Tagged With "Building My Business"
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Re: Pre-Configured MFPs
I wouldn't know, either we don't have access them or they are just available for Direct. It's been my belief that it's just a marketing ploy and all of the systems in the signature series still have to be configured. I could be wrong. Can anyone else chime in? How about some of you from the Direct side!
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Re: New Canon Direct Program?
Jake, I have not heard anything of this but I will keep my ears and eyes open. Nothing surprises me anymore with the directs!
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Re: OKC-based company IMAGENET wants to keep employees’ $1,200 stimulus payments….
Good god. what a piece of work (Putting it nicely). Talk about screwing over your employees. At what point did this seem like a good idea for a company of Pats size. I know everyone is hurting but the 100 mil dealer is not hurting like the 5-10 mil dealer right now in my opinion. Glad he bowed to the pressure but that should have never been considered.
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Re: What's it Like at Your Dealership?
I guess I will add some. Our dealership has not furloughed anyone at this point in time. Of course all sales and admin are working remote. We've had a few orders trickling in and my hat goes off to those that have been able to secure those orders.
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Re: Xerox Altalink C8070
yup, I had that also, even a little cheaper once accessories were adding. I'm putting up a price quote tonight since I sealed my deal
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Re: Marco Acquires New Jersey Copier/Printer Company
Welcome to my market Marco! You are know the third MEGA dealer competing in my market place.
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
Monte I don't believe you are paranoid! The ecommerce is a real threat for sales peeps. In order to over come that we as sales peeps will need to wear additional hats to better serve out clients. Those as a trusted adviser, become more knowledgeable with cloud services, IT services, MSP, MSSP. It's my belief that we will evolve from just print to be able to consult on all aspects of business office. I would love to hear from others on this as well, this is a great subject for discussion.
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
It will be interesting to see what the manufacturers allow and don't allow. As of right now they are still very against e-Commerce and listing things on websites etc. I can only speak for my experience with Canon, Sharp and Brother, but they do not want things done via the web.
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
@Jason H it's my understanding that Canon has a rep dedicated to Amazon for the ImagePASS mfp's already
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
ImageClass?? If so that’s throw away junk just like the HP’s etc. I believe that stuff has been sold online for some time now. We don’t sell that series due to the extremely high cpc’s
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
@Monte I hope/think that even though buyers will research online that they will still want some interaction with a salesperson. If in fact the manufacturers allow the sale of high end MFP's online then the dealers will have to change a lot of how they do business. My hope though is that it does not come down to this. I buy a lot online and my wife grocery shops online and has them delivered to the house, BUT I don't look at most things like groceries. I want to go talk to my insurance agent.
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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?
All excellent points. My son (35) asked me the other day about Carvana and my thoughts about them. The first thing that came to mind is warranty, and service. I guess the question becomes (at least for me), what will be the relationship with the dealer for service and warranty when you bought the car from Carvana? Why should the local dealer expedite service, parts or put you at the top of the list for support when you did not buy from them?
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
@Old Glory I don't think they will walk away from servicing the car also. The service department will need the business. However the owner of the company can set the mark with giving "preferred service" to clients that buy from them. I don't know when it comes right down to it, I can spend hours researching cars, reviews and pricing before I buy on-line. How much could I really save? $1,000 or $2,000 could that really be worth it, if I spend 40 hours doing the research or would I pay a price...
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Re: Will outside Sales Rep's go away?
In 10 years there WILL be outside sales reps, and many of them will be the committed, true professionals of today. The E-Commence platform have changed our business and how we do it. For example gone are the days when you could duck into a 15 story office building and cold call. But electronic format can still be your attention getter and facilitate your efforts in creating interest. I can buy anything on line and cut out the sales person. Try doing your own investing and getting the right...
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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: Ricoh Pro C5300
Not that I know of however I will check on my end. It's about time for an upgrade also. IN addition I'm changing the title of this thread to Ricoh Pro C5300 so it can be found a little easier if someone is searching on the site
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Re: Ricoh Pro C5300
I tried to get more details from my Ricoh production rep, he tells me more info will be available towards the end of the month and that was it, hoping for some big changes, especially in the LCT area.
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Re: Your Copiers Are Storing Confidential Information: What You Can Do About It
We are still a dealer but we have not sold a LEXMARK in quite a while. They eliminated the MPS Elite program we were own, or at the least removed us from that program. I never had anyone ask about the security due to the Chinese ownership but it’s a great point. Honestly, I have found their support, to us at least, to be very subpar. Our support from brother has been phenomenal the last 2 years. Most of my printer clients are replacing the lexmarks with the brothers as fast as they can.
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Re: Scan to email gibberish
That problem was caused by Microsoft Office 365. They seemed to have resolved it now. My phone was blowing up for a day on that one.
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Re: Target GP Margins
Czech, I got nothing for you, well, may have something. Every opportunity is different, all depends on the time of the month, we're I'm at with revenue for the quarter or the month, if I can hold MSRP with a certain account. I taken the position (Commercial), that all my A4 devices will be priced at MSRP. A3 devices 21-40ppm would be 1,500 to 2,500, and 3,500 or more on everything else. Just a guide line that I try and follow. I'm not in the Major account business, maybe some other P4P'ers...
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Re: Target GP Margins
Across the board, I probably average 12-15% margin above whatever markup management puts in before my "Sales Cost" is published. For printers & desktop A4 devices, I just want to get a bunch of them in the field running pages & making money, so I sell most of them at my Sales Cost. That recurring revenue stream & volume in numbers is more valuable than making a few extra dollars on the hardware. On larger A4 MFPs, I'll typically have a 20-25% margin, because I typically propose...
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Re: Target GP Margins
Thanks for the replies. Sounds like I'm about right with where my GP should be. txeagle: I know the feeling of those slim margins where everyone is dropping their pants!! I can make more GP on a single refurbished copier in a commercial account than 8 machines at a major account.
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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 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: When did you first learn about the industry
Honestly, it was when I walked in the door for my first interview. I remember the individual interviewing me mentioning that they sold Ricoh equipment, & the only frame of reference I had is that Ricoh sponsored the "Call to the Bullpen" on MLB games at the time. Before I got into the industry, I could not make a straight copy on the first try if you paid me, because I never thought to use the document feeder & could never get the original lined up on the glass. I knew about all of...
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Re: Toshiba now has tier based CPC's?
In Canada, no such plan exits nor am I even aware the capability exists within Toshiba copiers. In my market, multi-tier pricing for color does not comes up in competitive pricing. For a 25 cpm, pricing seems to be holding steady at $0.010 Black and $0.070 color for single units. I have seen less and sometimes we move the cpc around a bit. For example, when we set up a copier we build the initial toner costs into our equipment costs. That gives us 32,000 colour pages to play with.
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Re: Nsi Autostore
JS, I am doing this for many accounts. The value prop for the customer is the ability to browse to folder from the MFP. I mention none of the other features unless asked. We install to the customers server, I build in 3 hours of pro services and then bundle the entire cost in the system. My selling advantage is that with my system you can browse to folder from the MFP easily. Art
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Re: Large scan jobs
ok, our DF holds 220 pages at one time. If one of my accounts wanted to do this I would program in a batch feed mode. First fill the document feeder, when the document feeder empties the system will them prompt you to put the rest of the originals in the feeder and then continue the scan job until all of the documents have been scanned. Does this help?
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
We were talking with KIP but my father did not want to order 2 or 3 machines at one time for inventory like they wanted us to. I talked with Oce' and the guy was pretty much like talking to a wall and said he didn't need anymore dealers in his territory and pretty much hung up. I would like to have an alternative and not be at Ricoh's mercy. I have tried to upgrade 3406's with 3406's and it doesn't go over that well.
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
The Epson thing is a joke. You can buy it on-line for less than you can buy it from Ricoh and so can your customer. I've got a customer right now who is at end of term on a 48 month lease on a LW426 and I have no choice but to go back to them with the exact same machine......oh and my cost is now higher for that same machine thanks to Plotworks (which gets thrown in the garbage). Would love to have KIP now.
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
Only 16% of W3601 users turned on Plotworks!!! (from PLP) Originally Posted by fisher: The Epson thing is a joke. You can buy it on-line for less than you can buy it from Ricoh and so can your customer. I've got a customer right now who is at end of term on a 48 month lease on a LW426 and I have no choice but to go back to them with the exact same machine......oh and my cost is now higher for that same machine thanks to Plotworks (which gets thrown in the garbage). Would love to have KIP now.
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
Art, I think the industry is starting to figure out that Oce equipment is not as well built as it used to be. My techs hate working on them. In fact were finding the Ricohs are more reliable than the Oces. GR
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
Originally Posted by Art Post: Only 16% of W3601 users turned on Plotworks!!! (from PLP) Originally Posted by fisher: The Epson thing is a joke. You can buy it on-line for less than you can buy it from Ricoh and so can your customer. I've got a customer right now who is at end of term on a 48 month lease on a LW426 and I have no choice but to go back to them with the exact same machine......oh and my cost is now higher for that same machine thanks to Plotworks (which gets thrown in the...
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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: Nsi Autostore
Maven , What I tell my customers and when I'm out with sales reps is it's all about getting things done in less steps. I'm in the legal vertical so time is money and everyone has an hourly billable. Right now here's the average user scan: 1.) User walks up to MFP and logs in 2.) Finds their name via LDAP or enters manually and then enters client and matter 3.) Selects Scan to email 4.) Sends PDF to their email 5.) Walks back to their desk 6.) Finds Canon Scan 00034789* (or doesn't because...
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Re: The Death Of The B2B Salesperson [Infographic]
Art, I call Bull ****! At least for our industry, the copier industry! This may be true of a commodity (like envelopes, or coffee, or even a PC) but copiers, really MFDs require a lot of attention, both before and after a customer buys it. This article seems to be written by an old brick & mortar company that successfully transitioned to internet sales. This will work for any company that drop ships their products. And I agree that the MFD manufacturers would LOVE for this to be, or...
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Re: Leasing, Insurance, Padded Rates, Buy Out Price
In my opinion, what the dealer was funded is not material. That is between the dealership and the leasing company. If it truly is insurance to cover just the device you either insure for the amount necessary to cover the debt should something happen which would be sum of payments plus the residual value or insurance to cover the replacement cost. However, most office equipment is covered under a blanket policy covering all building contents.
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Re: Leasing, Insurance, Padded Rates, Buy Out Price
To be on the safe side, I always give my clients the MSRP on the equipment as the number they should provide to their insurance company.
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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: Question: Xerox technicians
I can confirm a new offering. Xerox has a new program for signing on new dealers and not putting them in the Global or Agent bucket. These dealers can then be trained to use thier own technicians. I will check with my source about them using Xerox techs.
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Re: W6700sp help!
Got it, what we use is an exit tray that is sold by "Copier Solution Shop". The new exit tray will allow "e" size documents to exit to the front of the W6700 and they don't have to use the rear exit. I believe it will stack 50 or so. All of my clients love and their has never been a complaint. Here's the link https://www.copiersolutionshop...put-tray-rot-1.html, I will check for a video. I thought I posted one in the "pic's" section of this site.
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Re: Fax vulnerability in HP all-in-one printers
One of my large medical accounts contacted me about this one. They were totally freaked out over this potential threat even though they had no machines in their fleet with the vulnerability. Meanwhile you could walk to almost any fax machine in any of their locations and grab patient info from the fax trays.
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Re: Toshiba e-Studio Erasable Toner 4508LP Questions
I do not know yet. The product is not yet released in my area until mid August.
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Re: Question about Toshiba MFP's
Less than 5% of my Toshiba clients are not under a Maintenance Service contract. Toshiba sells lots of kits designed for trained service techs to install but not typical end users. Even those customers who prefer not to be invoiced for monthly meter reads we try to automatically collect the meter reads via email or fax and usually but them on copy blocks.
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Re: 10 Signs You Should Absolutely Hire That Salesperson
In reference to the above blog. If you want salespeople that want to make money (desire). When the interview is almost over, slap $500 bucks on the table and ask the person. How would you rather make this $500 bucks? 1) work 40 hours for it or 2) try to talk me out of it If they choose #1, tell em thank you and we're not interested. However if they choose #2 and they can get through ten minutes of trying to talk you out it, then I recommend offering them the job and not the $500 bucks. Just...
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Re: Kyocera finally put's out a low volume A4 Color
Yes I have sold a couple of these. For the price these are fantastic. My service manager is impressed which is hard to do. Dual side scanning is a definite selling point. The cost per page is going to be higher of course. I would say in the .015 black and white and .11 color to be safe (depending on your market of course). Not as good as say the 6535 per say but the machine is less than half the cost. If the run more than a couple thousand a month I would move them up to the 6535cidn. Let me...