June 1, 2010
Notes From the Editor
When you see your business six months from now, are you happy withthe vision or is what you see murky?
Briefing
The majority ownership of industry titans Clover Technologies and West Point Products transferred to Golden Gate Capital this month, a private equity investment firm with approximately $8.0 billion of capital. From Tricia Judge, the first industry interview with the heads of Clover and WPP.
Company Profiles
Part of being a successful business is having the foresight and willingness to change and adapt with the industry. Phoenix-based LMI Solutions has morphed many of its business practices to stay ahead of the trends and to be able to provide the most effective offerings to its customers.
Legal / Advice of Counsel
Buying or selling a business entails substantially more than negotiating an acceptable purchase price. Zygoquest's Mike Dudek, Esq., CPA, offers key information you need to negotiate the critical terms and conditions to arrive at a quality transaction.
Managed Print Solutions
View this journey into MPS as a climb, one that will require planning and commitment to these ten principles. The reward will be new revenue and higher gross profits.
GreatAmerica's Sarah Henderson shares some of these MPS laws of success with you.
If you are not in MPS today you have clearly made a decision not to enter the space. If you are in the MPS space there is a good chance that you are struggling. Tom Callinan of Strategy Development shows you ways to improve your MPS initiative.
Take a look at your present sales team and determine what they will need to change in order to effectively sell a managed print strategy. InkCycle's Carl Little provides steps to help you funnel the right people into the right place for a successful MPS team.
PrintFleet's Paula Moloney helps you develop a clear, concise marketing program you can use to quickly educate your customers and remove any doubts or confusion they may have about the benefits of your managed print solution.
United Stationers' Doug Nash provides a case study on Chesapeake Business Forms, a $4 million distributor of office supplies, business forms and advertising specialties, that uses MPS to evaluate its customers’ printing needs and to control printing costs.
Printer Essentials' Gregg Mader helps you gain a full understanding of what your customer needs and goals are and how to become a true advisor and business partner for the long term.
Many MPS dealer principals are realizing they need to build out the sales compensation model upfront. Many assume there is a standard sales compensation model for managed print services. There isn’t. Building a sales compensation model is based on a number of variables. Supplies Network's Doug Johnson shows you how to build the right model for your team.
Sales & Marketing
Much like the mythical unicorn, many people have claimed to have crafted the perfect sales compensation plan, but in reality it is only a fantasy. The good news for the "unicorn hunters" today is that there are some best practices for designing and delivering a compensation plan to help reach your goals of recruiting and retaining the real prize: a top performing workforce. GreatAmerica's Sally Brause shows you how.
As you make plans for growing your business in this decade and beyond, first make sure you aren’t carrying any old baggage along with you. Take a look at five common mistakes that were made by many small business owners during the economic downturn. If any look familiar to you, resolve to correct them now so you can begin the new decade with a fresh start.
Step-by-Step / Remanufacturing Instructions
First released in May 2009, the Xerox Phaser 6280 Engine is a 31ppm black and 26ppm color engine that runs at 600 dpi. The first page out is stated to be less than 10 seconds, and the printer runs off a 400 MHz processor. The memory comes standard at 256MB and is expandable to 1.2GB. They are extremely profitable cartridges to do.
Ask Dr. D
So what can you do to get more quality traffic to your website without having to give away all your profits? Dr. Dimitris Constantinou of Easy Group responds with insight in this exclusive monthly feature.
Memorial
Dennis Houck, owner of Northeast Laser Toner and Int’l ITC Chapter Chairman for the northeast chapter, passed away in May. Houck, 64, was a founding member of the Int’l ITC and had been an industry advocate for more than a decade.