Tagged With "Social Selling"
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Re: All Ricoh A4 devices = no stapler
The 501/601 are based on a Kyocera MFP without a stapler, so Ricoh didn't have much of a choice on that one. Agreed that its a disadvantage against other A4s, so with Ricoh you will either have to sell the C401 with a finisher or an A3 MFP for the foreseeable future.
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Re: Perspectives on Riso
I know this isn't, most likely, the perspective on the actual usage of the riso's but we had looked at becoming a dealer when someone in our market went out of business. They were the only riso dealer in our market. I find it easy to sell against the riso unless someone truly needs 150 ppm and doesn't care about anything else. It seems I only see them in church's now where they are very old school and they say "that's just the way we do it and don't want to change." We decoded agaonst being...
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Re: Perspectives on Riso
We've had very little success with them in the years we've been a dealer. They run well but they are a hard to move item. Support from the manufacturer was non-existent but they are making a renewed effort now in that regard. Just doesn't seem to be much of a market for a real expensive really really fast machine with marginal image quality. We still do well enough with their duplicators and the supplies for them to stay in the game. I just don't think the Comcolor products are priced right.
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Re: What's the weirdest place you've sold a copier to?
Wow, those are some great install! Not a copier, but I did sell a cash register to strip club once.
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Re: Kyocera finally launches color inkjet PPS
Due to image quality, is recommended for transactional, transpromotional and direct mail applications.....Reminds me when I used to sell Riso and we made this disclaimer!!...Not great copy quality but if you are wanting something that is cheap and fast, we have it for you!!
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Re: Kyocera finally launches color inkjet PPS
That's a shame! Was really hoping to hear about some kick ass color print quality
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Re: The End Of The Day With Ray! Beware of the Predators!!
Which episode did you comment that everybody is trying to sell Document Mgt systems these days and why you think that is not the best idea? BTW, I purchased some eLearn courses on www.selltowin.com because of one of your SAT AM episodes. Thanks,
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Re: Post-Virus We Must Defeat The Zombie Companies!
SalesServiceGuy, I would suggest that a payment strategy is not something I see valuable at all. Customers need help deferring payments on what they already own. In all do respect. A payment strategy is not helpful to end user strictly based on selling a new MFP. The Imaging Channel's resellers who only sell print equipment are going to find themselves in serious trouble. Customers don't need to upgrade their all already oversold A3 to another one. Dealers should credit back the unused...
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Re: Post-Virus We Must Defeat The Zombie Companies!
We generally do not build in prepaid copy/ print blocks into our leases. We do give away free copy prints up front but only intended as a short term bonus. We do normally charge a $25.00 minimum monthly maintenance fee but have waived that until the economy rebuilds momentum. I am in Canada, lease vendors are currently offering 90 day payment deferrals added back on at the end of term for those customers who request them. Leases expire every month and customers are happy with the equipment...
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Re: It’s The End Of The Day With Ray! 2020 Who Will Educate Endusers
Art, Thanks for comments it's conversation which starts change. There is way more applications for A4 MFPs than those few applications you suggest. The large disruption will be from those who can isolate the realities of the customers needs and sell based on those realities. Declining Marketplaces are disrupted when the old way continues delivering to all the market's customers the same way they did before the decline. The old way needs to focus on the realities of over 80% of the market...
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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?
We definitely are not out chasing them but we are much more versed talking about them and the benefits of buying them from us rather than the big box store. It has led to some very nice MPS accounts for us this past year. I don’t have a final count but I believe we added about 3 million new clicks this year from printer sales. Not breaking any records by any means but adding an extra 50k or so of revenue never hurts. And thanks to brother for having a minimum advertised price online for the...
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Re: Special Announcement from Art
CONGRATS ART! So excited for you and your family! Sucks to have been knocked with the flue so close to the birth of your grandchild, but take the great with the bad. I know we've spoke about it before, but my wife's still pregnant as yesterdays due date came and went. Kid doesn't realize he's impeding on poppa's schedule to sell! Congrats and get better soon!
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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: Your Copiers Are Storing Confidential Information: What You Can Do About It
Question on this - do any of you that sell Lexmark get questioned about the ultimate ownership of the Chinese government? If so, what is it that you say to get them comfortable that they're safe?
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Re: Your Copiers Are Storing Confidential Information: What You Can Do About It
@Jason H curious if you can help with this question
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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: When is Net New Business not Net New Business?
We were staying away from Toshiba for a long time until we had a friend who could sell us parts, supplies, and give us manuals etc. those 4 figure contracts certainly do help. Seems few and far between but I'll take them when I can get them.
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Re: Global Imaging aquires Conestoga Business Solution
Global Acquires Pennsylvania-based Conestoga Business Solutions - Tuesday, July 07, 2015 Global Imaging Systems Acquires Pennsylvania-based Conestoga Business Solutions; Bolsters Xerox’s Presence in SMB Market LANCASTER, Pa., July 6, 2015 – Global Imaging Systems (GIS), A Xerox Company, has acquired Conestoga Business Solutions, an award winning, independent office equipment dealer in the Pennsylvania region. The company will offer the full range of Xerox office and printing technology, and...
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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: Toshiba now has tier based CPC's?
Hi, we sell Toshiba in the UK. The current colour range can run with a two tiered counter already. We used to sell the Kyocera range with this feature it seemed to be good and won us business, but lost us money in service. When colour costs are dropping to 4p, the percentage of toner from the 4p is getting less. So to breaking this down into 3 tiers could seem marginal. But let say you could offer 1.5p for 2% coverage then 2.5p for 2-5% coverage and then 4p for above, you have now lost out...
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
They are never going to get their act together. I spoke with Jim Corridi at the CDA meeting several months ago and he told me big things were coming down the pipeline very soon because he agreed it would be hard to upgrade 3406WD systems with a 3406WD system. He also, however, acted like the Epson was going to be the latest and greatest thing for all of us that sell wide format. Not sure why since we don't typically mess with the ink jet machines. You can find the Epson's extremely cheap...
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
Jason, Talk to KIP again I have never heard of KIP asking dealers to stock machines(maybe one for the demo floor). Plus KIP is releasing the new 800 series next month and these machines look like they should be good sellers. 8 full color "D"s per minute and 10K less that the Oce colorwave. We sell or have sold all the major lines of wide format, KIP, Oce, Ricoh, even going back to Xerox. All our sales reps and techs prefer the KIPs. GR
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
We don't sell the Epson, I do hear that many Ricoh wide format dealers are looking to change. The W3602 is due out something this spring, Ricoh is waiting to exhaust inventories on the W3601. I have not sold a W3601 yet this year and believe I only sold a handful last year, I used to sell at least a dozen a year. The W3602 will have the GUI as the color systems and many of the same features, sad but the GUI and the MFP features will still put us way behind with the likes of KIP & Oce
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Re: Ricoh & Epson = "perfect together" NOT!
I meant we don't sell the KIP brand, we do sell the Epson wide formats
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Re: Charge for IT support
We charge for IT support, we sell it in block time agreements. For hardware, we'll take care of anything that is related to the mfp device, if we find that the fix was not related to an issue with the mfp device, we will charge time and material for the fix.
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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: Sharp bond risk jumps as losses over 4½ years top $10 billion
WOW! Some take ways from the article above: Sharp does not have core business that it can look to in the future 510 billion syndicated loan payment due March of 2016. That's almost 4.2 billion US dollars! Ouch! "The chances of banks calling the 103-year-old company’s loans are therefore low", seems to me like there are more cuts to come, more business units to sell. Banks accepted shares in the company earlier this year after it defaulted on debt payments
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Re: Leasing, Insurance, Padded Rates, Buy Out Price
txeagle seems you may have the best answer, just quote them MSRP and we should be safe. We just went through one of these where the copier was damaged by fire and was covered under the BOP policy. The insurance company paid the stream of payments plus the residual. I'm always somewhat concerned when I have to quote a price to the customer and then that customer uses that for the value of the equipment to the leasing company. If you sell at MSRP and the equipment is leased, then you need to...
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Re: Leasing, Insurance, Padded Rates, Buy Out Price
If you sell at or above MSRP due to significant GP or because a buyout was involved, I would quote the Stream of Payments of the hardware + the buyout, excluding the portion of the monthly payment attributable to Service/Supplies in the case of a bundled lease/service agreement.
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Re: Why Social Selling Stinks for Most Copier Sales Reps
Very interesting point of view. Always informative. Old adage. The more activity the greater the results. Plan your work. Work your plan. Have a great day.
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Re: Why Social Selling Stinks for Most Copier Sales Reps
Art, love this! You know my take on the integration of social into the sales process. Sales requires hard work as most will not put forth the effort. The reason why ones social anything stinks is their effort, plain and simple. Operating with an analig mindset in a digital world = death blow to a sales rep.
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Re: Why Social Selling Stinks for Most Copier Sales Reps
Who else has a marketing team write their blogs?
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Re: Why Social Selling Stinks for Most Copier Sales Reps
My dealership does, we use DealerMarketing for our blog posts.
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Re: Copier Parts & Accessories China Tariff Starts in 9 Working Days
The Trump Administration today announced plans for a new round of $200 Billion worth of tariffs against China. https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/10...ffs-trump/index.html Copy machines were on the original list but but were taken off leaving parts and consumables subject to a 10% tariff. It seems most suppliers have not taken actions to increase their prices. On the new list which could go in effect sometime after Aug 30th are: 8443.39.20 Electrostatic photocopying apparatus, operating by...
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Re: Compensation Question
I get paid strictly on GP, but I would be unopposed to a bonus structure for this model. 90% of my sales are new business, so I sell anywhere from 4 to 7 machines per month with 1000 to 2000 GP in each one.
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Re: A Halloween Tale of an A3 Copier’s Death
What is even more scary is how your commission cheques will fall in $ value if you only sell A4 copiers. The copier/printer market is not getting any larger and if a commission sales rep focuses on selling lower $ value A4 boxes, they are going to have to make a lot more sales calls and sell a lot more boxes to earn the same money.
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Re: Canon's new 75PPM A4 MFP series
As much as I am not a fan of A4, but realizing it’s our necessary evil, I hope they do. The A4 has for the most part killed it for us as sales people. We have to sell many more units to make the same revenue....revenue, I say....profit margin is good for the most part, but we still have to sell more united to keep everyone happy. Was the worst thing a manufacturer could do in my opinion.
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Re: Is This the Beginning of the End for the Padding of Lease Rates?
In some cases, more is made on the lease padded rate than the salesperson makes in commissions. Others may tell you that they use the "padded" rates to create promo's for the reps. Do I look like I need an incentive to sell? Frak that, if you need an incentive to sell then you need to get a job at Mickey D's
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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: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
In a lot of organizations, I'm sure it is a challenge to overcome the old-school "copier dealer" mentality of slinging boxes. Week 1-3: Sell services & solutions. Week 4: How many units are you going to sell?
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Re: top challenges faced by sales reps on a day to day basis
The biggest challenge I see is that you have to sell so much more to make the same money you have in years past. It used to be that if someone needed duplexing, or stapling, or speed, etc. they had to pay for higher scale equipment. Now they can get for $3,000 what they used to have to pay $10,000 for. It used to be that everyone was a profitable prospect. Now only the upper 20-30% represent a potential revenue capable of earning over $1,000. Even solution sales are hard to build profit in...
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Re: Color MFP Trends, Tactics, etc
I have one of these in the P4P market, after 4 months all seems well and customer is satisfied with media offereing and quality. The one thing that has changed for this unit, since its the same engine as the MPC6000 and MPC7000 is that default from the factory is 11x17 single click and lower consumable costs. Making an inroad will depend on how dealers will position this unit, dealers more than ever can now be competitive with single click 11x17, and if you're going to play in the P4P you...
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Re: Sharp Helps Dealers 'Align' for Success at 2009 National Dealer Meeting
Sostilio & Associates did not have a very favorable review of the SHARP 'Align 09' Dealer Show and mentioned that SHARP "did little and offered less to neither raise the attendee’s spirits nor make a good argument to be a Sharp dealer if you want to sell A3 product." Moreover, there wer no 'show promotions' and during the Awards Ceremony, SHARP Branch personnel were given awards. I was wondering if anyone attended this Align 09 Dealer Meeting and cared to provide feedback, since this...
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Re: Is selling at cost the future for print hardware?
Without a value statement that goes beyond copiers and even mps at this point --- people will be selling at cost, because they are transient, non-professional, and either don't have or have confidence in their skill set. The Trick is to work with companies that aren't in the market to buy copiers---I guarantee that their are other challenges that they are facing and trying to overcome...When you do this you can sell at retail, because there is no competition and you earned that commission.
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Re: Is selling at cost the future for print hardware?
I have good relatioship === but employer is a little big... I am positive that equipment is dirt cheap, lease rates are bumped, but just like any other company, overhead to run a company has to be built in somewhere...Business's are in business to make money.....Even Non PRofits..... Merlin, are you a principal? I think the real point that should be taken away from this thread is that people have the ability to look at their company from a different perspective, not just the side of a...