I like the Patreon idea to share your inside info with others. As a print shop owner myself, I am always curious to learn different techniques and ways other print shop owners are doing it. Now I am watching this from my office but I am 45 minutes early (as always) so that's how I justify watching the video.
The most important thing to do regarding service contracts is to keep the service contract 100% separate from your leasing or finance contract. A quality dealer can keep your machine running reliably under contract for 8-10 years without major price increases. Also read all of the fine print on your service contract before you sign it and beware of escalation clauses and if you're uncomfortable with what you find walk away or get it spelled out in writing what escalations you agree with. Be aware that the dealer quoting the lowest per click cost is seldom the best deal or the best dealer. The dealers that quote very low click charges are the ones who are going to escalate the contract quickly and try to force you to upgrade down the road based on them lowering the click cost that they escalated. The dealers who quote low on the per click cost are also the dealers most likely to cut corners and give poor service. The dealer who is quoting a per click cost that is fair to himself and the customer will not need to escalate the contract because he wasn't playing games from the get go and will not need to cut corners because his contracts are unprofitable. Your honest sales person in this business is not going to be the guy whose proposal seems the cheapest on paper. Honest equipment salesperson out.
I do try an mix distraction with productivity. Watching you in the morning with my coffee has taught me a lot about printing and how to improve my craft. A worthy distraction. Thank you for this... Ok, now if I can just make it out without clicking another video.... ;)
Yes, they are croked professionals. In my situation, here in Portugal, is even worse as we cannot operate these printers without contract. They will not service them unless you buy the press from them. And ther are no compatible consumables and parts on market, training and technitions besides them. If the contract is ended your'e stuck with a big pile of worthless scrap.
I bought a Paper cutter with $7,800 CAD (I'm in Canada). Today they sent me an email asked if I'm going to renew the maintenance agreement priced $1,200 CAD a year. I canceled the service. I don't know if I made the right decision, but do you think the charge is a bit too much?
You did the right thing, your cost to maintain the cutter should only be $30-$40 each time you want to sharpen it and few bucks for cutting sticks. WOW, $1200 a year, ridiculous!
Hopefully someday you can talk more about the finishing machines. The product line of printers are quite clear in the market, but after-print devices are huge in variety and so different in quality.
@@Jaystah2 Alot of it depends on your market. One luxury of having prior ownership of a Bindery is I got to go into a whole bunch of shops and I was like a kid in a candy store. I would see things that made so sense to someone is a baller. This particular shop on this channel looks really thought out and what he has fits his market in the finishing. He is definitely doing a good job of explaining his processing.....
Yes, you have to listen to EXACTLY what they say (or don't say). The most successful ones are totally up front. The ones in it to make a quick buck tend to play more loosely with the truth. For instance, "your contract is up soon". Well, how soon is soon? Exactly what date is it up? Can you show me the contract? (if its with KM it should be available on your MyKonicaMinolta.com. My point being, its a single source, easily accessible and should be absolutely current at all times. Much faster than going through paper files to find contracts and service agreements. BTW, if you are NOT using this site or it is not setup for your account, demand it. From there you can see all your agreements, dates, rates etc. You can order supplies (faster than a phone call) AND, especially for those who's business is printing (rather than those who print to do business) it can show you ALL your metrics, toner usage, up time, service history etc. It even jumps you up the service queue, no waiting for the operator to input it. You should see which tech is responding, how long since last call, number of clicks since last call etc. It can be a real eye opener and all the data is "live" pulled right from the same DB the company uses.
Two notes: Automated phone systems are great to get rid of telemarketers, but one of my suppliers takes FOREVER to return messages left. If you're going to have an automated system, check it often! Otherwise, you're likely going to frustrate your customers into going elsewhere. Second, overloading an email with questions to a client usually, though not always, ends up not having them all answered. I'd be a rich man indeed if I could have a dollar for every question sent that never gets responded to in the first email...It's a very sad fact that people just don't read. (wanna bet that this comment isn't fully read because YT doesn't show the full thing?)
I totally agree. If someone writes me a long winded email I often don't read it all. I check my phone messages throughout the day and call people back. I know, my suggestions sound like a bad move, but for me, it helped increase revenue. So far so good, its been about three years, but I guess time will tell if sales decline.
