As the OEMs unveil more light production and production devices with advanced finishing capabilities, new opportunities and markets await the dealer marketing these devices for the first time. At the higher end of the production spectrum, dealers will be chasing an entirely new market (commercial print), while in light production, they’ll often be targeting some of the same customers and prospects they’ve been selling traditional office equipment to all along.
Either way for first timers to the space, it’s going to be a challenge, and one of the biggest challenges is establishing credibility. What can a dealer do to establish their credibility as a provider of production devices with current customers and prospects as well as customers in the commercial print market who they might not have been calling on in the past?
Richard Van Dyke
Advanced Office Services in Santa Ana, CA has been selling Ricoh production devices for years. Richard Van Dyke, co-owner, reveals that the company has a more cautious approach to marketing production these days. By narrowing its focus to certain types of customers, Advanced has been able to establish credibility with customers while also turning a profit.
“There was a time when we were so gung ho with selling more Ricoh production than any other entity, but we started to pull back because it was difficult to compete profitably, primarily on the aftermarket side,” reveals Van Dyke. “We are far more selective in the markets we [target] and want to ensure we’re picking markets where we can compete and earn an aftermarket profit.”
That means avoiding most commercial printers, print for pay, and school print shops, for example.
“We’d find ourselves having to sell against direct price per page, which is a losing proposition,” contends Van Dyke.
Advanced’s long-term relationship with Ricoh and its products adds another element of credibility.
“We’ve been with Ricoh for a long time and know their people well; we understand their products, we understand design, and we do a good job on the service side,” notes Van Dyke. “We want to make sure anything we sell—production in particular—that we can deliver a level of service that far exceeds what the competition offers today. That’s key in production.”
Cornerstone Office Systems, Kalamazoo, MI has been selling Sharp production devices ever since Sharp introduced them a few years ago. The dealership started by targeting existing customers.
Alan Valence
“We went to some of our more trusted customers who had a need [for a light production device] and it worked out beautifully,” states Alan Valence, general manager, Cornerstone Office Systems. “You already have trust and credibility with them.”
Virginia Business Systems in Richmond, VA sells Konica Minolta and Xerox light production machines. Here too the credibility of the manufacturer within the production space rubs off on the dealer.
“Konica Minolta has done a good job of getting the word out about their products through trade magazines and end user advertising,” says James Dotter, president of Virginia Business Systems. “When customers hear ‘Konica Minolta’ it’s not the first time. They’re familiar with the product, the awards they’ve received, and the capabilities [of the product].”
Jim Dotter
Virginia Business Systems and its sister company Edwards Business Systems in Bethlehem, PA recognized early on that they had to implement certain strategies to stand out from the competition when selling production devices, and by extension build their credibility in the market.
“We addressed items that were important to end users such as guaranteed response time, having parts and supplies on hand to keep [the device] up and running, and being able to run jobs if the customer’s systems were down for an extended period of time,” states Dotter. “It’s easy to say you can provide a loaner, but when the device is the size of a wall, that’s difficult to do.”
So when a customer’s device is down or a part is on back order, Virginia Business Systems steps in to ensure that the customer’s job is completed without their customer being impacted.
Rick Lingon
“From a marketing aspect, we invested in marketing pieces for production print so it’s not just, ‘By the way we also sell that.’ We’ve created some nice pieces that accent the hardware, the front-end solutions, and our servicing capability,” adds Rick Lingon, vice president of sales, Virginia Business Systems.
Edwards and Virginia also have an inside Help Desk that is adept at solving network issues and getting customers quickly back up and running. That too helps with credibility.
The commercial print market certainly poses a challenge for first timers, but that doesn’t mean it’s a market that they shouldn’t pursue.
“The first thing a dealer looking to establish credibility in the production market needs to do is demonstrate a commitment to the market,” opines John Corely, president, Channel Partner Operations, Xerox. “This is the big leagues and one of the most demanding markets. The output is either sold or consumed in-house and customers are looking for a production print professional that understands and is committed to the market.”
This is why the Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” works wonders for establishing credibility.
“Add staff with experience in sales, solutions and technical know-how,” recommends Corley. “Understand what you’re getting into. Customers demand remarkable image quality consistently with outstanding support. Particularly for service bureaus, it’s a mission critical capability. They need continuous uptime, sometimes 24/7 service.”
First timers can also emulate those dealers who are already selling to commercial printers.
John Corley
“They offer great equipment and position themselves as a trusted advisor,” states Corley. “Develop a strategy to differentiate yourself. What difference will you bring to the table?”
If you ask Brian Dollard, director of marketing with Canon U.S.A., the greatest challenge for a first time dealer selling production print equipment is establishing credibility from the outset.
“When you go into these commercial printers, in-plants, and transactional environments and sit down to talk to these people, they’re going to sniff you out quick to understand whether or not you know what you’re talking about,” says Dollard.
He cautions against going into these customers and calling the device you’re selling a copier. That undermines any credibility in their eyes.
“The second you call it a copier, you’ve just written yourself off,” maintains Dollard.
Brian Dollard
Training and education often serve as the foundations for building credibility.
“The dealer needs to make sure his people are trained with an understanding of their customer’s business, their applications, and their pain points so they can tailor a solution engineered towards solving their problems,” states Dollard.
And you need a solid understanding of your competition.
“You have no chance of doing that if you don’t have an intimate understanding of the applications or the technology,” emphasizes Dollard. “My advice for anybody getting into this for the first time is go out and find people who have been there and done that.”
“It goes beyond securing leading edge equipment,” says Jim Coriddi, vice president, Dealer Division, Ricoh Americas Corp. “Adding production print portfolio capabilities (both monochrome and color) and services offerings are routes for many dealers to open up new market opportunities and level the playing field, but to do this properly (and establish credibility) requires a level of commitment and investment. At Ricoh we work one-on-one with our dealer community taking a long close look at their businesses and collaborate with them on business plans that can help them expand their production print footprint. Based on those relationships, we believe that the two most important areas for dealers to focus on to establish themselves in the production space include staffing and partnering with the right vendor.”
Coriddi also emphasizes the importance of staffing.
Jim Coriddi
“Dealers need dedicated professionals that understand the nuances of the production print business. Establishing a production print team that consists of a specialist who can work with the general line sales team, an analyst to work on pre- and post-sales activities and tenured technicians to maintain products in the field, help ensure success in addressing the special needs of production customers. At Ricoh, we work with our dealers to help train staff to be those ‘experts’ on production print and/or help them in the search for that type of expert to add to their staff.”
Kent Villarreal, senior product manager, product planning and marketing, Sharp Electronics Corp. feels that it’s important to let customers know that you have the support of your manufacturer such as sales and service training. Service and response time are critical in the production space and Villarreal says it’s important to promote two-hour response time with 24-hour around the clock service.
Certification on Fiery products is another key for building credibility. That begins with Fiery Pro Certification and then making sure that certification logo is on the business cards of certified reps and techs.
Kent Villarreal
“That gives instant credibility for customers that have Fiery,” states Villarreal.
He also cautions against selling off a price sheet. Instead, bring in samples of output from the production device. Equally important in Villarreal’s view is having a demo model on the showroom floor where sales reps can produce samples of their customer’s or prospect’s output.
“Assuming they’ve done their due diligence, researched their marketplace, made the determination it’s a good fit for them and their business, and understand the investment because it’s a larger investment than with your traditional workgroup products, the first thing they need to do is hire the right staff that can speak the production print lingo,” contends Joe Contreras, director, product and solutions marketing, Toshiba America Business Solutions.
He advises against training existing sales reps about the unique requirements and intricacies of the production print market, not that it can’t be done.
Joe Contreras
“When you’re talking to a customer, they need to know what they’re talking about,” emphasizes Contreras. “This isn’t something where you can wing it and fake it ‘til you make it.”
EFI, a key player in the production space with its Fiery products, adds their perspective.
“Credibility has to be earned,” affirms John Henze, director of marketing for Fiery business, EFI.
That means understanding the customer’s business, business model, business environment, pain points, what they’re trying to accomplish, and what services and offerings they provide to their customers.
Henze emphasizes the importance of hiring production print subject matter experts, particularly when targeting commercial print.
John Henze
“I’ve seen it done well and I’ve seen it done poorly,” he concedes. “You can’t be a dealer that’s played for a number of years in an office environment and then just decide you’re going to get into production print and the next day start selling it. You’re going to fail. It’s bringing in the talent, or training the talent to get that experience.”
He emphasizes that it’s not just in sales, but equally or maybe more importantly, support and service staff.
“You need someone who can talk credibly with the customer about their business needs up front and you need the people to put together the right solution,” says Henze. “And you need people on the back end to answer the questions or fix the problem.”
Manufacturer Support
The most important asset to any dealer entering the production market for the first time is support from their manufacturer.
Virginia Business Systems isn’t shy about using Konica Minolta’s resources when necessary.
“Konica Minolta has done a great job with their production print team,” states Dotter. “They have sales specialists, engineers, almost anything you could ask for at our disposal. And they work exclusively with the dealer channel. They’ve been tremendous.”
As for Xerox, Dotter appreciates the company’s lead-generation program that provides the dealership with a spiff should they turn them onto a large business opportunity.
“Dealers can tap into the Xerox experience to help establish credibility in the light production and higher end product markets,” says Corley. “As a market leader, Xerox has a vast array of resources to support our dealers and to help get them started. We can help with plan development, training and marketing support.”
Canon can help dealers with the education component and has what Dollard describes as a sophisticated and robust training organization.
“When we sign on a new dealer there’s an on-boarding process for their sales and technical support people, and in some cases administrative as well as management to understand fully what the products are, how they fit into the market, and what our value proposition is,” reveals Dollard. “But we take it a step further than that. It’s not just a matter of having that knowledge transferred; at Canon we supplement that with a team of production sales consultants. These are people that are out there to ease that ramp up and transition into production.”
Canon’s production sales consultants go into the field with the dealer’s sales people, assist with product demonstrations, and help design systems that are tailored to the customer’s specific needs.
“Even under the best of circumstances if you go out and hire people in this regard, that experienced person may come in with an understanding of the market but they may not have the intimate knowledge of the Canon products and how we address all the pain points in the market,” states Dollard.
Canon has discovered that the average dealer getting into production relies heavily on Canon’s production sales specialists for the first six to 12 months. After they’ve had some time and experience they become self sufficient.
“They never really completely wean them off that resource and that’s okay, we definitely want to help our least experienced dealer’s ramp up, but we also want to be there for our most experienced dealers when they have critical opportunities and feel a helping hand from the manufacturer would be important,” says Dollard.
Ricoh has a wealth of offerings to assist the dealer community in establishing themselves in the production print markets.
“The most common concern for most of our dealer partners is the initial investment,” opines Coriddi. “But what we say to them is that based on the opportunity, they can’t afford not to get involved in this space. After all, it is the one part of the business where print volume continues to increase and continues to be an area where customers are constantly looking to grow.”
Understanding this, Ricoh is determined to helping educate its dealers on the value production print can bring to their portfolio, and how to best engage with their customers. This includes:
- Comprehensive training of their staff, in order to help them understand the many available features on each piece of equipment as well as differences between general office sales and the production environment.
- The CHAMPS Program, which features comprehensive cloud IT services, allowing dealers to expand their IT portfolio offering to customers without a large upfront investment. Services they can utilize and offer their customers include Total IT Help Desk, Server Management, hosted Exchange e-mail, and e-mail archiving. In addition, CHAMPs provides production and commercial imaging services that dealers can repurpose for their customers.
- Marketing tools. Through Ricoh’s Avanti investment and MarcomCentral (formerly PTI) acquisition, it has been providing solutions for years to help printers find additional revenue streams, such as offering fully integrated marketing campaigns.
Sharp has a bounty of resources for its dealers who are selling production devices, including collateral that touts the third-party awards they’ve won in the space. This establishes credibility for the dealer and the Sharp equipment. Sharp also creates case studies and other materials that illustrate the quality and performance of its products.
“We’re trying to build that credibility in this market since we’re a new player to the game from a color standpoint,” acknowledges Villarreal.
He also emphasizes the service and sales support that Sharp provides.
“When we first launched our Pro Series lineup, we hired regional production print specialists,” explains Villarreal. “They evangelize the product, help dealers look for opportunities, and assist with demo days in their dealership with confirmed prospects.”
In addition, Sharp production print specialists, who are Expert Certified by EFI, can help demo the equipment. This strategy has been particularly effective with Villarreal reporting that Sharp dealers are enjoying a 50 percent close ratio when that happens.
Cornerstone has received plenty of help from Sharp, particularly from Sharp’s production specialist and the regional EFI rep.
“He did a phenomenal job of putting the customer at ease,” says Valence about the Fiery rep. “This was a big confidence booster for us to make sure we got off on the right foot.”
Toshiba has an extensive program in place for both sales and technical personnel to help get the dealer ramped up.
“We understand it’s a unique product and selling and supporting it is going to be different than your standard workgroup office product,” states Contreras. “From a technical standpoint we ensure the dealer’s technical staff understands how to service it and how to maintain it, because these are critical devices within an organization.”
As one would expect, Toshiba also trains sales reps about the nuances of the product and production print requirements.
“We also participate in joint sales calls to help them win sales opportunities,” adds Contreras.
EFI offers an array of resources for its Fiery business, including 26 different interactive e-learning courses that help dealers better understand the products EFI provides along with step-by-step how-to guides that explain how to impose a job, create a color profile, etc. The company also has short videos in its partner portal plus its certification program with two different levels of certification.
Henze reports that there are probably more than 1,500 Fiery certified professionals selling Fiery products with many in the dealer community being Pro Certified.
“Dealers have grabbed onto that because it creates knowledge and helps differentiate them, and now they market it by telling customers, ‘I have Fiery certified professionals on my staff,’” says Henze.
EFI also provides the dealer with presales technical support to post-sales break-fix support, to upfront services on designing the right workflow or helping automate repetitive tasks. This can help reduce support calls because now the dealer can resolve more issues on their own.
“The Fiery business itself has 100+ field folks/subject matter experts on Fiery products throughout the world plus a huge support organization. [Dealers] know if there’s a problem they can call somebody and get an answer,” concludes Henze.
