How To Sell Duplicators Round Table

Print 4 Pay Market:

Marketing:

Cold calling, nine times out of ten the owner is always somewhere in the shop and 50% of the time you may have the chance to met him on the first cold call.

Once you have the name of the owner or the buyer, (keep in mind this is all you want too accomplish on the first call) and a good look at the equipment that he is using, you will want to create a dedicated mailing list for P4P. I will then send them a direct mailer every month and follow up with an in person call every two to three months or every month if you think you have peeked their interest.

I have four different mailers that I use for P4P and will alternate them each and every month for the a quarter and then start over in the next quarter.

If you have half tone samples from your HQ 9000, make sure you are putting a sample of the half tone along with your mailer.

Investigation:

One of the major leys to seeling duplicators to a P4P is to conduct a Plate ROI for the customer.

Questions to ask:

1. How many plates are you using on a monthly basis?
2. What is the cost for these plates?
3. How long does it take to make a plate, put it on the press and do the make ready sheets?
4. How much do your pay your press operator per hour?
5. Based on the quality of our prints from the HQ 9000, how many plates a month can you move from your Press to the HQ 9000?
6. Are there specific days when you only print specific colors?
7. Would like to be able to print any color any day of the week?
8. Do you run envelopes on yout presses?

All of these questions will help in conducting a ROI investigation for the platemaking process. In a few days I will upload a spreadsheet that I developed for the Plate ROI.

A few more tips when selling dups to P4P, refer to the Ricoh Master as a "plate", if they ask what kind of plate it is tell them is a Synthectic Paper Plate. When talking about printing from the duplicator refer to it as "CTP Printing Process (Computer to Plate Process).

Will post more in a few days.......

I heard at ITEX that the feature was auto-duplex.

At the recent Gestetner/Lanier Alliance, they showed us the new duplicator. It is an auto-duplex unit, built on the same style design as the HQ7000. It's a 400DPI unit, with a built in RIP. It can only duplex 8 1/2 x 11 though. The way that it does it, is to burn the front and back image on one 11 x 17 master. It then feeds a sheet through to print one side, and is pushed down to the duplex tray which is located under the ink unit. It then gets pushed back underneath and around a smaller press roller to image the other side, and exits the unit as normal. The unit then adjusts all the timing to print at full speed, printing both sides on two different pieces of paper - one going down into the duplex and the one coming up and out. The end result is an auto-duplexing 8 1/2 x 11 at full rated speed, or an effective 240ipm. It's quite impressive to see, but is obviously flawed by it's ability to only duplex 8 1/2 x 11. The surface of the new impression roller feels almost like sandpaper. It uses just the raised parts to push the paper through to avoid any potential set-off - which I saw nothing of. It still uses the HQ master, so the quality was identical to the HQ7000. The price point is rumoured to be ~$17-18K MSRP, which might put it out of the only really viable 8 1/2 x 11 market - K12 Education. But we'll see.

Some random thoughts:
Getting people interested is not that difficult. It takes good closing skills to get the check.
I find it works best if you can determine how much you can save them before you quote any pricing. But keep two things in mind:
1.) It does not have to be cost justified. No church has ever cost justified a paved parking lot but they all have it.
2.) Just because it is cost justified doesn't mean it's a done deal. Napkins are free at every resturant but we don't fill our pockets before we leave because we don't see the need.
I don't use the words master or ink until well into the sales process...usually not until they are infront of a demo and have seen color coming out at high-speed. I also don't answer questions about duplexing or collating until this time. If they ask about duplexing before I'm ready to address it, I say it will do unlimited duplexing and then wait for a more appropriate time to come back to it and explain how it is done. Same thing with collating/finishing. I say, "We have several different ways to collate depending on the way you want your sets finished but I'd like to discuss that more after we have fully evaluated your needs." Any potential negatives need to be avoided until they have had a chance to see ALL the positives. The negatives aren't near the problem after they are salivating over what it will do.
When I demo, the first sheets out are two-color at high speed with the master already loaded.
I haven't sold much to Print-4-Pay but I do have some advice. Keep in mind that printers have alot of things they can branch off into for additional revenue without paying for inventory...rubber stamps and wedding announcements to name a couple. The best fit for a duplicator at a P4P in my opinion is to improve the way he does what he is already doing.