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“It’s all about education,” says Sheldon Michaels, Founder and President of Southern Office Machines. In this interview, he goes on to explain how he always starts by educating himself about a customer’s business processes and only then applying his product and service knowledge.
Imagers, as today’s printer/scanner/copier/fax machines are called, are a mature product line and “there’s a race to the bottom” in terms of their price. Michaels explains how a low price – free in some cases – can lead to an overly expensive decision. He advises identifying the smallest, sturdiest machine that has the features and functions you need and then determining your total cost of ownership. Think supplies, support and service. The copier might be inexpensive, but the the ink cartridges might cost a small fortune. The scanner might be inexpensive, but if its use is not intelligently integrated into your work flow, it might be the cause of lots and lots of wasted time. The printer might be inexpensive, but when it breaks down, you need a dealer who will be there to fix it.
Michaels also talked about treating his customers, “the way I would want to be treated.” Clearly he believes it’s not only easy to say, it’s also easy to do. He’d rather get $200 a month in supplies business vs. $250 if that’s what’s better for his customer. He’ll recommend scanning images to a free service like Google Docs, instead of selling someone a bigger, more expensive machine as long as it fulfills a customer’s requirements. Beginning to see why his business is still thriving after 26 years?
Managed Print Services or MPS is another reason. Whatever your business might be, you need to focus on it; not on your imagers. Southern Office Machines is in the imager business and with MPS, can apply all it’s knowledge to totally managing your imagers for a small fee based on number of monthly images. With that arrangement, everyone can stay focused on what they do best.
All sorts of other insights in this interview …like Sheldon’s view on the “paperless office.” Give it a listen!
[...] got a reminder yesterday during an interview on Business-To-Technology Radio with Sheldon Michaels, President of Southern Office Machines. He talked about “TCO” [...]