Vertical marketing is a common business strategy to increase the percentage of successful sales. Offering products and services to a specific industry allows the seller to know the idiosyncrasies of a specific group of clients. Sales staff can specialize their knowledge and referral opportunities to maximize the closure rate in a given industry. When we hear from speakers at conferences, they will often cite healthcare, law, government, architecture, and advertising as the vertical markets to tap, and then the speaker usually proceeds to tell you how the software they are representing can help you and your client streamline their storage processes.
I rarely hear of a new vertical market that can be easily mined and controlled with your current operating system, data management software or manual file card you are currently using. But there are still plenty of vertical markets you can tap into, if you are able to think outside of the box.
For example, if your currently employed sales reps and field techs are closer to qualifying for social security than being able to legally drink alcohol, you already have the appropriate staff for this specific, and often overlooked, vertical market—the baby boomer generation. Any baby boomer sales rep, telemarketer or service tech will feel comfortable selling hardware to other baby boomers that distrust Smart phones, only use Facebook to communicate with their grandchildren, and still happily drive a car that uses gasoline and makes noise when you drive down the street.
The newest vertical market is your old fashioned local business that just needs a copier, fax and an inline printer. Nothing fast, nothing embedded, maybe color options. This vertical market will still request black and white printers. There is no need for words like monochrome, enabled, processor, MFP dual sided scanning, collator, networkable or cloud. They do not have an IT department and a cloud is still a white puffy object in the sky that sometimes creates rain.
The company needs a copier and fax. Nothing fancy. They already have a telephone line for the fax machine. They are requesting two pieces of equipment and two service agreements. There is no need to convince them to buy one machine that also scans and prints. Listen to the customer. Send in your baby boomer employee with a simple lease agreement. Make the transition to a new copier very simple. No networking necessary.
Many baby boomer buyers still prefer to pick up their office telephone and arrange for a face to face meeting where they will shake hands and offer you a cup of coffee without the Starbucks label. They prefer not to communicate by text or email. They still believe in personal interaction, eye to eye contact, and they might even sign a paper check to pay for the new copier and the first year of a maintenance agreement. These mature buyers feel more comfortable with people without spiked hair and no visible tattoos, and they do not depend on Siri to make their buying decision.
Smaller privately owned dealerships have a new opportunity to focus on a vertical market that is being ignored by the larger dealers and the OEM branches that are focusing on large and enterprise level customers hoping to maximize the MPS and document management market opportunities.
There are still millions of smaller companies, in most cases being owned or managed by successful baby boomers who prefer to conduct business in the same manner that has gotten them to their level of long term financial success. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the common mantra of the 50+ year old business owner who has no desire to shake up his staff, most of whom are in his own age generation, by staying ahead of the digital curve. “We’ve been making money for 30 years without hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on specialized software, ongoing upgrades, and constant training of our staff. I refuse to be held hostage by a disgruntled IT staff member (internal or external) that have the power to sabotage our entire database and billing system with a few key strokes. I refuse to allow technology to take over my business.”
There are still hundreds of thousands of businesses buying stand-alone copiers, printers and faxes. One look at the OEMs’ year end reports showing hundreds of thousands of equipment that stand alone or have a simple (non-networked) connection to a device proves a viable market. Dealers can make more money per device and per copy when sold individually. Yes, there is greater viability of profit with an increased scale of clicks. But every dealer in does not need to do $40,000,000 or even $4,000,000 a year to be profitable.
Variety is the spice of life. has more below $1,000,000 yearly revenue office equipment dealers than those dealers generating revenue of over $40,000,000. Each has their own niche in the market. Each can focus on differing vertical markets. Selling office equipment to baby boomer owned companies, generating under $1, 0000,000 per year is a profitable vertical market that is being completely ignored by many larger dealers who are focusing on companies that have a minimum of 50 connected devices making at least 100,000 clicks each month. That leaves this market wide open to smaller dealers.
While you are creating acceptable profitability by aggressively catering to the declining needs of the industry’s aging customers, keep in mind this market won’t be here forever. Your employees must be willing and able to embrace the changing world or face the consequences. You must actively plan and train for the future needs of your company, and invest in the education and business tools necessary for longevity. Your company’s baby boomer staff requires ongoing career counseling or else retirement planning.
