Building a successful MPS business can be challenging. Often, a decision maker gets pitched on the benefits, signs on the dotted line and the deal is done. The seller implements the program, and just like magic, everyone is in love with this new way of doing things. Right?
Wrong. Imagine hundreds or thousands of employees going about their business without any idea someone has moved their cheese. The printer they’ve always used is running low on supplies, and the stash of extra toner is no longer in the supply closet. They email the person who orders the supplies, only to be told “I don’t do that anymore.” Someone in another department is dealing with a printer that appears to be broken. They turn to IT for help and hit a dead end—“we aren’t responsible for printers.” See where this is going? Without taking proper care to set upfront expectations, train end-users and carefully plot a course, your new MPS contract is doomed for failure. Not because it’s a bad program, but because the people using the program weren’t wooed from the beginning.
Laying Foundation
There are some things in the work environment that can easily be embraced and loved right from the start—a new Keurig in the coffee room, a better selection of snacks in the break room. But MPS doesn’t arrive in a shiny package. The efficiencies it creates aren’t always seen by the masses, and it involves change. Pitching the decision maker isn’t enough to ensure the program goes well. Ignoring the less-obvious details can really wreak havoc on the program—things like having a clear understanding of all of the stakeholders involved, the political landscape of the organization, understanding the special needs of critical users and uncovering the customer’s motivations.
Repeatable, profitable realization of your MPS practice requires a clear vision of your true capabilities, and an accurate explanation of your offering and value-proposition. While there are working definitions of managed print, in reality it means different things to different people. To some, it’s just a modified billing process to manage expense. To others, it’s full blown cost-per-image, inclusive of hardware, service and support. Without a clear commitment to your program capabilities, you’ll struggle to achieve alignment with customers and a repeatable sales motion. Do some soul searching. What solutions do you offer? What services are you exceptional at providing? What pain points can you resolve for customers? Being candid with yourself about your goals and motivations will allow you to better qualify customers and manage your sales pipeline—and ultimately lead to far fewer headaches surrounding your partnerships over the long haul.
Payoff Pitch
Successfully pitching the decision maker with your true MPS capabilities is only the beginning. Become a resource for your customers to educate everyone who will be impacted by the switch to a managed environment. Be transparent about the efficiencies it will create to help ease the pain of change. The end users deserve to know how the process works from the very beginning, rather than finding out after supplies run out or a machine breaks down. It will help you establish a level of trust within your customer’s organization so you both can arrive at “happily ever after” in MPS.
