Tagged With "Phone cold call"
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Re: A Couple of True & Not So True Humerous Copier Incidents
On a cold call I stopped in at a doctors office. The Office Manager was so glad to see me. She said that she was having fax issues and every time they received a fax it jammed. I told her I wasn't a tech but I would take a look. She escorted me to the fax and I looked down to see some questionably cheap paper. I simply asked if she had tried changing paper. She said "I don't have any control of the paper the hospital sends when they fax me." OooooK. She obviously didn't understand the...
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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: Ask Me Anything
@TML Yup anytime there;s a new family member it over rides anything that has to do with business. Hope to have you on the next call. Just remember to RSVP on the calendar and I will send you the link
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Re: 10 Ways to Close Net New Business #4 of #10
Just a short update in reference to the account I was speaking about. The IG came back with many additional questions today, asking if the cost per page could be lowered, the annual cost of the maintenance agreement, and the price of the system. I stated NO on all accounts. We had started with a 25ppm color A3 device and then moved to an A4 color device. They were not even happy with that price. In addition when they received all of the no's they asked about pre-owned or used. I then stated,...
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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
No, we are not doing any of those agreements with our MFP's. With the printer the device billing would not include the drum, or fuser. Client would pay for those. Device billing is a practical maintenance agreement for the new A3 ink based MFP's. Epson will be launching their 100ppm color device shortly. The only consumables is the print head and the ink. It's rumored that the print head will be warranted for 3 years. In addition the print head is very costly. The idea would be to charge...
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Re: Five Reasons Why I'm Stoked About the New Ricoh SP8400DN Printer
Thanks. Interesting. I wonder what the advantages and disadvantages of those ink jets are (compared to laser MFP).
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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
You can call it whatever you want tariff/ tax but if your cost of goods increases by up to 10% this fall solely due to actions by the Trump Administration we will see if you feel the same by Jan 2019. You seem a bit naive in thinking that a tariff is not a tax. I am sure Ricoh will not share you opinion on selling less new equipment in favor of used gear.
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Re: Copier Parts & Accessories China Tariff Starts in 9 Working Days
Trump is doing the right thing. As far as Ricoh is concerned, I couldn't care less of their opinion. It's all about putting food on the table for our families.
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Re: Is This the Beginning of the End for the Padding of Lease Rates?
from today's Leasing News. Ralph Petta Reaction to Tom McCurnin's "Is the Disclosure Too Complicated? of SB 1235" [ http://leasingnews.org/hires/petta_ralph2018.jpg ] From: Ralph Petta President and CEO Equipment Leasing and Finance Association 1625 Eye Street, NW * Suite 850 Washington, DC 20006 "Allow me to take exception and set the record straight with respect to Mr. McCurnin's statement in his September 21 article(1) about passage of disclosure legislation in California, SB 1235 that...
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Re: Copier Parts & Accessories China Tariff Starts in 9 Working Days
The Trump Administration announced today what they call a second tranche of tariffs against goods manufactured in China subject to 25% effective Aug 23. I think the copier/ printer industry once again escaped a direct hit. "8443.99.40 Parts of photocopying apparatus of subheading 8443.39.20 specified in additional U.S. note 4 to this chapter"
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Re: "You've just WON Presidents Club, What Are You Going to D0 Now?"
"I Love Cold Calling!" Don't worry - I haven't lost my mind. (Yet.) Cold calling isn't fun. You know it and I know it. So why did I say that? Because I can remember countless times when I heard someone say, "Cold calling is fun!" In fact, I even did it once. It's true. Early on in my sales career, when I was going from job to job, failing by cold calling, and not understanding why it wasn't working - after all, my managers all said it would work - I began deluding myself into believing that...
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Re: "You've just WON Presidents Club, What Are You Going to D0 Now?"
That last posted comment of mine, was a "Never Cold Call" email I got from Frank Rumbauskas, who we discussed briefly early on ?
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Re: Best Black & White MFP for 10k/month yeild. Suggestions?
FYI: Toshiba, overall, is in the top ten for R&D Spend-to-Sales ratios. "Bottom dweller" really is not a fair use of words. With any device manufacturer, product is only as good as its dealer support. Get references if need be. RE: maintenance; The asker is talking B&W devices not color. Regardless, get the maintenance. Fewer spikes in copy quality or hardware issues because you'll make that phone call to fix rather than putting up with poor copy quality, etc. for fear of how much it...
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Re: Copier Scams Part Deux "Dude Where's my Copier"?
Sorry Grant but I have to call you out.It is a big mistake for salespeople to assume that what is true in their case, is true across the board. It causes the salesrep to make mistakes in judgement and may cause them to unintentionally misinform their prospect. Anything that isn't required by law is negotiable and therefore will vary from lease company to lease company and dealer to dealer. So two dealers using the same lease company may have negotiated different terms.
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Re: Does anyone have a clue as to how the CPC billing model started in the first place?
What came next with some dealers in the Oz market, was a guarantee that the client's copy costs would not rise annually, above a maximum of 10% which most clients would agree to. Or that it would only rise by the CPI, which these days is a joke of a deal, as it is only around 2%. But some now guarantee to hold the pricing for the term of the rental agreement, which at 5 years is just down right stupid.This has now become a lot more prevalent, as weak salesmen sell (if you can call it...
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Re: We're Sorry.......To all my Canadian P4P'ers!
I was making phone calls right before the game started and had gatekeepers and DM's literally telling me to call back in 2 hours.
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Re: This Week in the Copier/Office Equipment Industry 10 Years Ago Last Week of February 2004)
I am out of the office until 05/03/2014. I am on annual leave until Wednesday 5th March 2014. If your email requires urgent attention please contact Mark Caveney on 01928 599 660 or mark.caveney@ricoh.co.uk ; or to place a service call and/or order toner for a machine please contact our service team on 08457 44 55 65. Alternatively, I will reply on my return. Many thanks, Ben. Note: This is an automated response to your message "Post By Art Post: This Week in the Copier/Office Equipment...
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Re: Lease Maestro Checks into Print4Pay Hotel
Hello Garrett - The dreaded "Evergreen" clause. This clause has caused many problems customer and dealers over the years. Depending on your situation, it may be tough for you to get the customer out of the contract early without some significant work on yours and the customers part. Based on your comment of "win the business", I am assuming that you are not the original dealer that put the customer into the lease with the an "Evergreen" renewal clause. If this is the case, there is a good...
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Re: The Death of Linkedin?
True story: I met a guy on the driving range.....an annoying sort of fellow. We chatted for a few minutes and I didn't think anything of it. Next day I get a request from him on LinkedIn. Not wanting to be rude I accepted. Within half an hour he called my office name dropping my name trying to get an appointment with the owner of my company to get a crack at our 401K business. With the owner of the company out of the office the call got put through to me.......talk about an awkward...
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Re: Why I Spent 30 Minutes Researching a Headset and What That Means to Copier Sales Reps
Larry, good stuff. Just the other day I was at an appointment for an envelope press. It was an existing account, and before we could meet, they wanted me to send the pricing on three different models. I was somewhat reluctant, however, since it was an existing account, I caved. After a few follow ups, we had the meeting, which I thought was going to more about telling then what the system could do and can't do. After 20 minutes or so, the DM stated that she had done quite a bit of research...
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Re: The Quest for $200K "Still Time to Network"
I call used machines "Off Lease" and tell the prospect to think of them as a program car, still very good but someone else took the retail hit. I say if a used machine needs to be re furbished I don't buy them. I don't sell used machines with high meters with the exception of Ricoh's "Greenline", we don't know the meters on those and I'm not impressed with those, lots of quality issues.
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Re: Inbound Marketing For Sales Reps (and Sales Vets)
Czech Good stuff! I'm a novice when it comes to SEO. From my own experience I can tell you that I receive leads from blogging, not a tremendous amount but at least six a year. But blogging on a regular basis with original content on the P4P hotel has skyrocketed the page views, and the site is averaging 25 new members each month. The new members I guess we can call that the conversions that I'm looking for. At the end of last July, which was the first month of this new site, there were 129k...
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Re: Inbound Marketing For Sales Reps (and Sales Vets)
Czech, Thank you for the very kind endorsement at the beginning of this article--I appreciate it. Most of our industry lives in the "outbound" side of lead generation with prospecting, cold calls, etc... This is good, but with today's buyer 57% of the way through the buying process before they contact a vendor or rep (Harvard Business Review survey of business decision makers, 2012) we HAVE TO get GREAT at inbound marketing. We're working on some exciting things to pull it all together and...
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Re: 7 Technologies That I Used to Use While Selling Copiers
Dang, I did forget that!!! I had at least three of them over the years! Good pickup fisher!!
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Re: Little Story About a Man Named Jed
I had a similar situation with an existing account, the purchasing manager had to retire due to a medical issue. I reached out to the new purchasing manager, calls, emails, tried to get thru IT and no return call. Next thing I know they are cancelling the maintenance contracts on their equipment. I continue to call and finally she calls me back and says they got an unbelievable deal from one of my competitors that they couldn't afford to pass up. I asked her how did you know it was such an...
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Re: Little Story About a Man Named Jed
I hate situations like this when you spend your time working a deal and then everything goes silent and you get the we went the stupid route call. Over and over again I've found that IT guys are total email monsters. You can call 10 times...nothing. Throw out an email and bang they are back online. If you can get their I try to get their attention with the subject line with a problem statement included like "Current (Ricoh, Xerox, Kyocera) Copier Lease Due With Issues Pending" for example...
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Re: Canon Business Systems Pulling a Ricoh
I call complete bull **** on that. I am dealing with a customer right now whose quote from csa is 20% less than we can buy it for with all programs etc. the directs are blaming the dealers for running the industry into the ground? That's hilarious And I've heard that from Ricoh direct as well. Let's not forget who decided to bring out the A4 machines and drive the hardware revenues down to nothing and then start doing service at cost so the factory could continue to run. Those branches are...
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Re: Canon Business Systems Pulling a Ricoh
Just got off the phone with my DBM and OF COURSE Ricoh has one machine in the county system so I can't keep them out if the board wants to consolidate under one vendor. I'm thinking my days as a sole source RFG dealer are over. I could add Sharp, they call me every now and then but EVERYONE around here sells Sharp. Looked at Kyocera once but they wanted $65k buy in. Suggestions?
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Re: Canon Business Systems Pulling a Ricoh
This has been a great thread so far! We're a mid size dealer in central pa and have most of the directs knocking around in our area. TABS, KMBS, RBS, CSA, Xerox and now Global just bought a small dealership. In addition we have quite a few other Indy dealers like us. I whole heartedly agree with what some one said before about selling the value of your company, service and the relationships. I've also told customers point blank I cannot compete with the directs price so if that's all that...
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Re: Canon Business Systems Pulling a Ricoh
Originally Posted by Christi: Art, Yes, Ricoh's ROE is serious business. If you're not seeing that in your territory, you need to contact their MVP, or even Mr. Brodigan himself, immediately. I've seen him take the matters into his hands personally. When you are moving half our gear a year, you hold more cards then you think. How Canon can afford not to is beyond me. I guess that's why we're seeing more Canon dealerships starting to carry our product. I too have seen personally very high...
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Re: State of the "Art" Sales Technology
Hey Jeff, Art's Box Approach (I believe) is using 4 different methods of communication: Phone Call LinkedIn Email In-Person Cold Call You "box" the prospect in until they finally give you the time of day. Using all 4 methods of communication ensures that you are optimizing your ability to reach the DM via his preferred method.
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Re: State of the "Art" Sales Technology
Okay, thanks! I have the phone call, Email, In-person aspects covered. I use LinkedIn to find the right person—I don’t use it for communicating with them yet. I’ve tried to get referrals from people who are linked to them, but no success with that. My sales rep uses LinkedIn to continue my efforts. JeffR
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Re: Telemarketing & The Person with the BAD Attitude!
I agree to a certain extent, Art, but at the same time, our industry has a deservedly bad reputation for being overly-persistent in efforts to reach prospects. The way in which people evaluate products, services, vendors, etc. has completely changed due to the wealth of information that is available online. Many buyers now want to know what they want (especially in up & down the street accounts) before they ever agree to talk to a salesperson. There are only so many hours in a day, &...
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Re: Ten plus Tips for Cold Calling in the Field
I have two points I will add that may help him out. First, don't assume anything when it comes to customers and their money. We had a rep who we were working with one day and he drove by a building. I asked him why he wasn't stopping and he said look at that place, there's no way that guy has any money to buy a copier. Turns out this guy was a fairly big developer and that building was his new office. They had not started construction on the project yet. They went in and the office had a...
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Re: Ten plus Tips for Cold Calling in the Field
I also meant to add that as a newbie its important to know as many people as possible. I have reps who know many different people all the way down to the security guards at big facilities. I, like Art, probably don't prospect enough. I'm lucky to get 25 calls a week compared to my reps who probably do 30-40 a day, but still have about a 600,000 book of revenues each year. Even in a management role I can't get it out of my system to go out and sell. It's taken me close to 10 years but now I...
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Re: Ten plus Tips for Cold Calling in the Field
All great stuff. I'd like to add in a few more points. 1) Never use a cold call to sell, only to gather information. Receptionists and office managers are loaded with information because they are the primary users. Ask if they are having any problems with their copiers and you might be surprised with what you hear. 2) The 4 most important questions you need to answer in every cold call: What do they have? How long have they had it? Who is the decision maker? Who was their previous vendor? 3)...
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Re: Ten plus Tips for Cold Calling in the Field
My thoughts, some of which repeat what others have said, maybe in a different way: I cold call for information, phone call for appointments to a large degree. What I would add to Czech's 4 point list is to ask who they call for maintenance. That usually tells you, not only the company, but the brand, and if the receptionist doesn't know, then they likely don't have many problems. I almost always separate fact find from presentation. Too many reps "get an answer" then "do some selling", "get...