Tagged With "Diversifying Your Business"
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Re: Hiring Sales Reps - what are you hearing
Surprising there are no replies yet. I would figure this to be a "hot" topic. We recently found one in the age demographic that will work out. He has more than a 45 minute ride, has closed a few orders already. Maybe you need to show them $500 at the interview and ask how they would like to get that $500, by working a week or trying to talk you out of it. After reading your thread it seems that neither of those "salespeople" have the "desire" to compete, yet alone the determination to "win".
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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: Need HELP! Kyocera Color A3 question
Top three points I make when against Kyocera. #1. Take them color samples from your device and any Kyocera because the color output is sub par on all units. If you don’t have access to one look in your crm for an account you co-exist with Kyocera in. Or the next time you have a knock out make some samples and keep them in a binder. If color quality is important to the customer it will be a win. Another point is showing them you get what you pay for, meaning 3 tier color is what they have...
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Re: Marco Acquires New Jersey Copier/Printer Company
Art- the # of your competitors didn’t change , their fingers and toes are now a whole lot farther away from their head. I picture you as Yankee Doodle Dandy and they are the Red Coats. Perhaps they will be as successful as .....Danka or IKON or RBS/AOE or GlobalXRX or ....
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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?
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: Print Copy Tool versus Plotworks
John, The PrintCopy Tool compares pretty favorably to Plotworks. I attached two documents to this post. The Product Support Guide lists differences between the two products. The PowerPoint has screen shots of all the settings in PrintCopy Tool. I hope this helps.
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Re: Ricoh Pro C5300
this is pretty cool, check out this page on Ricoh Japan site, use google chrome as your browser and then right click to select translate on the site https://www.ricoh.co.jp/pp/hep/
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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: Kyocera 6500i Mobile Print Question
Yes. Kyocera Mobile Print is available with all Kyocera printers and mfps. This is a free app on google play and lstore or Itunes depending on if it is a droid or apple device that you are using. This is an onsite solution that uses your wireless network. 100% free is the key for this PRINT/SCAN app.
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Re: Budget Document Technology given 2015 Pro-Tech Service Award
Great Job Tom. This award reinforces what everyone already knows that works with your company- your focus is on taking care of your customers and run a great company.
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Re: Nsi Autostore
I can't answer your question but would like to add another: I understand that you can set this software to enable scanning to email, which in turn you can set up electronic signature for authorising invoices for a work flow? Is this true and what modules do you need?
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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!
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: 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: Nsi Autostore
Art, the big thing is for Nuance/Copitrak do this you need external tablets, and people are pretty sick of ecopy. We embed right in the MFP for Ricoh, Konica, Canon and Xerox so even if there's too many months left in the current lease we can embed the software in the current equipment and then just move the license to your MFPS when it's time to change hardware. I just did that with a POA rep in Denver, the customer had Canons and when they're ready switch we'll move it for a very small...
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Re: Bad salespeople still exist, don't they?
Spot on Art. I love Gary Vaynerchuk's famous quote, "Legacy is greater than currency." You never know where you will be in 5 years. Walking away from every deal with your reputation and integrity intact is more important.
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Re: up against the Xerox Phaser 7800 with a SP C831dn
Thanks and congrats on your sale and the others. Also thank you for the link and your advice. The company is a small design firm and I don't think they go all out with the Pantone matching and that calibration tool. I will let you know if I sell it.
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Re: Kyocera SWOT
Jake, First the positives. The apps are the differentiator hopefully they will keep rolling these out and updating the ones they have. The lines they are putting out are strong and reliable. Support from our local Kyocera reps is great both presales and and service support. On the other hand our techs do get somewhat frustrated with the help line. I've been with a Kyocera dealer for 8 years now and we just picked up Xerox as a second line. One of the weaknesses we saw with Kyocera is lack of...
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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: W6700sp help!
Like Art, it is rare that a 6700 leaves here without the aftermarket try. Just a heads up on that tray.......if the customer bumps into the tray there is a very good chance that the metal tray will fall on your customer's feet. I had it happen to me. To see what I mean mount the tray on your 6700 and push the tray forward in the center......the two hooks will disengage and the tray will come crashing down. I came up with a very simple modification to this tray that will eliminate the...
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Re: Around the World with Ricoh
Ricoh Selects Juniper Networks to Modernize its Group-Wide Network Infrastructure TOKYO, Aug. 09, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR ), an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks, today announced that Ricoh Group has successfully implemented Juniper Networks' high-performing solutions to modernize and simplify the operations of its core networking and security infrastructure that supports approximately 500 locations and 34,000 users in Japan. Ricoh Group...
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Re: Toshiba e-Studio Erasable Toner 4508LP Questions
There is an all inclusive cpc charge for the Erasable Blue toner. The cost per copy analysis suggests that if on a 60 month lease you do not expect the the customer to erase more than 210,000 pages (3,500 pages per month) you can forget the parts cost and charge the same cpc as for Black at around $0.010 per page with a decent profit. There is no charge other than the users effort to recycle pages printed with erasable blue. If a sheet of paper costs $0.010 and Erasable Blue costs $0.010 you...
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Re: Color clicks
JWS- Good luck getting your machine to count correctly! We went round and round with Ricoh and our rep about this. They swear it counts correctly, we know it doesn't. You are correct in that it can be application- dependent; some apps will click correctly, but Acrobat prints, when there are mixed originals, usually treat the whole job as color. I experimented with different drivers (PCL / PS3 / Universal PCL), but could never resolve the issue for our client (a church). BTW, the ame doc...
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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...
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Re: Compensation Question
I get a salary, mediocre commissions, bit have a revenue bonus for the month and the quarter. If I hit the revenue marks it's good money. Problem is to hit those revenue marks on a consistent basis. But to answer your question, no I don't receive anything for volume of systems sold. Jason, are you in North Carolina or South Carolina, can't remember.
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Re: Compensation Question
Honestly, compensation models got out of whack when the industry became predominantly color devices. Compensation models are stuck in the B/W days. There is a reason that the manufacturer gives you a much bigger spiff on a color device than a similar B/W device. Does your dealer compensation reflect anything like that? It probably should.
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Re: Manufacturer Support on Bids
Been ages since I posted anything on here! Jason, back in the day for me Canon didn't do anything unless it was minimum $50k wholesale. KM on the other hand was extremely aggressive with doing whatever was needed to get our wholesale price down. We also had a fantastic dealer account manager though who would go to bat for us every time. In a RFP situation, you would think they would understand that you are dropping your margins or more than you expect the manufacturer to. "Where there's a...
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Re: Manufacturer Support on Bids
Just had the same issue with Xerox on a $100K deal, 'your pricing is already better than our bid pricing'. Have margins eroded that much or are they trying to hold what little they have left?
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Re: MPS and Linux HELP!
So some clarification first. PaperCut absolutely does support Mac. In fact, it is the only cost recovery/print control solution that I know of that actually installs in an all Mac environment. (Server and Client) It also is the only solution I know of that installs in a Linux environment. So both of your issues are solved with PaperCut. I included the install guides for Mac and Linux to get you started.
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Re: MPS and Linux HELP!
John, Do you buy Papercut from ACDI? You can engage their Professional Services to help with the install. Just roll that price into the deal. After a few installs your SEs will get more comfortable with it. Vince
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Re: Xerox explores sale of leasing finance unit: sources
Oce did that 10 years ago and went bust. They didn't realise how much they relied on the monthly rental income and how inflexible third party leasing companies are when you want to upgrade mid term. The financing arm is usually the most profitable side of the business. High interest rate to customers, low rates for them and if the customer goes bust you generally get you equipment back and at the end of the contract you get your gear back.
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Re: Has anyone worked with ZooBook?
I went out and contacted ZooBook directly. below is the email I received from ZooBook: Hi Art, Does the scanner send the documents to a shared drive? They can just upload straight from that. To scan directly into a record I would have to check with our developers. Thanks, Earl On 2018-07-17 5:54 pm, Art Post wrote: Hi earl We are not looking to file any forms. All we are looking to do is attach a scanned document to a clients record. Some emr programs allow you to import that document via a...
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
The biggest obstacle and it isn't on your list is time! If we are honest with ourselves the amount of time we are actually selling versus so called non selling activities creates my biggest limiting factor to increasing my success.
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
Wow. No poll answer regarding the rep’s activity…interesting. Over the years I have learned that if you work hard and SMART, you’ll hit your numbers. I also think that there is a condition that affects a lot of sales reps in virtually all industries. It is a type of an iron deficiency disorder. It is when iron in your blood is transformed into lead that forms in your rear end. If someone bounces from dealership to dealership and never finds success it is most likely them. If they’ve had...
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
I did not put an option for reps activity, because I believe most of the members here are true professionals and we understand how important it is to complete those activity goals for the week, month or quarter. You are correct, there are no short cuts, you need to work!! Originally Posted by dimaxusa: Wow. No poll answer regarding the rep’s activity…interesting. Over the years I have learned that if you work hard and SMART, you’ll hit your numbers. I also think that there is a condition...
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Re: Print Control/Mgmt
Hi Everyone, Thanks for your posts. Every year or two we see new, low cost competitors that come out of the woodwork for a little while. We are selling against these guys the same as you fight your low cost competitors. There are a few obvious detriments that seem to have stood the test of time. The revenue model can not possibly be profitable for 80% of your customers. Ridiculously low is exactly that, ridiculous and unsustainable. $500 worth of technical support will be used up mighty...
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Re: Can your Copier Do This???
That's what I like 29 reads and one response......... vwrome thanx for the response I appreciate your answer and time.
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Re: Need help with Pay for Print Solution
If I am hearing this right, you have two issues...USB access and driverless/wireless printing. Others have USB printing, we don't. However, we have HotSpot Printers that no one else has. http://www.printeron.net/landing/ricoh/Ricoh.html I am going to assume that you are not familier with this. HotSpot printers allow you to print from anything that has email access including iPhones or BlackBerries. You don't need drivers and you don't need to be on the network. You just email the file to a...
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Re: Need help with Pay for Print Solution
I looked up your profile after JasonR's reply. Sorry for not remembering that "John" was you. I know it's your name but there are a lot of John's out there. Even if you eliminate all the John's that Dear John letters go to and all the outhouses by that name, that still leaves quite a few. Anyway, isn't it impossible to be able to print anything but PDF's from a thumb drive if it isn't plugged into a device with the software resident? For instance, how can an MFP print an Excel File without...
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Re: Color MFP Trends, Tactics, etc
I havn't seen one placement of the frontier in my territory yet. But that doesn't mean they aren't out there. I see the whole copier industry making a shift to A$ devices in the next 24 months or less, they have too. Price is the driving factor, I've heard it all about A4's, such as "A4's can't hold up to heavy volume", oh yea then why do I see laser printers with hundreds of thousands of prints on them and they weigh under 100lbs? Heck, I just came from an account that has 180K on a Ricoh...
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Re: Savin SPC221SF and scan to email
Question How do I use Scan to Folder on Windows? Answer Documents scanned using your device can be sent over a network to a shared folder. To use Scan to Folder, follow these steps: Note: To send scanned documents to a shared folder on a computer, the correct user name, password, and directory must be set. Files can be sent to folder destinations on the following operating systems: Windows 2000 / Windows XP / Windows Server 2003 / Windows Vista Mac OS X Destinations must be registered via...
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Re: Need Help for Print Solution!
I'm not sure what the appropriate package would be, but it retails anywhere from $2,700 to $12,000. http://www.ricoh.com.au/ppt/588/Dataworks.aspx I'd probably contact your Ricoh solutions guy. Another product that may work is Reform by Fabsoft. http://www.fabsoft.com/product...part/multipart.shtml
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Re: Need help with Pay for Print Solution
John, I don't know if this is still a live issue for you but I thought of you while reading up on the Fiery Controller Option for the C2800/C3300 and the C4000/C5000. In an FAQ Document under wireless printing options it states, "When printing from USB removeable media, the Fiery will print Postscript and PDF File formats. If the Fiery has internet access and the Native Document Conversion option (i.e. EFI PrintMe) then you can also print native Microsoft Office Documents from your USB..."
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Re: Print Audit $50 August Gift Card Winner is .....
GMAN wins the gift ard for September, GMAN please PM me wih your address so Print Audit can send you your gift card!! New Members: 71 Total Hours Usage: 273 Print4Pay Hotel Message Board Top 5 Posters GMAN 23 Neal 22 JasonR 11 Old Glory 9 Top 5 Topic Starters Neal 8 jswinberlin 2 dfrazier 2 GIntel 2
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Re: Daily Sales Philosophy
Confucius say, "Don't eat too many fried Hot Dogs before mowing your Boss's lawn." Yoshida say, "When business get slow, implement 5 day furlough."
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Re: Need Help for Print Solution!
So this effort is eliminate "carbon copied" work orders for service techs? What is wrong with the print "workflow" when the software application that generates a service form cannot be configured to print two of the same item? This is not an easy "printer-centric" fix. The application needs to either carry this information to the printer as part of the job or you must have some print-based software (Planet Press/Dataworks) telling the printer what to do. At this point, what other problems...
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Re: Is selling at cost the future for print hardware?
I think this is hilarious. When all else fails within your business model turn to being the low price leader. What ever happened to selling value. I thought business were in business to profit. I would be curious if they stole their current business model from RBS. Being the low price leader will get you somewhere for segment 1/2 but you sure are not going to be a very healthy & profitable company long term.