Bantam Document Consulting

Art Williams - Just do it - you Do it and Do it and Do it until the job ...

2010-11-09T10:19:00.000-08:00

All set...

2010-11-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in my daily prospecting efforts I will engage in a brief conversation with a business owner or executive and they will quickly say something along the lines of "Thanks for calling, but we are all set." Now it is my belief that this is highly unlikely to be an actual TRUE statement.

So am I saying that the person that I am contacting to see if we can have a open conversation to determine if my firm may be able to help them is LYING? Well yes I am, however I understand why they are lying. We all are bombarded daily with messages from sales people, TV, radio, newspaper, Internet, etc that we should change something because we are spending too much or do not have the correct 'stuff'. And well after hearing "that if we just gave some insurance company 15 minutes that we could save $100's" for about the 1000th time I think we all become a little worn out. So we defend ourselves and just immediately say "We are all set".

When this happens to me, I genuinely feel bad for the person that says it to me. I understand they are probably just so sick and tired of hearing the message "hey your a dope you are spending too much on your (blank)...you should talk to us and we can fix this." So my question to myself is...How should I handle this from now on? Well I have set out over past couple of months and examined some different ideas from different sales gurus and have heard some ideas that are downright scary until finally I stumbled upon a tactic suggested be Dave Kurlan, author of Baseline Selling.

So from now on when a prospective client tells me they are 'all set' before we have even had an open conversation I respond with the following. (Bold is prospect. Italic is me.)

"Tom, thank you for the call but we are all set."

"Mr. Prospect, sounds like you're extremely happy with who your currently using."

"Yes we are. "

"So you know you are not spending a penny more then you should be. The documents that are vital to your business are managed perfectly. You are certain that the documents that you create in house and end up in your clients and customers hands portray your organization's image perfectly. You have no doubt that this area of your business is optimized. You know it would be an absolute waste of time to even have a conversation about this area of your business. "

As of yet, I have not had a business owner that has actually heard this and agreed with me...typically they will open up a bit and say "Well I wouldn't go that far, maybe we could use some work in that area." And to me that is a fair and truthful comment. To which I will ask them in what area. And if they expand on some area that is a problem, I will simply ask the two following questions, which help us both know if it makes sense to spend more time talking or not..."Is this a problem?"(Question 1)..."Do you want to fix it?"(Question 2). Answer Yes to both then we should speak more, answer No to either then it likely doesn't make sense to talk more.

Will's Wisdom

2010-09-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

Here is a video I saw today over on my friend, Nealon Hightower's blog. He has written a great book on weight loss...but it is really applicable to any area of ones life that we are looking to improve. Any way this video I found very powerful.

Smile and Move

2009-06-04T10:52:00.001-07:00

Shocking survey results...

2009-04-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

Better Buys for Business just surveyed 175 office equipment purchasers and found that 32 percent plan to make a purchase or lease within the next 12 months.

And what did those surveyed say they look most for in their printers?

Answer: Price (46%), cost of ownership (27%), service guarantee (21%), networking and interfacing capabilities (20%), first-hand experience with a brand or product line (19%). Brand reputation (12%), feature set (10%), speed (4.5%).

It drives me nuts that most buyers look at price almost twice as more then they do cost of ownership...this is not logical to me at all. Suppose you are going to go buy a car and you go to your local Ford dealer and he has two cars for sale. Both cars have the exact same features, bells and whistles...the only differences are in the price of the car and the rated MPG for the vehicle. vehicle one costs $5000 and gets 1 mile to the gallon of gas and vehicle two costs $20000 and gets 38 miles to the gallon of gas. For most people, the more economical decision would be to buy the $20,000 vehicle because over the course of owning the car they would be far ahead of the game due to the 38 mpg!!! Now if the car is going to be driven 100 miles a year, I guess the $5000 car makes more sense...

My advice to office equipment buyers is this make sure you pay attention to your total cost of ownership. I have seen it numerous times where a buyer goes to Staples and buys a $300 multi-function printer and within a month they spend over $300 on supplies for the machine. Yet they think they got a great deal because they did not buy the $3000 machine that would have cost $30 a month to operate...simple math shows that within a year the $3000 purchase is ahead of the game...

Fortune Magazine Most Admired Technology Company...

2009-03-06T17:26:00.000-08:00

My Xerox Application Engineer, Jeremy Thompson, sent me this info...Here is a link to the article from Fortune magazine that ranks Xerox as the "Most Admired Company" in the computer industry.

Want a Greener Office?

2009-03-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

Good news about Xerox..."Xerox is the first technology company to be named a Performance Track Corporate Leader by the U.S. EPA, one of only five companies to ever receive this distinction."

Here are 7 tips from Xerox to Green your office...

One
Go digital – read, send and
store digital documents.

Two
Use paper wisely.

Three
Recycle the paper you use.

Four
Reach for ENERGY STAR®.

Five
Replace stand-alone office products
with multifunction systems.

Six
Return print/copy cartridges and
supplies for recycling.

Seven
Seek office equipment designed for
remanufacturing recycling.

Thanks to Damian Garafalo, Xerox Account Manager, for this info.

Why Bantam choose Xerox as its main manufacturer to represent?

2009-03-04T13:20:00.000-08:00

Bantam made the strategic decision to partner with Xerox because we feel that Xerox offers the best hardware and far more importantly the best pre and post sales support in the industry. Seems Gartner group agrees with this...

Xerox Positioned in the 'Leaders' Quadrant in the MFPs and Printers Magic Quadrant

Gartner released the 2008 Magic Quadrant for MFPs and Printers report and Xerox was positioned in the 'Leaders' Quadrant. Here is a link to the Gartner Report.

Why pay attention to printing in your business?

2009-03-03T09:12:00.000-08:00

"Office printing is typically the 3rd highest expense for businesses behind payroll and rent. Employees print on average 34 pages per day and 17% of printed pages end up not being used and thrown away or recycled"

"Each employee consumes on average $900 a year in printing resources and when they are told that their printing is tracked and monitiored, a typical reducition of 25% is found."

Companies have begun to realize that these costs need to be managed and the market is now delivering the solutions to this problem.

Source: PrintAudit

Why Managed Print Services?

2009-02-10T18:32:00.000-08:00

"Typically, most enterprises don't manage their printers. Organizations have fragmented purchasing for printers; usually, purchasing is done departmentally and supplies aren’t centralized, so they are paying the maximum amount that they can," says Peter Grant, the managing VP of Printing Markets for Gartner Research.

"A lot of time when IT managers go into these exercises, they don't even know how many printers that they actually have. In every case, people have more printers than they thought they had. In some cases, they have more printers than they have users in their organizations. Most organizations need to carefully examine their printer fleets. These network discovery tools are important and can find more savings than IT managers can do on their own. It is worth going through [the tools]," says Steve Reynolds, a printer analyst with Lyra Research.

I have yet to run an assessment for a client and had them tell me accurately how many printers they had. They typically are off by 20%.

Tough Economic Times

2009-02-10T17:46:00.001-08:00

Clearly we are in the midst of an economic downturn and nearly every business is struggling to varying degrees. What should we be doing for our clients and customers in order to grow our respective businesses? Maintain a laser focus on delivering value and cost recovery are what I am finding as the answer. In eleven years of selling I have never heard from the market as huge of a demand for solutions to reduce costs associated with office printing/copying and document management. Is this always possible? I wish the answer was yes, but more often then not we are finding ways to recover costs for our clients.

If your business is struggling I would suggest that you either look for ways to help your clients grow significantly their revenues or reduce costs. These are not revolutionary concepts, but today more then ever we have to clearly deliver these benefits for our clients and prospective clients.

We are all set.

2009-01-22T04:52:00.000-08:00

Fellow document consultants may be able to understand this dreaded response that is so often heard when we initially market our services. Here is the scenario; you meet a President of a company that has 50 or more printers and copiers in his business. You ask him, 'suppose we could improve your printer fleet and reduce your costs associated with your fleet by 40%, what would you say?" And they respond with the dreaded, "We are all set" or "We have contracts for that stuff", etc, etc, etc.

Many of you are as passionate about your solutions and services as I am and are probably frustrated by these responses. Why the frustration? In my ten years of being in this business, I have yet to find a company that when completely open with me (trusts me) in regards to their printer and copier inventory and costs that I could not make recommendations that would greatly improve their fleet and recover cost. These great results are what cause us to be passionate about bringing our services to the market place.

So, when we here the 'all set' objection to our marketing we get frustrated. How to overcome this? I have come to the conclusion that most prospects have an initial distrust of us, because we are viewed as the dreaded sales person. Admit it, none of us love salespeople. Think about going to buy car, is dealing with the salesperson the favorite part of the transaction for you? Unfortunately, the bad feelings we naturally have for car sales people are probably what our prospects have initially for us.

I have been helped greatly in understanding this by a sales coach I hired over two and half years ago, Chris Socha with TEM Associates. If you are frustrated with your sales efforts or looking to sell more, you may want to have a conversation with him. Here is a link to Chris Socha.

Entrepreneur?

2009-01-13T06:53:00.000-08:00

Are you an entrepreneur looking to grow?

If so, check out the blog for The Entrepreneur Circle...

Goldmine in your business?

2009-01-13T06:46:00.000-08:00

Is there a goldmine of untapped cost recovery in your business? Gardner group reports that companies spend on average 1-3% of total revenues on their copier/printer fleets. Our process of developing strategies to optimize an organization's printer fleet typically recover 20-47% of this spend!

In today's ever increasing competitive atmosphere and tough economic times, it may make sense for your comapany to be sure you are not bleeding money in your printer fleet. Want to make sure you are optimized and determine if there may be an oppourtunity to recover as much as 1% of your total revenues and return them to your bottomline? If so, give me a call @ 860-985-8960.

Improve your companies IT experience

2009-01-13T06:36:00.000-08:00

With the economy in a rut, businesses are looking to cut costs wherever they can and technology is usually the first place they look. We have partnered with NowITworks because of their awesome client service and the niche service they deliver can have a huge impact on many businesses bottomline.

In 2008, NowITworks had three large companies that decided to outsource with them rather than maintaining internal staff. They were able to save each company thousands of dollars on their costs and still offer more maintenance and proactive services. It made sense to them to have an outsourced department of skilled technicians proactively working 24/7 rather than one employee who only works 40 hours per week, not to mention the costs associated with hiring and maintaining employees (sick time, vacation, workers comp, etc). This may make sense for your business.

To learn more check out their website, www.nowitworks.com

THE BIG SECRET TO SAVE $$$ ON PRINTING...

2008-07-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

My competitors may get upset with me...but I am going to share with the world the big secret to managed print and how organizations can recover a ton of money for the bottomline. Here it is...it is not how much does a toner cost, but how much each print costs. Stop trying to buy 'cheaper' toners! Figure out how much each print costs, then find a service provider that will provide your organization with all consumables and service for a lower per page cost. The procurement side of companies has beaten up the copier industry for years to get low per cost per copy plans...but the IT side of the house has not done this yet.
Here is the secret,
STEP ONE: Determine your per page cost on every device. A true cost, don't base it on what the manufacturer says, because they base it on very low area coverages. Most manufacturers base their advertised yields on 5% area coverage. So they say buy this toner for $100 and your yield will be 10,000 pages at 5% area coverage. So someone says that printer has a per page cost of one cent($100/10,000 = $0.01). What happens if the area coverage is 20%, the per page cost just went up to four cents.
STEP TWO: Get onto a program where your supplies are included for a fixed per page cost, REGARDLESS of area coverage...

I have yet to run an assesment where I did not find at least a 20% hard cost savings by taking these two simple steps. This does not include a ton of soft cost savings...one monthly invoice vesus multiple invoices for toners, simple online supply fufillment, free overnight shipping, reduced burden on procurement for purchase orders, etc, etc...

Want to see if your organization can easily recover 20% of your current spend on printing while improving efficeny, give me a call at 860-985-8960. Ask for Tom.

What is a Bantam?

2008-07-23T14:04:00.000-07:00

I am often asked what is a Bantam or how did you come up with the name Bantam Document Consulting? Well, it is not because we are based in the small Connecticut town Bantam, Connecticut...we are acutally based in another small Connecticut town, Essex.
The name Bantam Document Consulting I borrowed from my alma mater, Trinity College. The mascot of Trinity College, is the Bantam. What is a Bantam? Click here to find out.

Hidden Cost Success Story

2008-07-10T19:37:00.001-07:00

Recently a colleague of mine ran a print assessment for a business in Connecticut with 60 color laser printers deployed at multiple locations. He found that these printers had an average use of 4,120 color printsper month and an average cost of $781 each for supplies monthly. Plus the client was processing on average 72 invoices monthly for the supplies that where required for these printers.

The new solution was to upgrade these old machines to new Xerox printers and gave the client a new cost basis of $495 per unit AND only ONE invoice per month. Over a 12 month period this solution represents a hard cost return to the bottomline of over $205,000! The client had no idea they where wasting that much money.

Is there an untapped gold mind in your organization? Call me and we can find out, Tom Richardell 860-985-8960.

Interesting Xerox videos on Youtube

2008-07-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

One of the most famous ads Xerox Corp ever ran, from the 1976 Super Bowl.

Dr. Randy Pausch

2008-06-10T21:43:00.000-07:00

I know that this is off the main subject of this blog, but it is my blog and I think this is important...Dr. Randy Pausch is the most amazing individual I have seen...if you are not familiar with this individual see the following sites:

http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/

His "Last Lecture" is the most amazing hour video I have ever seen, here is a link to it

In the past roughly 10 months Dr. Pausch has lived more then most of us can hope to in a lifetime and his impact on so many millions in this time is extraordinary.

Printed Emails??

2008-06-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

I was at a client location recently and saw two different users print out emails, read the printed out email, then throw out the paper. Why wont they just read the email on the computer monitor? Why waste paper and the consumables in the printer?
My guess is that folks are more comfortable reading from paper versus a computer screen. Maybe this phenomon explains why paper use in the US office increased 8% from 2006 to 2007.

Free Printers!!!

2008-05-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

Today there are a few manufacturers that will give organizations free printers...in fact I was recently at an office that had 11 folks working in the office and they had 11 free printers from a manufacturer. Why would a manufacturer give away free hardware? Why would an end user not use these printers? I mean the printer is free, you would have to be crazy to not use it, right?

The big question becomes what does it cost to operate, ie put supplies into the printer, bring service, etc?

You probably would not drive a free car if it was a car that gets 2 miles to the gallon with today's gas prices...?

Before taking the 'free' printer and deploying a bunch of them on your network, find out what it will cost to operate the printers. In the long run that free printer may cost a ton!

If you would like to speak with an expert, contact Tom: tom@bantamdoc.com or 860-985-8960.
Our initial conversation would be a free consultation, after which you can decide if we would have any next steps...

When to look at managed print?

2008-05-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

An organization should look at a managed print strategy when they want to maximize their bottom line... that is the wise guy answer, right? Well according to industry studies, organizations are spending between 3-6% of revenues on internal printing! And a solid strategy can typically reduce costs between 20-40%, so assuming an organization with a $10 million in revenue is currently spending 3% on its printing, $300,000 and they implement a strategy that reduce those costs by 20%, that would put $60,000 back on the bottom line, not bad?

If your organization can answer yes to one of the following questions, then it may be a good time to consider a managed print strategy:

Is your company in the second half of a copier lease?
Do you print high volumes daily?
Do you need a simple, cost effective source for equipment, service and supplies?
Does your business model charge back for prints?
Are you looking to upgrade your current printer hardware without a large capital investment?
Are end users frustrated?
Are IT folks frustrated supporting printers, are your talented IT professionals wasting their valuable time dealing with printers or copiers?
Are you concerned because you do not understand how much you are spending on internal printing?
Does it frustrate you that you can not accurately budget for the costs of operating your fleet of printers/copiers/fax machines?

If you would like to speak with an expert, contact Tom: tom@bantamdoc.com or 860-985-8960.
Our initial conversation would be a free consultation, after which you can decide if we would have any next steps...

First step in managing output devices...inventory...

2008-05-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

The first step is to understand the current state. This seems logical, but it is not very easy. How many devices are there? I have yet to meet with an IT professional who was able to tell me accurately how many devices they have on their network.

The initial step in understanding the current state is to inventory the current assets. Next, you need to understand if the assets are owned or leased, weather or not they have a maintenance agreement on them, how much are they used, and how are they used, etc...

How often are toner and other consumables being put into the assets? How does the actual toner and other consumables actual yield compare to the advertised yield? What is the area coverage of the toner on the paper?

These questions are just the tip of the iceberg in implementing an effective print strategy...

If you would like to speak with an expert, contact Tom tom@bantamdoc.com or 860-985-8960.
Our initial conversation would be a free consultation, after which you can decide if we would have any next steps...

What is Managed Print Services and why do organizations need it?

2008-05-26T18:42:00.000-07:00

According to Gartner, companies are recognizing that “output fleets (print-copy-fax) are one of the most overlooked and undermanaged corporate assets...representing a hidden gold mine of savings.”

Moreover, the long stagnant office equipment market has experienced tremendous growth over the past two years. Recent trends dictate the following:

Cost not understood: 90% of all companies do not know what they are currently spending on internal printing, nor do they fully understand their real and total cost per page
Convergence of technologies: the market is shifting from analog to digital technologies and to color and enterprise-class multifunction printers (MFP's).
Printing growth: the Internet has created an explosion in the number of print jobs generated by users. Paper use is increasing 6-8% each year, and is expected to continue growing. Print volume surpassed copy volume in 1995.
Increasing costs: 1%-3% of a company's revenue is spent on printing; that's $1-$3 million for a $100 million company.
Balanced deployment: companies are reconsidering traditional output fleet strategies in favor of consolidated, multi-function platforms that offer network printing, copying, scanning, faxing and digital sending in a single device, thereby reducing inventory and per page operating costs.

Fresh innovative new approach: over the past three years, Bantam Document Consulting has developed a proven solution to help companies audit, understand & control monthly cost per page and create a long term cost-effective strategy based on each client’s unique situation. Our exclusive solution includes complete comprehensive management for your current fleet, with any new hardware, on-site services, print consumables, software, support and training through one simple easy to understand solution.
Because most companies have no idea how much they’re spending on hardcopy production, sharp IT decision-makers are engaging the services of a consulting organization to conduct an output fleet assessment. Bantam Document Consulting is clearly not a hardware dealer with quotas to meet, and while most other vendors focus on consolidation strategies, Bantam Document Consulting employs a balanced deployment methodology from Xerox, understanding that all companies are different and typically require a mixture of both local printers and networked devices, including MFP's.
Bantam's output fleet assessment methodology combines Xerox’s best practices as the global leader in printing solutions, with an exclusive Bantam quantitative process that includes:

Inventory data collection of printers and copiers, local and network-attached
Review and analysis of toner and service spend data
Capture of page count meter data – from a sampling of devices or all devices - based on customer objectives
Interviews with key business units and power users to discover objectives and pain points with hard copy production
Total cost of ownership calculations based on pages printed, maintenance requirements, age of device, power consumption, space (real estate) requirements, functional specifications, and utilization levels
Delivery & presentation of a custom Balanced Deployment Technology Proposal with rightsizing recommendations to achieve maximum cost savings

Bantam Document Consulting

2008-05-26T18:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog! The purpose of this blog will be to share information around what I do well, help organizations effectively manage their printer fleets...