year! The A4 Revolution will not happen until those A4 manufacturers provide A4 print devices with the A3 cost per page model along with advanced scanning and finishing. You're right that's there's only a small percentage of users that need 11x17. However 11x17 is only part of the picture with end users needs. Larger document feeders, and stapling is still a requirement in many offices. As you know we could debate this until 2021 or longer, but the end game is advanced...
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Re: It’s The End Of The Day With Ray! 2020 Who Will Educate Endusers
Art, Thanks for comments it's conversation which starts change. There is way more applications for A4 MFPs than those few applications you suggest. The large disruption will be from those who can isolate the realities of the customers needs and sell based on those realities. Declining Marketplaces are disrupted when the old way continues delivering to all the market's customers the same way they did before the decline. The old way needs to focus on the realities of over 80% of the market...
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
Interesting thoughts, Thank you p4p. I have sold Canon for 20+ years. Many years ago they listed the imageClass line (MFP's under 2,500 dollars) and the entire scanning line and Wide Format line. As such I stopped selling those products as I have always been compensated on hardware gross profit and there was none. Todays buyer is much different and has already done homework before I even get to speak with them. The mfr uniqueness has been commoditized and they all provide the #1 buying...
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
@jason Good points. Do other people buy cars online? How about insurance? Did they do that 5 or 10 years ago? Guess who is very involved in the purchase of MFP's. IT! They live online. What's the first thing many people do when they are considering a purchase. Google it. In my opinion it's not a matter of if, but a matter of when.
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
In a way its already gone to the internet and away from the outside sales rep........at least for stand alone printers and A4 devices. If all someone needs is a printer or an A4 to be used for basic printing,scanning and copying.....face it, they really don't need us already. If you've been at this a long time you probably remember the days when you sold a lot of A4 machines to small offices. 20 years ago if you needed an A4 you called a copier dealer. Those days are gone for the most part.
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
@fisher I agree almost completely, but to play devils advocate I will say that we are selling more desktop printers now than we ever have before. Mostly brother, as we became a partner a couple years ago. I think people are looking for reps to show them a better way than just buying another HP off amazon, but the rep still has to have a higher level conversation with the client...not just hey buy your printers from us.
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
We definitely are not out chasing them but we are much more versed talking about them and the benefits of buying them from us rather than the big box store. It has led to some very nice MPS accounts for us this past year. I don’t have a final count but I believe we added about 3 million new clicks this year from printer sales. Not breaking any records by any means but adding an extra 50k or so of revenue never hurts. And thanks to brother for having a minimum advertised price online for the...
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
I’m a little late to this party but had the thread open since it was posted. As a 35 year old i straddle the “millennial” and old school gap (in my opinion haha). There is value of ordering things online that can be commonly used or even basic electronics. But if it’s anything above basic, I still believe talking to someone even if on the phone, pays dividends. We recently bought a new vehicle for my wife and explored for weeks online our options, the new vehicles options, what the price...
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
I'll chime in. Like TML I'm in my early 30's and have been selling copy hardware for nearly 10 years. I think good sales people as a whole are quickly becoming scarce. Millennials don't seem to like to interact with others if they don't have to and as most "print" decisions move to IT, online buying is already what they know. Overall it is a convenience factor, they don't have to submit a form to a website and wait a couple days for salesperson to try and up-sell them to an A3 MFP. They...
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Re: Quality Digital Office Technology
Art, we've got a rep that covers York / Gettysburg and he confirmed this. He said he heard it went down ~ 6 months ago and they started reaching out to clients towards the end of 2019 to let them know. Gonna be a big change as Quality had a lot of loyal clients (also were giving away service at rates like .003 & .032- > I've gotta imagine that'll change quickly)
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Re: Things getting weird for Xerox Dealers
Very strange. I interact with the CRG on a regular basis and have had no indication of reduced staff, etc. I can’t comment on your issue with parts as we do not rely on xerox to send our parts, we stock and replenish out of our own warehouse. No substantial difference between xerox parts on b/o than Canon or HP. Not nearly as bad as Ricoh. We dropped the ricoh product years ago as we couldn’t handle the constant toner b/o issues. Parts I can somewhat understand, but toner? Hope that your...
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Re: 7 Deadly Topics from 7 Deadly Sinners at Top 100 Summit (Part One)
No, Art. You're spot on. I haven't had many jobs outside the industry, but the majority of the old guard is so proud of the way they've always done it & receives so much validation from other dealers with the same mentality (via BTA, CDA, SDG, et al) that they often refuse to admit the need to change until it's practically too late. There are ideas & concepts that I brought up 3-5 years ago that were considered to be "interesting but not really necessary" that we're suddenly latching...
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Re: Those Magnificent Men and Their Copy Machines
Almost three years ago, I wrote the above blog. I want to do a 2015 version. Please either post here or go to the forums and write a short paragraph about how your company is giving back to the community so that we can post the 2015 version of "Those Magnificent Men (Women) and Their Copy Machines". It would be great to see how we all contribute. Please post below. I re-posted the older version on the blog tonight also. Here is the link for the forums.
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Re: Rumor Alert!
I can't confirm these specifics, but the Global dealer down here stopped selling Sharp and Konica Minolta a few years ago, so I assumed this happened awhile back.
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Re: Those Magnificent Men and Their Copy Machines
Hey Art, Really admire your efforts in our industry and with your blog. Its been a long time resource to keep me updated in our industry. I will be celebrating 14 years at Martin Group, and was happy to see us represented in the list above. We are as enthusiastic as ever in supporting our communities, and below is a quick write up we refreshed to be current. Martin Group in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: Is a regional power house in the office equipment community. With 35 years in the industry, and...
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Re: When is Net New Business not Net New Business?
Interesting perspective. We constantly have the talks about competitive machines we took on service, especially brands we don't carry. I tend to consider is taking a Konica on service and then a year or two later upgrading it to our equipment net new business from the sales side. Obviously we had net new business on the service side but not net new for "x" with the equipment sale. I'd be interested to hear how others see this. I hear a lot of people say it doesn't matter but if I bring a...
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Re: When is Net New Business not Net New Business?
Jay, We typically go after about any machine other than a Xerox. If someone wants us to service their machine and its not a complete piece of junk we will take it on and will get parts and supplies from dealers etc. until we can upgrade to one of our lines; Savin, Canon, or Samsung. We expect our reps to go out and take service agreements and we pay them the first months billing. Most don't like to mess with 30.00 agreements but they add up and eventually you find a big one. We had a rep who...
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Re: Global Imaging aquires Conestoga Business Solution
Global Acquires Pennsylvania-based Conestoga Business Solutions - Tuesday, July 07, 2015 Global Imaging Systems Acquires Pennsylvania-based Conestoga Business Solutions; Bolsters Xerox’s Presence in SMB Market LANCASTER, Pa., July 6, 2015 – Global Imaging Systems (GIS), A Xerox Company, has acquired Conestoga Business Solutions, an award winning, independent office equipment dealer in the Pennsylvania region. The company will offer the full range of Xerox office and printing technology, and...
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Re: Target GP Margins
I know everyone is just ball-parking it here but these questions are really hard to get dependable answers for. Most sales reps do not know what the dealership markup is prior to establishing sales cost so a 20% markup might actually be 40% from cost. The other is the compensation package. If there is compensation based on clicks or a click incentive, GP becomes less important. My payplan changed this year from being GP based to being revenue based. Consequently, I just sold a 22 unit deal...
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Re: Target GP Margins
TX; I heard the same is true for the NY Metro area. Looking back, I've probably had about 6 transactional orders this year. Where I've sold the device while on the phone with the client the first time.
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Re: Target GP Margins
tx I agree. Our owner, who happens to be my father, is still trying to do things like its the 80's. We hold our own in a major market but we do not have the growth I want. It is tough to get him on board with anything new age as this is an industry he has made truck loads of money on doing it the same old way year after year.
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Re: When did you first learn about the industry
Thank you. They are a handful. 13 weeks old. My 3 year old does like to go into our showroom and play with the machines so she is getting a little exposure haha
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Re: How I turned $15 into a 24K Opportunity
Hey Art! I started using Aweber email software about 5 months ago. I send out a monthly newsletter with a customized template. People read it! Best part is that you always stay top of mind with your prospects. I actually exported my contact list from my CRM software and imported that into Aweber. Currently have about 100 prospects and customers in my email list. It's great! Much cheaper than a mailer.
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
They are never going to get their act together. I spoke with Jim Corridi at the CDA meeting several months ago and he told me big things were coming down the pipeline very soon because he agreed it would be hard to upgrade 3406WD systems with a 3406WD system. He also, however, acted like the Epson was going to be the latest and greatest thing for all of us that sell wide format. Not sure why since we don't typically mess with the ink jet machines. You can find the Epson's extremely cheap...
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
I'm wondering how the new KIP 800 series are doing. Many of my existing base w/ 5 year old + Ricoh's are asking if Ricoh will have something similar soon. Sounds like they won't? I can't believe that they aren't doing any R&D on it !!
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
We don't sell the Epson, I do hear that many Ricoh wide format dealers are looking to change. The W3602 is due out something this spring, Ricoh is waiting to exhaust inventories on the W3601. I have not sold a W3601 yet this year and believe I only sold a handful last year, I used to sell at least a dozen a year. The W3602 will have the GUI as the color systems and many of the same features, sad but the GUI and the MFP features will still put us way behind with the likes of KIP & Oce
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Re: Charge for IT support
We had never charged for it after the sale until about 6 months ago due to people calling all the time for driver installs, scanning issues related to their internet etc. We used to offer an optional network/it yearly agreement and people would decline and then start calling for help. We decided to send out, initially an opt-out to ever customer who had current devices, and after every sale send one out. We did it as an opt out due to the fact that customers would decline the option and...
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Re: Sharp bond risk jumps as losses over 4½ years top $10 billion
WOW! Some take ways from the article above: Sharp does not have core business that it can look to in the future 510 billion syndicated loan payment due March of 2016. That's almost 4.2 billion US dollars! Ouch! "The chances of banks calling the 103-year-old company’s loans are therefore low", seems to me like there are more cuts to come, more business units to sell. Banks accepted shares in the company earlier this year after it defaulted on debt payments
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Re: Leasing, Insurance, Padded Rates, Buy Out Price
Tx, ty for this this. I don't bundle MA/Supplies. I just don't want my customer to get jammed in case there is a loss. We've had quite a few losses here in NJ with the storm from a few years ago. I'm just looking for the right thing to do for customers who opt out of the leasing companies insurance. I'm somewhat skeptical of giving them stream of payments plus residual, may open up a can of worms.
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Re: Leasing, Insurance, Padded Rates, Buy Out Price
I've had the question come up a few times over the year and I simply give them full MSRP for the machine and all accessories as the amount.
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Re: Your Copier
Welcome back😀 https://www.p4photel.com/blog/...-the-copier-industry 6 Reasons Why Flat Rate aka One Rate Will Change the Copier Industry Art Post 36 minutes ago I remember when plain paper copiers used rolls of paper and not sheets. I remember when the glass on the copiers had to move back and forth. I remember when copiers used liquid ink (toner) to produce an image. I remember when you used a dial to set how many copies you wanted to make. Yup, it's been a pretty incredible journey to see...
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Re: Five Reasons Why I'm Stoked About the New Ricoh SP8400DN Printer
Had a conference call with Epson Monday afternoon. They said the ended up with a 1 year warranty on the print heads but you can purchase an extended warranty for something like $250/yr.? I didn't write that down because the only thing that matters to me is what gets passed on to the customer and manufacturers warranties are seldom passed on. Epson Ink Process advantages: No heat so no heat related issues...no fuser, no cooling fan, no warm-up. Consumes 50% less power No drum or developer so...
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Re: Five Reasons Why I'm Stoked About the New Ricoh SP8400DN Printer
Interesting, I thought jh told me the cost was 2,500 per year. I was like what? Can you find out exactly that that cost is. I'm curious as I guess we all are
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Re: Five Reasons Why I'm Stoked About the New Ricoh SP8400DN Printer
I guess he was just referring to the Epson C869R (25 ppm). We kept asking questions about the 100 ppm unit and I lost track which unit this information applied to. Sorry for the confusion. We have a launch on the 11th and he promised more info on the 100 ppm at that time.
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Re: Copier Parts & Accessories China Tariff Starts in 9 Working Days
In a hint at what is to soon happen with tariffs on copiers/ printers from China headed to the USA, Harley Davidson Motorcycles announced today that it would shift some production headed for Europe to other global manufacturing facilities to avoid paying tariffs estimated at up to $2,200.00 per bike. It could take nine to 18 months to make this change. It also said that it would not increase prices to European dealers and would take a hit to profitability for the remainder of this year at...
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Re: 57 Days of Selling Copiers "Day 2"
Sorry we did not catch up last evening. Great meeting... Let's try to connect before year end.. Enjoy the day... Larry Kirsch
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Re: Xerox will install 16,000 printers
This seems wrong on so many levels.... 16,000 printers? 5 machines per site?? 10 year contract??? I feel as if a DMS / workflow solution would have saved them so much more.
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Re: 57 Days of Selling "Day 16"
Quick question Art. I am starting my pipeline for 2017. I have a goal set but my question is what % of that goal should I already have in my pipeline before the year starts to hit my annual goal for next year. Just your thoughts.
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Re: 57 Days of Selling "Day 16"
My quota is 720K for the year. Thus, I need three times that in my annual pipeline. On any given month, I need to have 180K in my pipeline. Pipelines are a moving number, you add some, you take away some. Hope this helps
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Re: Ricoh Profit down 85%, 3D printing plans on hold?
Wow!! 12% reduction in sales... I know it is the smaller half year but that seems really light. Something seems to be wrong with the $'s. 50% operating profit would kick off a celebration large enough for all of us to hear.
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Re: Manufacturer Support on Bids
As far as I know, Ricoh still draws the line at $100,000. The amount of support may vary based on the equipment mix and time of year.