Managed Mastery: Dynamic Growth in MPS and Cybersecurity Stokes Milner Inc.’s Dominance

During a hitch in the Navy, Tom McMahon received sage advice from a superior whom he considered a mentor. This was the 1980s, and this mentor wasn’t exactly a daily affirmation advocate or a life coach with a penchant for putting a comforting arm around your shoulder. Given the timeframe and the setting, it’s not surprising to hear that McMahon’s idol was a hard-ass.

One day, after McMahon had committed a gaffe, the grizzled veteran pulled him aside and offered this pithy observation: There are three things your team will ask themselves about you. Does this guy know what he’s doing? Can I trust him? And does he care about me? If the team can answer yes to all those questions, success will follow.

To understand and appreciate the underlying value of those three queries is to know Milner Inc., the five-tool dealership residing in the Atlanta suburb of Peachtree Corners, Georgia. All 350 employees can answer yes to those questions about McMahon, the company president. The same can be said for owner Gene “Dusty” Milner Jr.; son Cason Milner, regional vice president; and Anthony DelGrosso, regional vice president and Peter Massaro, vice president of operations.

It’s not to say the company is perfect, but the $100 million performer has full buy-in from its team, including its account executives. Need proof? Account reps’ average tenure is eight years, and the vast majority work on straight 100% commission. That’s entrepreneurial and a mark of confidence.

“One of the things I find most exciting about Milner is the fact that the owners have allowed me to be entrepreneurial,” McMahon said. “I love the company and the people I work with; on Sunday nights, I can’t wait for the new week to start. That’s something I couldn’t have said when I entered the industry with Lanier in 1987. We’re not perfect; we make mistakes, but we don’t run away from them. We run at them.

“It all starts at the top with Dusty Milner, who’s a very good businessperson. He has the kind of character that permeates throughout the company, not only in sales but also service and operations. And when you treat people well, they’re going to treat you well in return.”

The numbers back that notion. Milner appears to be hitting full stride, coming off a year in which the dealership registered its highest growth in more than 10 years. The performance was fueled by an explosive increase in managed print services (more than 300% growth) and cybersecurity (north of 200%). While many dealers have been enjoying success in the latter, such a high degree of growth in MPS is almost unheard of in the post-pandemic era.

With a thick playbook of product and service offerings (production equipment, VoIP, digital signage and a full managed IT discipline) and a cornucopia of vendor partners (Konica Minolta, HP, Lexmark, Brother and the cornerstone Ricoh relationship), Milner isn’t lacking in options to go deeper and wider with its 25,000-odd clients. It has five divisions: office imaging, IT services, phones, software support and a marketing arm (Milner Media).

On the Attack

From an overall success standpoint, McMahon cited strong organic growth led by an improved economy. Even considering the girth of the customer list, Milner has been “ferociously aggressive” in landing net-new accounts. A third growth trigger has been the dealer’s ability to hire impact players, including DelGrosso, whom McMahon believes has an unlimited ceiling within the organization. Plus, the dealer’s stout base of OEM partners truly allows it to be vendor agnostic, which enables its account reps to provide solutions that are in the customer’s best interests as opposed to being tethered to a single line.

As such, Milner has carved out a strong reputation that’s positioned it as an employment magnet. “We’re attracting a whole new generation of sales professionals, people who have worked for competitors and manufacturers,” McMahon said. “They’re hearing our name out in the streets, they like what we have to offer and they like our style. That’s been a big part of our success.”

DelGrosso, who joined Milner around the onset of the pandemic, got a taste of the dealer’s tactical approach at a time when business entrenchment was gripping much of the industry. “A lot of companies went into prevent defense, if you will, whereas Milner doubled-down offensively,” he said. “Prior to me joining, we had a sales blitz scheduled the day COVID was pretty much announced. We still had people out prospecting and helping customers. We were out there when no one else was.”

Another factor behind Milner’s performance outburst, according to DelGrosso, is the depth of experience it has in its cornerstone offerings. From managed IT to cybersecurity and phones, the dealer long ago worked out the bugs from these programs, whereas many competitors are only now diversifying into these areas. Toss in a flat organizational structure and the ability to be nimble when it comes to serving clients, and it makes for a substantial value proposition.

“We’re passionate about the business. We’ve had people who’ve been in the game a long time, yet they have more energy than people just starting out,” DelGrosso added. “It’s definitely an exciting time to be here, and we see a ton of opportunity in the marketplace.”

MPS Magic?

McMahon would like to say he has a special formula that’s driven Milner’s MPS machine, but none exists. It’s incumbent upon account reps to have a passion for the offering, he noted, and always hunt for ways to be more efficient, drive costs down and add value for clients. MPS is one of the most senior offerings, even more so than the aforementioned trio.

One of the keys was surviving the early 2000s, when a glut of MPS providers flooded the market. That led to the penny-a-print commoditization, which drove down value and discouraged many a sales rep, McMahon added. A lot of players exited the offering as a result, but Milner was able to maintain focus and redouble its efforts.

“You can really lose on MPS if you don’t manage the supply chain, the service and those meters really well,” he said. “The pandemic hit after MPS got watered down, and we were there at the right time with the right people. We just hit the gas, and we’re extremely passionate about it.

“Still, we don’t have any tools the competition doesn’t have. But we believe in MPS and understand it. We make it a part of every customer conversation, we make it easy to do business with us and we execute on it. If you don’t execute, it’s just a romantic story that doesn’t come to fruition.”

Adding cybersecurity to managed IT was a natural fit, a path many dealers and MSPs have taken. Of all the points of differentiation that can set one provider apart from another, McMahon stresses the important of response time. A four-hour response time may be workable for an MPS provider, but in IT (and cybersecurity in particular), minutes and seconds can be precious, particularly for an account that has been breached. The very best providers, he notes, have raised their game to address a high level of responsiveness.

McMahon also cautions against entering cybersecurity with less than a complete top-down commitment, great partners and skilled personnel. “If you’re getting into it by just taking someone else’s product and using their subject-matter experts, but only halfway arming your sales force, it’s a recipe for disaster,” he said. “You’re going to see a client get breached. It’s not a question of if but a question of when. And when it does happen, you’ll need to have your ‘A’ game with you. It requires having the right people in place. You’ll need to isolate it and have remediation, communication and public relations. PR is important because most clients don’t know how to handle the press.”

Igniting Excitement

One of the highlights of 2021 for the dealer was its virtual event, Milner Ignites. It was held in February, a full year since the news about the spread of COVID began. The show was a rousing success, as roughly 2,600 visitors checked in to watch real-time and recorded events. The keynote speaker was Jocko Willink, the author and Navy SEAL who’s since become an in-demand guest speaker. In addition to its manufacturer partners and equipment demonstrations, Milner had cybersecurity experts and the FBI presenting. McMahon noted his company sent lunch and various goodies to watch parties for clients across the country.

Perhaps its biggest advantage was learning from the mistakes of others. In the months following the unofficial March 2020 shutdown, there were many virtual shows across the business community, and some of them weren’t set up to maximize viewers’ time. Milner, however, made sure that visitors could take their pick of sessions and presentations on their own time in addition to the talks that were hard-scheduled (though they were also taped and available for later viewing).

“We’d seen events during which the host would have you log in at a certain time and then just throw material at you for the next three hours,” DelGrosso noted. “Milner Ignites didn’t force you into seeing something. The topics were all relevant to that time; there was no legacy information. We didn’t talk speeds and feeds. We held raffles, and there were chat forums. It was information that was important at such a critical time when there was so much uncertainty.”

Moving forward, McMahon sees Milner embracing a hybrid of in-person and virtual events. The company has also hosted events at sports stadiums that include tours to make for a quality customer experience in addition to the relevant content.

“We understand what the typical SMB goes through. Just like them, we need to make payroll every two weeks,” McMahon noted. “When you consider our employees and their families, that’s about 1,000 people, and we have to ensure we’re making good decisions that set us up for the future. So when we do a show like this, we have to have a hook to bring people in.”

Cultivating Relationships

Milner also keeps a close tab on client needs through its customer advisory councils, made up of geography-based groups of clients. The dealer’s executive team schedules social activities with these groups in an effort to forge close connections that really lock down pivotal relationships. The bi-directional flow of ideas serves both the dealer and end-user.

“Competitors want to get into our top 100 customers, and we try to do the same; it’s the law of the land,” McMahon noted. “When we develop those close relationships, it makes it more difficult for a low-price competitor or a manufacturer to break through. We form relationships up and down a client’s organization. It’s not just one-dimensional. That’s not news to any dealer, but you have to execute on it.”

While organic growth and net-new accounts are high on Milner’s priority list, the company is entertaining M&A overtures for dealers and MSPs looking to sell. McMahon is targeting “marquee markets” and believes sub-$10 million, family-owned businesses could dovetail nicely with Milner’s fifth-generation family leadership. As with most dealers that acquire, the deal would need to make business sense and yield an ROI within a given timeframe.

Looking ahead, Milner is working on some back-office efficiency improvements, migrating its three separate ERP systems into e-automate. As stated at the onset, Milner takes great pride in its workforce and will continue to attract the best talent. The financial goal is to reap 30% net-new business on the office imaging side.

One of the overarching goals for McMahon is to continue providing the brand of leadership that resonates with employees and yields positive results. His Navy experiences and journey coming up through the ranks with Lanier provided both good and bad examples of leadership in action.

“The military taught me a lot—attention to detail, commitment to your team, leaders eat last,” he said. “That’s all critical to leadership. We don’t micromanage; we hire the best, pay the best, stay away and let them do their jobs. The leadership team never forgets why we’re here. We’re here for our team.”

The Lanier Brothers, Dictation Equipment and Military Uniforms: The Fascinating History of Milner

Most historical timelines for dealers begin with selling typewriters, fax machines and various other tools that are now mostly obsolete. But the colorful backstory behind Milner merits a deeper dive.

The company was founded by the Lanier brothers—Hicks, Sartain and Thomas—in 1934 as, you guessed it, Lanier. The same brand that would eventually be absorbed by Ricoh. But the interim period has its share of twists and turns.

The trio initially sold dictation equipment to the Thomas Edison Company, as well as pegboard accounting systems. “Picture the Waltons, driving around the mountains, selling dictation equipment out of the back of a station wagon to doctors and lawyers,” noted Milner President Thomas McMahon.

Sadly, John-Boy wasn’t an account rep, and the rural America tone was shattered by World War II. Materials that were deemed essential for the war effort—tin, copper, rubber—were all key components of dictation equipment. That left the brothers in a quandary: Their business was essentially shuttered, they were too old to fight and they hadn’t recovered fully from The Great Depression, thus couldn’t retire. What to do?

Fortunately, one of the brothers saw a bid opportunity to produce Army uniforms. Despite having no experience in apparel, they won the contract and subsisted on uniform production. While they would return to office technology, the apparel business evolved into Oxford Industries, the owner of major clothing manufacturers including the ubiquitous Tommy Bahama casual wear. The Lanier/Milner families remain major shareholders.

Once the war ended, production returned to office technology wares, and Lanier grew from a $40 million dealership to a billion-dollar company with offices worldwide. Shortly after World War II, Hicks Lanier’s daughter, Joyce, married Gnee Milner Sr., who eventually stepped into the leadership fold and was the driving force behind Lanier’s rapid growth during the 60s, 70s and 80s. In 1987, Lanier was sold to Harris Corp., then Ricoh. Milner Inc. began as a $4 million dealer and is now in the $100 million range. It was truly a tale of three companies.