Tagged With "Spring Break"
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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: Attention Sales Leaders... What Are Your Sales Reps Prospecting For?
Larry, You are exactly right. Excellent article. The challenge in our industry is the mindset of obtaining new business and putting ourselves in the minds of the 21st century customer. We need to break the cycle of a commoditized product offering. I have not waived the white flag and surrendered to that thought process. Instead I believe we need to evolve as sales professionals and engage in the 21st century sales process and those sales professionals/ companies that do will become behemoths...
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Re: Is selling at cost the future for print hardware?
Merlin -- you are absolutley right...like any business there are several costs. but you never know if a dealer had special terms with a their manufacturer to order x amount - or if they were trying to acheive a certain level to hit their quoata or win some award? Really hard to speculate on a business model which we don't know anything about. But the one thing that I do know is that - these idiots are everywhere..... And quite frankly -- the people who want that type of partnership would by...
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Re: A4 Page Volumes
I'm looking at a break point of around 10k/month, at that point, at least at my dealership, a3 is a lower tco. They [the samsung rep]say when you look at total volumes, 11x17 only accounts for like 3% of the global print volume. What I've seen is that its not accurate to extrapolate that only 3% of customers need it, it means that there is a wider group of customers that use it outside AEC, but they do a tiny amount of it. Even so, once you've got a feature that is used, even marginally,...
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Re: A4 Page Volumes
The most important question to ask is "how much do you copy 11x17"? If the answer is none, then the next question is "how often do you print 11x17"? When the answer is quite often, well A3 is then a no brainer, however if the answer is rarely, then I'll bundle an 11x17 laser or ink printer. Based on under 10K per month, A4 will save the customer on the TCO over the term of a 5 year lease.
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Re: New A4 Color Models from Ricoh?
Scan to Web Mail (SMTP over SSL): Enhances security to make login passwords and IPP authentication passwords harder to break.
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Re: JOINT STATEMENT BY SHARP ELECTRONICS CORPORATION AND EDWARD MCLAUGHLIN
I'm not completely convinced. Let's be honest, the growth for a manufacturer is not going to come from selling 45 ppm machines for $4,000 that the previous generation sold for $12,000. The growth comes in MPS, more specifically Sharp selling the services (it doesn't benefit them if a dealer put together a deal w/ Innovera consumables and LMS or Barrister on the break/fix). For Sharp to experience topline growth, they need to invest far more than they have been willing to in direct branches.
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Re: Q. How does your company handle networking charges?
Assuming we've used the 2 hours per machine connectivity time that we include for each install and that this isn't resolving issues that we created, this would be billable at an hourly rate in the neighborhood of $100 per hour. Depending on availability, the work would be done by either an SE, break/fix tech or a member of our Network Services team. We are an independent dealer in the Southwest that provides either hourly support, block time or full-on Managed Network Services. We can do the...
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Re: Q. How does your company handle networking charges?
I think we all struggle with where to draw the line. The point I make with my Sales force, as well as with my customers is if you come in one day and you can't scan to email, but it was working fine yesterday the customer perceives this as "my MFD is broken" because one or more of the functions have stopped working. But most of the time nothing on the MFD is broken. The configuration is the same as it has been for the last 6 months (or 2 years). What most often has changed is something on...
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Re: Green not printing correctly on Ricoh MPC4500
John, There is a simple test to figure out if it is the MFD or the Print driver. Put an original on the glass and make a copy of an original that has the correct color green. If it copies OK the copier is OK, and you need to focus on the print controller or print driver. If it copies and the green is bad on the copy then focus on the Copier. If the copier is off on the color you won't get it right on the driver. You need a break fix tech to adjust or fix the copier. as a side note remember...
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Re: Kodak & Possible Buyers?
I would think that it makes the best sense to break the company into pieces and sell individual divisions. The print production division (Nexpress, etc..) would be enticing for Xerox, Ricoh, KM or even Canon. I think Ricoh is not in a position to buy. I think KM would make sense, but I think Canon would be a very strong player. They used to relable the Digimasters (not sure if they still do) and the Nexpress would fill the whole abover thier current color production gear.
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Re: Selling is dead. The Customer Community killed it.
Well written blog, however I as agree with many of the points in the blog. For example: 1. Selling is not dead; it has changed and will continue to change. As the author finally arrives at near the end “old selling” is dead. As buyers change, great sales people have to change with them. Selling is alive and well, it has just changed. 2. Buyer communities did not kill selling. If anything, they can help it. If your company is doing a good job and made a name for itself then the buyer...
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Re: Why is single clicking an 11×17 on a “copier” legal?
A Konica Minolta Banner sheet is technically only one piece of paper. Are you saying that it should be single clicked also? The only reason that this is an issue is the common practice of Print for Pay shops to run all or almost all of their letter jobs two up and then cut them in half. The end result is to produce 10,000 Letter sheets, that is what they will deliver to their customer. But the choose to do them two up on 5,000 11x17 sheet to cut thier cost in half. But the MFD gets the same...
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Re: The Miracle of "Fuser Oil"
While it's properties can cause rubber to break down over time, I've used it for years on the exterior auto trim (black) and tires to get that wet look. People say it's a "not safe" use but I've had absolutely no trouble. Also good to rub down weathered paint on outdoor furniture and other painted surfaces (test first).
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Re: Transform Global 2012
Day one has passed and overall, I'm impressed with the event. I actually ran into a couple of P4P members and finally after all of these years got to meet Lee Rummage from RJ Young. On Wednesday evening Oki hosted the evening reception @ Hiltons Signature Island. Food, drinks and networking, at this time I also had to the chance to meet Greg Walters (Death of the Copier) and now the newly elected President of the MPSA. I also ran across many new contacts and believe it or not many readers of...
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Re: Transform Global 2012
Wow. OK, I've never seen a study that didn't CLEARLY show total US print declining every single year since the 1990's. An account can still grow, of course, and you could be fortunate and have a mix of accounts that grow. But just looking at office paper shipments shows a constant decline every year. I think we're right at the stage where 50%+ of workers will never print until they have to "take something to the old man for approval". They'll just never have developed the habit of printing,...
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Re: BTA East 2012 District Event
There were 36 vendors at this event. I'll be posting a blog titled" my top 5 solutions/products of the event in the next day or so. Kyocera: Besides Nori have a heavy japanese accent, he was at times very hard to understand what he was saying, thank goodness for the power point slides. However, it seems that all of the manufacturers are now sharing the same slides! Business Process Optimization, find the pain, be a consultant to solve workflow and business problems with the use of software,...
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Re: 240WD
I have situations like this before, even though the 240W is only six years old, keep in mind they were around for almost 4 years! Ricoh has now listed them as "limited parts" or something to that effect. This is the first item I would tell them about. There has got be advantages moveing to the W3601 for them. Are they scanning if so, are they only scanning as a .tiff. Are they emailing the scans as .tiffs or are they converting to .pdf, if they are converting to .pdf, have they considered...
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Re: Hurricane Sandy Highlands NJ
HIGHLANDS - After weeks of stress and struggle following Hurricane Sandy, Highlands residents will gather together tomorrow afternoon for some serious fun at a free benefit concert. The concert, starring many well-known Jersey Shore musicians, will raise funds and awareness to help rebuild their town. The Hope for Highlands benefit concert will take place Sunday, November 25, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Seastreak Ferry terminal, 325 Shore Drive in Highlands. Although the concert itself is...
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Re: Padded Lease Rates
0.019584 Means 4% And its not a "pad" its the same reason that Banks get a lower interest rate than you and I can on a mortgage. Imagine this a bank is borrowing at .025 percent from fed and lending at .0375 to you and me. Thats a 50% percent "Pad" our industry marks up only 4-10% and most of that is eaten up by administrative costs. Sales is break even at best, the real money is in the ongoing annuity and revenue stream from service.
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Re: Padded Lease Rates
Sometimes the gap between the dealer rate and the reps rate is due to a lower rate negotiated by the dealer in return for using ABC Leasing vs XYZ Leasing or it may be tied to a promised annual volume that if unmet, results in a chargeback. Regardless, it's not wrong or immoral. It is what it is, just like cost markup or delivery charge or whatever. Now I admit I'm a bit of a terrorist when it comes to conventional logic, but I have always felt that my Aficio League points were dollars that...
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Re: How do you feel about the industry?
I feel it is getting increasingly difficult to attract quality sales and service people to this industry. It is hard for a new sales rep to earn a decent income and to find a service tech who is good at electro-mechanical break fix. Society does not seem to be producing people who want to be in outside sales or think that they can earn an income other than by sitting behind a computer.
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Re: How do you feel about the industry?
Forget everything else "ITS ALL ABOUT CASH FLOW IN BUSINESS" if you can't meet payroll next week doesn't matter whats coming next month. 2) I'm not sure you get it. Sell NOW to people not in the market NOW. Not later. 4) Closing is just a natural progression from offering a break even TCO analysis now. Who wouldnt want to spend the same or a little more and get more? No one! Example: you are paying monthly payments/maintenance/insurance/gas for a Toyota Camry right now yes? What if I could...
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Re: Over Holding On MFP Lease Costs Unnecessary Dollars
I would like to see service departments that will work with sales when it comes to old devices that are being supported after 8 years or so. Our service is not cheap and that's not a bad thing, however at some point in time we need to tell the customer that either we won't offer a ma agreement, and or even a break and fix.
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Re: Over Holding On MFP Lease Costs Unnecessary Dollars
Art, After 8 years I would think they are already paying for a new copier and service. Wouldnt a TCO saying the new is the same price as the old work? Yoda: We have many systems that were purchased from the leasing companies in 09, 10, and 11. Many of these systems are wide format system and we're still servicing them after 7,8 & 9 years. When your payments are zero and you maintenance costs are $800 or so a year, there is no TCO to put forward to the customer. Every now and then we'll...
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Re: Data Destruction
This is an interesting topic. I have always had an interest in computer forensics and spent many hours a lot of forums. I have used many different software programs to test their performance. I have recovered all sorts of data from hard drives and removable media. There are a bunch of programs out there that claim they can recover data some work and many do not. The only way to truly eliminate data is to pulverize the hard drive to dust. There are 2 ways that data can be recovered through...
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Re: Data Destruction
That is an interesting piece of technology. I have heard of this one before. However it is a very costly $10K solution. It will take many hard drives to break even if you charge for this service.
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Re: 100 calls a day, 240 minutes talk time a day, 4 opps per day
Here are my thoughts on it, for what it's worth... Judges out there have shown an incredible bias towards the employee when it comes to enforcement of non-competes. Basically, regardless of what you signed, they have shown across the continent that they will not allow an overly prohibitive non-compete to prevent a man (or woman) from earning a living. Basically, if haven't stolen any of their information and you're ready to accept that it wouldn't be fair, regardless of circumstances, for...
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Re: Points added to lease rate factors
I am somewhat of a journeyman in this industry and have worked for 8 different companies over 23 years due to moves and acquisitions. I have seen it all and added points on leases is common among larger dealers. That having been said, it is also common for dealers to attempt to break even on the sale of hardware after all sales expenses have been paid...most do not hope to actually profit from the sale of the unit, only from the resulting service and supply revenue. My point is, I learned...
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Re: Sharp Touts Software Advances
Oh Yeh, So how come they still can't get mixed size originals to staple in the right position without turning the paper backwards, then going 3 deep on the touch screen display and selecting the backwards staple position just to get it right. That's in copy mode. don't even think to try it in print mode. “It will be easier and cheaper,”“There will be more investment and more demand for our products.” GIMME A BREAK!
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Re: Counting 11 X 17 pages on CL5000 and CP3800
Nope, 11x17 can't be set up to count as a single click. The only way that you can distinguish the 11x17 as a single click is to break it out manually using Smartnet
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Re: Aficio 2022/27 SMB SMB Scan to file!
What is SMB? SMB, which stands for Server Message Block, is a protocol for sharing files, printers, serial ports, and communications abstractions such as named pipes and mail slots between computers. The earliest document I have on the SMB protocol is an IBM document from 1985. It is a copy of an IBM Personal Computer Seminar Proceedings from May 1985. It contains the IBM PC Network SMB Protocol. The next document I have access to is a Microsoft/Intel document called Microsoft...
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Re: Salespeople Get No Respect?
I agree with all the responses about the fault lying with management for not standing up for the person that brings in the bacon. COMMUNICATION with all parties in a timely manner, not the day before, would have made the salesperson a happy camper. The damage was already done, but I assume the orders were processed, so if I was the salesperson, I would do like the others said and bring the donuts, lunch, drinks, whatever to try and difuse the situation from happening again. Everyone in our...
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Re: Gas Price Check
Still hanging around $2.40 here. Right, 'cause you think it's a good idea to support Chavez and Middle Eastern countries by continuing to send them billions of dollars to fund their interests and a bad idea to spend some money on American technology to break our dependence on them.
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Re: Ricoh/Lanier Allstate Insurance Contract
Lanier is still it's own gig, they are kind of a rogue company operating on their own and separate from Ricoh, Savin, Gestetner. Don't know how long this will last, but I think that if they have a good thing going on there (JD Power etc) Ricoh will likely not try to break it. The same goes in reverse too, Lanier dealers can not sell on GSA contracts cuz they don't have a GSA contract. Hope that helps Graham Also, the Lanier LP020C is a Ricoh CL3000
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Re: Light Copies
Sounds like the sensors are working properly. Check the toner add system, motor, clutch, gears. Sometimes if all the tone is at one end of the tube when newly installed, the toner gear may break a couple of teeth.
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Re: Global buysCOMDOC...yes you heard correct!
Geez, what's with old dog copier guys and Algebra - took it twice in High School and passed it once then had to pass it again in college and barely passed. At RxR crossings I break out in a cold sweat waiting for Train A which left Peoria at 25 mph heading east and Train B which left Detroit heading west at 35 mph to collide 'cause I can't figure out where they'll crash . . .
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Re: SP C811
That's the problem with Users. I find the machines don't break nearly as often if you remove them!
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Re: Daily Sales Philosophy
Confucius say, "A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts." Yoshida say, "Do not break bread with man who want to share bagel."
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Re: 2004 Telefónica Dakar
Nashua WP and Stormers set to clash NASHUA Western Province Cricket & INVESTEC Stormers will clash on Sunday, 18 January 2004 in The Newlands Sports Challenge - charity match. NASHUA Western Province Cricket and the INVESTEC Stormers invite the sporting public of the Western Cape to spend an entertaining day at Newlands Cricket Ground on Sunday, 18 January 2004, as a token of gratitude for the support they have both received over the past few years. The entertainment will take the form...
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Re: Duplicator and sorting ideas
I have learned a ton while trying to sell duplicators to printers over the last 12 years and it's interesting how we have both independantly developed the same approach. Here are a few more tidbits for those of you trying to break into this tough but lucritive part of the business: A.) You need to establish early on that 100% of his output does not need to be of the highest quality...in fact he has already conceeded that (although he may have trouble admitting it) when he put in that copier.
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Re: Scan to Email Service calls
This should be billable or sold as an ancillary offering to cover network-related calls for an additional monthly fee. Service margins for break-fix are already strained. This type of service can't be included for free.
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Re: Performance and Compensation Plans
It's tough out there but there is still a lot of money to be made. Just about every business needs a copier. In an interview, Reil Rackham said that in tough times the key to success is focus: put all of your resources into your best opportunities. Here are a list of things I've done to help maximize my sales as much as possible: 1. Make a committment to stick things out through the hard times. 2. Sell the relationship today, sell a copier tomorrow. 3. Start an email list. 4. Have my...
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Re: How do Original setting adjustments work?
How much time have you got??!! At switch on the machine checks the white plate underneath the glass and some dummy pixels on the CCD. The machine then knows what white is and what black is. After the image is scanned it is passed to the IPU (Image Processing Unit). The IPU carries out at least 6 processes of filtering. Different filters are used to actually break down the image so that it can be sent to the laser for writing. It also looks at the make up of the image to detect whether it is...
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Re: Microsoft Lists XP SP2 Problems
XP SP2 has the potential to be a big problem for us. I heard The firewall that is embedded in it will have most ports closed by default. That could "break" a lot of our software including Scanrouter and SMB/FTP scanning
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Re: Pay Plan
You guys have my head spinning with all that I want to say on this subject so I'm sure I will be jumping all over the board but here it goes. First of all, we all have to recognize that the profit from service is getting squeezed every bit as much as profits from sales. We want better trained technicians and quicker response times yet CPC's are significantly lower than they used to be. You think $2.00/gallon gasoline has adversely effected you...think what effect it has had on service...
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Re: GE Return instructions
I have not heard of GE calling any of my customers but one thing that is new is that when we request end of term upgrade and buyout info that they no longer give our dealership a break on upgrade to return. The least expensive option now is upgrade to keep. They apparently are getting far too many boxes back and this is the way to solve the problem at the customers expense.
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Re: CL400dn
I was lead to believe it is a Ricoh design. The product manager from Japan was here last week and was quite proud of that fact that it was a Ricoh OEM. The printer has preformed flawlessly for us and we have tried to break it. Envelopes, cardstock, glossy/coated, out of spec stuff, it ran it all. We have been burnt before by the 204/305/306/Cl5000 junk so I am always skeptical about the Ricoh line when it comes to anything but 28 lb bond or less. We carry HP also and I have to admit that it...