Renting Copiers, Fax Machines, and Printers Part VIIII
By Larry McGinnis

Part Nine: The tools

During the last eight months, we’ve been discussing setting up, running, and profiting from a rental business. As we’ve seen, a rental fleet can produce ongoing revenue and profits each month. Building a rental business will enable you to have a fixed income that is solid and reliable.

In these past eight articles, I’ve included the following rules that are, in my experience, absolutely necessary for developing a profitable rental program:

RULE #1:        You can't make a profit renting new machines.

RULE #2:        Never put out a machine that can’t recover its own cost in less than 10 months.

RULE #3:        Always limit the number of copies allowed each month, and charge for copies over the allowed amount.

RULE #4:        Each add-on feature is a separate machine in and of itself and must be charge for individually.

RULE #5:        Always charge for installation, and never let the customer pick up the equipment.

RULE #6:        Too much advertising can put you out of business.

RULE #7:        Never allow a customer to pick up the fax rental. Always deliver it.

RULE #8:        If you don't upgrade your customer, someone else will.

RULE #9:        Do your clean-and-check calls.

RULE #10:      Nothing will kill a rental faster than a machine that is constantly breaking down.

These rules have been discussed in detail during the last eight months. If you’ve missed any of these articles, you can find them at the ENX Website or by going to my Website, tec-aid.com.

What tools will you need to achieve success as a renter of copiers, fax machines, and printers? 

You’ll need proper sales tools--a good flier and sales aid program to produce meaningful proposals. You’ll also need a good service tracking program that will allow you to bill monthly and quarterly and allow you to track meters.

A good flier is indispensable. Prospects will hold on to a flier and refer to it when a need arises. A sample of an effective flier is shown here. A proposal is viewed as professional and will get more sales than a phone conversation. Any phone conversation should be followed up with a flier and a proposal. A good proposal will clearly spell out what is covered and what is not.

Service follow-up is essential for good customer relationships. Once you set up the account, you need to monitor it for meter overages and for excess service. If the machine is performing poorly, it’s important to jump on the problem and take care of it without delay. It’s also necessary that your service program have the ability to bill monthly and quarterly rentals and track the meters. Meter billings are an important part of the stream of revenue for the dealer. Most service dispatching programs don’t do this at all or they do it poorly. Rentals can be billed through QuickBooks, but it’s very cumbersome to handle the meter billing.

The rental bill should include: The time between billing periods (for example, Nov. 21, 2006, to Dec. 21, 2006), the monthly or quarterly base charge, the starting meter, and the number of copies made, including the amount owed for any overages. Saving up overages until the end a rental period (for example, one year) will amount to a large bill that may be difficult for your customer to pay and will draw undue attention to your rental. It’s easer to bill overages as you go along.

With all of the talk of shrinking margins and lower service revenue, renting is one way of building greater profitability into your business.

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Larry McGinnis brings over 30 years of experience to the office machine business. His company, TEC-AID, markets a service department management program called ServiceTrak and a sales aid program called SalesBuilder Plus. He can be reached by calling 866/983-2243 or check out his Website at tec-aid.com.