Business in trouble

[tcypy1961]

I started working for this company I now own in 1984. The man who owned it was old school and didn't change with the times. He did bring in digital copiers yet did not get involved with using them with anything but copiers. I have been fortunate to have the help of various people to set up my copiers for print/scan; I can muddle through the set up for print but have no luck with scanning. My business is suffering from this and the fact I can only get oof-lease copiers and can only afford the oldest still available. Consequence with this; noticing many of my customers are not copying as they use to due to them scanning or their business is struggling; and not doing color I'm losing customers. So I'm looking either to sale my company or partner up with another. I'm grossing $100,000/year. Any interested or ideas I haven't thought of. If I could find a salesperson that would help, however I can only offer at this time straight commision 60/cent of profit.
Thanks!!!

[Ikoner]

Re: Business in trouble

So I'm looking either to sale my company or partner up with another.

How many machines do you have in the field covered under annual service agreements?

[cccjjn]

Re: Business in trouble

Sadly, the days of the small start-up copier company are pretty much over. Your best bet is to partner with a local competitor who is bigger and can support you thru a manufacturer. You then become a selling agent for them while maintaining your base. My company does this for 3 local one man bands.

[PASTech]

Re: Business in trouble

These guys are probably right. Small start up business' are hard to keep alive, that is unless you live in a village of only your relatives who would sooner buy poor quality fake meat hot-dogs from you than give in tot he corporate hoodlums of the big city taking over their prime hunting territory.

But hey...

[DAG COPIERS & COMPUTERS]

Re: Business in trouble

Sadly, the days of the small start-up copier company are pretty much over. Your best bet is to partner with a local competitor who is bigger and can support you thru a manufacturer. You then become a selling agent for them while maintaining your base. My company does this for 3 local one man bands.

Slowly, the idea of the ''paperless office'' is taking shape the world over! This is posing a serious threat & challenge to the old time stand alone copier business. Both the hard copying & printing, as well faxing are slowly but surely yielding to the pressure of network scanning as more and more people now prefer to access and read their documents from their computer screens. The very word photocopier is becoming obsolete!

But do not give up as yet. ''Quitters never win, & Winners never quit''. The best thing to do in your circumstance as of now is to ACKNOWLEDGE that changes has occurred in this industry. This will mentally prepare you to accept the realities, ADOPT AND FORGE A WAY FORWARD. Some of the following steps could be useful:
1) Take up the advice of cccjjn above, to partner with other dealers.
2) Concentrate or focus your attention and energy on providing SERVICES only.
3) Recruit & Train ''Hybrid-Techs" who can handle both hardware repair as well as networking, IT and all
software related issues on the machines, rather than employing separately, a 'Traditional -Tech' and IT guy. This reduces cost of operation. In this way you will also 'be changing with the times'' other than ''being frozen in the past'' as did your former boss who sold you the business.

But never quit until you have got something else, better to do.

[krm]

Re: Business in trouble

I'm a 2+ year old one man band. I'm making $ and growing. I have a tech background and do all the service myself. You need to diversify and ask for other business at every visit to each customer. I have a partnership with an IT company. I refer all customers' without an IT provider to him. He does the hook ups and invoices them directly. I pre qualified his rates so I know he won't overcharge my customers. I track all my referrals to him and also tell him he needs to refer his clients needing MFP's to me. If I notice he is not referring me, I start meeting with other IT companies.
I have no overhead with this arrangement and I'm upfront with my customers' about the It relationship. Also, the direct billing washes my hands with the networking aspect, as I'm not great with it. I toyed with handling the invoicing and marking it up, but the headaches are not worth it. I follow up with my customers and make sure the It is done right and they are happy! Besides, most of my clients have IT people or providers and I offer to work with them for free when they buy new.
I worked for an old school company that ran from networking and it cost them big time! You must promote it.