Toni Gorveatt
President
Toni Gorveatt, president of Cobb Technologies in Richmond, VA, has a long, rich history in the office imaging space, tracing back to 1985 when she was selling for a Canon typewriter dealership. She’s been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and survived various acquisitions and transitions, finally finding a home at Cobb Technologies more than 20 years ago. Along with owner Freddy Cobb, Gorveatt has been instrumental in building and guiding that dealership from the ground up, starting with no customers to where it is today with seven locations and thousands of customers.
For more than 20 years, Cobb Technologies has been serving the needs of Virginia businesses, assisting them in enhancing their productivity and document workflow. Besides achieving success in an array of vertical markets, Cobb Technologies has been fortunate to hold the State of Virginia copier contract for more than 20 years. The dealership represents an array of vendors, including Canon, Océ, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, and Muratec, and offers a host of services from Managed IT to MPS as well as document management and print audit and workflow assessment solutions.
We caught up with Gorveatt in the middle of a typical busy day to talk about Cobb Technologies, the business, her career in the industry, the challenges she faces in her job, Managed IT Services, and why customers like doing business with Cobb.
How’s business this year at Cobb?
Gorveatt: Good. We’re on target, up a little, but not where I think we should be. We made a lot of changes and I’m optimistic about the latter part of the year. We’ve added a lot of resources which I think will help contribute to success in the sales arena.
Are certain segments of the business doing better than others?
Gorveatt: We’ve done well with large format. We struggled there for a number of years, then made some changes, developed a specialist, and now have experienced great success. We’re also starting to pick up speed in Managed Services.
Who are Cobb’s customers?
Gorveatt: Our sweet spot is small to medium sized businesses. We have a handful of very large customers that we service on a national scope.
Why do they like doing business with you?
Gorveatt: Customers like doing business with us because we’re responsive. When they need us we’re there and we resolve their issue quickly.
We have an internal support staff that cares for our customers and develops a personal relationship. Customers like having a “go to” person in addition to their sales executive. We schedule quarterly reviews for our customers in an effort to predict any technology challenges coming down the road. We strive to be proactive in resolving problems before they happen.
I understand Cobb makes a concerted effort to get customer feedback above and beyond the quarterly reviews?
Gorveatt: We survey our customers frequently to make sure our perception of what we think they feel is important is accurate. We started doing that a couple of years ago.
How long have you been offering Managed IT Services?
Gorveatt: We are going into our second year with a structured approach to managed services. We had to find the right people to lead that department and learn to do it correctly.
What makes the right person for that segment of your business?
Gorveatt: When we initially went to market with Managed IT Services we tried to incorporate some of our imaging personnel on that side of the business. We then realized that space required a completely different go-to-market strategy than our traditional imaging business. Some things that came natural on the imaging side are not effective with Managed Services.
What specific services are you offering under Managed IT Services?
Gorveatt: Cobb’s Managed IT services include network support as well as solutions. On the network side we focus on an all-inclusive contract. A few items include patch management, daily backups, monthly maintenance, and remote technical assistance. The solutions side focuses more on document management.
Who is your document management provider?
Gorveatt: Square9. Their SmartSearch product shows very nicely, has a nice price point, and is robust in its features.
I like that concept of “eco-efficiency” that you feature on your Website. Where did that concept originate?
Gorveatt: It was developed in our marketing department several years ago. Initially, it was a big buzzword; today, customers appreciate your efforts to contribute to a better environment.
Does the “eco-efficiency” message still resonate with customers?
Gorveatt: Absolutely. Customers like to identify with an organization that cares about more than just the machine they’re selling.
You operate with a higher than average number of service technicians in the field than most dealers. How has that affected your response times and how do you make that work, having those extra techs, from an operating expense perspective?
Gorveatt: We do have more field technicians than normal. From an expense standpoint we’ve always run a little higher in our labor costs when you look at our financial model compared to other dealers. We’ve had the State of Virginia contract for years so we require a higher number of techs to provide the level of service we offer in our SLAs.
What do you like best about what you do?
Gorveatt: There are huge opportunities for growth. You’re exposed to different areas in your customer’s environment that you historically have not played in. It’s interesting after doing the same thing for years you’re now faced with having to learn different technology, different areas of business, different ways to go to market.
You’ve been in the industry for 20 years; do you still find it fun?
Gorveatt: I do. I’m grateful because I know there are a lot of people who can’t say that about their job.
What’s your biggest challenge?
Gorveatt: Making sure the people I have on staff who are hard working, creative and positive are happy here. If you can keep those people fulfilled and happy it’s only going to benefit everything else you do.
Are those people easy to find?
Gorveatt: It is not always easy. When you are fortunate enough to hire great employees, you really want to take care of them.
What gets you excited about coming to work each day?
Gorveatt: The contact. I like working with our team—Cobb has a lot of inventive minds; people who get excited about new projects and opportunities. I never thought we’d be in the Managed Services space, but it’s been exciting to learn what it’s supposed to look like, how to do it well and how to make money while offering it.
Speaking of making money, how does the rest of the year look for Cobb Technologies?
Gorveatt: It looks good!
