Barry Simon
What a ride it’s been for Datamax President Barry Simon since entering the industry in the early 1980s. What started with office supplies has evolved into a career selling office technology and Managed IT. Simon’s Little Rock, Arkansas-based dealership is a major player in its market. Customers seem to love Datamax. There’s a good reason for that too. At Datamax the goal is to not only provide the utmost in customer service, but to turn customers into “Raving Fans” of Datamax. And they’ve got more than a few of those.
To get a better idea of how Datamax does it, I spoke with Barry Simon who was gracious enough to share his story with me and how he went about making all the right moves to create a successful office technology and Managed Services dealership.
How’d you get into the business?
Simon: My background was supplies. I got into the office supply business in 1978. In the late 1970s, early 1980s a friend introduced me to Dick Callier and Steve Sumner. Steve had an AB Dick Products company in St. Louis and they had just changed the name to Datamax. I started in the supplies business for them in St. Louis. Then, in 1983 we acquired AB Dick Products Company in Little Rock. I came here in 1985 and have been here since then. What a great business this is—technology and business to business.
Speaking of business, how’s business for Datamax?
Simon: We finished the end of last year strong because everybody was trying to close a lot of business to win our President’s Club trip. Because of that the first couple of months of this year were a little slow. We also got hit with weather, not that that should ever be an excuse, but we don’t ever get bad weather like that in Arkansas. We had to shut down for a few days, which is not what we’re used to. We have a good close list sitting out there so things are looking pretty good and I feel this is a promising year for the business.
What areas of the business are growing the fastest?
Simon: Managed Services and production print. At one time our black & white clicks were going backwards, now they’re moving up. And it’s not just because the cost of the click has come down. Color has picked up, and we just did a review with one of our manufacturers and the color side has gone up too. We’re also doing well with Lexmark’s A4 product line. That’s been a plus.
What’s going right for you in those segments?
Simon: We’ve been in the IT business ever since we acquired a computer company. Then we got involved with Paul Dippell of Service Leadership and that has helped us get more focused on the Managed Services side of our business.
In production we hired someone who understands workflow. If you’re selling production you better know workflow. We found the right person so we’re now more of an asset to that customer.
Do you have specialists selling Managed Services?
Simon: Different people call them different things. Some people call them subject matter experts; to me they’re salespeople. We have three salespeople on the IT side that could be considered subject matter experts. Because our copier salespeople have relationships with our customers they also have the ability to sell everything. That’s helped us and has made it easier and helped smooth the way for our IT people.
What segments of your business would you like to see do better?
Simon: Everybody talks about going beyond the box with solutions. For us solutions are Lexmark’s Virtual Solutions Center, Konica’s Dispatcher Phoenix, and with Canon it’s all about UniFlow. What we’ve done is to try to pick the right products and be the best with them. We need our salespeople when they’re out talking to customers to be solutions providers versus just selling the box. We’ve had some success, but it hasn’t been the success that we want.
How did you get into Managed Services?
Simon: If you remember the cliché, if you own the network, you own the account; I don’t know if we fit that, but we were thinking about it. So around 1998 we surveyed our customers, asking them if they trust us with their copiers how would they feel about us handling their computers and network? It wasn’t called Managed Services at that time; it was providing them with block time. They came back and said, “We like you as a copier company, but we don’t know if we would trust you as our IT provider.”
With that information we went looking for a company to acquire and did that in 2000. They were an Apple dealer that was strong in computers. That also helped with the production [side of our business] because we sold Canon color copiers. That evolved over the years. We went from selling a lot of computers and selling block time, and then document management. Now we manage their networks. I wouldn’t say we were ahead of our time, but making that acquisition allowed us to get into Managed Services early enough and make money at it.
How soon after you started offering Managed Services did you realize you were going to be successful or were seeing positives?
Simon: Almost immediately because our people felt this was a differentiator that none of our competitors at the time could do or were doing. It made it look like Datamax was in the technology business.
Who makes the best customer for Managed Services?
Simon: Preferably, customers who don’t have an IT person on staff.
What’s the one thing you know now about Managed Services that you wish you knew when you first started offering it?
Simon: I would have liked to have married our copier sales people with the people from the computer company up a little bit better so the merger of the two would have been smoother when calling on our customers.
That was part of it, and the other part was understanding that if you’re in the IT business, you can’t do this for everybody. You have to pick a niche and be good at it. For us it was 10-100 users with the sweet spot being 15-50 users.
You’ve got a diverse mix of technology partners on the hardware side, Canon, Konica Minolta, HP, Kyocera, Lexmark. How do you present such a diverse range to your customer base?
Simon: We started with Canon then added Kyocera’s printers so we could offer Managed Print. We wanted a product that we felt would be competitive and Kyocera fit that niche. Then we went to Lexmark for the A4 and they’ve been a great partner. Then we added Konica Minolta. They had been calling on us for four or five years. Konica was rising in color and people were telling me it wasn’t wise only having one product line. They told me if we had more than one line we’d get better support. The only time we sell HP is if somebody wants it; we don’t promote it, that’s not our main thrust.
We try to be vendor agnostic. Our people need to understand what Canon does, what Konica does, what Lexmark does, and they need to understand Kyocera printers. We understand the application and have accounts with all three product lines in them. You go into the hospital and you look at nursing stations, there’s nothing better than a Lexmark machine. And you have areas where Canon A3 is a better product, and production, we have Océ sitting next to Konica color. I don’t know if manufacturers would agree with me, but there are accounts I don’t think we’d have if we had only one product line.
You’re also big on document management; can you briefly explain your approach to that?
Simon: We started off with other document management companies before selecting Laserfiche and it’s been great. We have pretty good recurring revenue coming in from them and have people on Managed Services accounts where we also manage their document imaging. Laserfiche has been a good partner. We just secured a big worldwide account with their help. They are a good source for us and our people are focused on it. We have three people who understand workflow and the engineers who do the installation and understand workflow, and that’s the key. You have to make sure you’re a resource.
I find it interesting that when it comes to solutions you take a more generic approach rather than a specialized one?
Simon: We try not to do specializations for people. When you start doing that you get yourself in trouble. We try to stay within what we’re capable of doing. While they’re good at what they do, if your specialists leave, you will lose your ability to create ‘Raving Fans’ with your customers.
With so many different segments to your business and not being in a major market, how do you find the right people to staff these various segments of your business, especially since it seems that some of them need specific expertise?
Simon: We’ve been fortunate. I’ve been part of CDA since 1985. At that time there were a couple of dealers working with Mike Reardon. He and I met in 1995, shook hands, and agreed to a partnership. He introduced me to the process of Centers of Influence (COI). All our managers and supervisors focus on that. In that process we are always recruiting using COI.
The other thing we want is for our employees and customers to be raving fans. We encourage all our people to recommend us to their friends because if they’re not working for Datamax, they’re not working for the best company.
Between our COI’s and our people who have been here for a while, that has helped us. I tell our people we should never be surprised if somebody leaves the company, nor should an employee be surprised if we have to make a career adjustment. There should be constant feedback of what’s going on. We’ve been fortunate to keep some good people across the board and we’re constantly recruiting. This morning the VP of sales and I were at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. We went there to meet students graduating in May. It’s just constantly being out there.
Let’s talk more about you, what’s the best thing about what you do at Datamax?
Simon: I like seeing people succeed, prosper, and grow. When you’ve seen somebody who has been with you for 30 years and seen their kids grow up, that’s great.
You also appreciate the technology, don’t you?
Simon: We started with mimeographs, spirit duplicators, offset presses, and electronic typewriters. They’re all gone, but the business still continues to grow because of technology.
What’s the one thing you dislike most about running a dealership?
Simon: We’re all in a lot of meetings. That’s what presidents do. If they’re productive that’s okay, but I like being around people and being out there.
Can you imagine yourself doing anything else?
Simon: No, this is a great business.
What do you do for fun when you’re not working?
Simon: I get up every morning at 4 and go to the gym and work out. I also play golf, ride my bike, and just try to keep myself in shape.
How does the rest of 2015 look for Datamax?
Simon: It looks great. Now we just have to stay in tune with that. People respect what we inspect and we have to consistently inspect and have good close lists. I feel confident.
