Contractual Success: Dealers Map Out Path to Securing Major Accounts

Takedowns. Wins. Slaying the dragon. Nothing is quite so pleasing as capturing the business of a major client, with bonus points for wresting the account from a formidable competitor. In fact, the sales rep may add a little gusto to the bell ringing if the incumbent vendor was a manufacturer’s direct branch from a brand that competes with his/her dealer’s lines.

Regardless of the competitor, obtaining a large, net-new account brings cachet and also further validates the respect and prestige that are connected to your dealership. The office technology dealer space is hotly contested, and it says here that no self-respecting vendor would dare cast its primary value proposition as the low-cost provider to the business sector. The race to the bottom is a winless scenario, and the most successful dealers scoff at the notion that price is the number-one reason customers flock to their front door. Being competitively priced is acceptable, but in baseball lingo, it’s not an “out pitch,” but rather a setup for the more effective pitches in your arsenal.

This month’s State of the Industry report on contractual success includes a sampling of dealers’ biggest success stories that connect the dots from initial overture to the signing of a multi-year accord with a client. In the process, we see how these winning suitors were able to put forward a proposal that trumped a previous vendor’s offering and opened the door to increased opportunities beyond the initial inquiry.

Boomerang Takes Down Elephant

Atlantic Tomorrow’s Office
New York City

In the war room at Atlantic Tomorrow’s Office, the proper term for taking down a big account is elephant hunting. The big-game hunting metaphor is an apt one, conjuring thoughts of seeking out the biggest prey as a trophy score. Company President Larry Weiss views the game through three lenses: looking for net-new business (capturing someone else’s elephant), recovering old business (the elephant that got away) and expanding business within an existing account (feeding the elephant).

While scenarios one and three are compelling, there’s a certain added degree of satisfaction that accompanies reclaiming what was once yours. There can be a myriad of reasons for a client to turn elsewhere: a low-cost competitor swoops in with (sometimes-unfulfilled) promises, or perhaps your service dropped the ball delivering on client SLAs. But one of the more common derailments of an incumbent is a change in the offices of customer decision-makers, which could be accompanied by a review of vendors and the desire to do business with other entities.

That’s precisely what caused Atlantic Tomorrow’s Office to see one elephant—a major New York health care provider and one of the largest hospital systems in the country—defect to a manufacturer. The client’s key decision-makers were replaced by a new regime, which only underscores the sometimes-tentative hold competitors have on accounts in an era when personnel changes have intensified in number. It also illustrates the need to foster strong relationships within the upper echelon of organizations.

When relationships change, that creates a new opportunity. Or if the new provider screws up and the client says, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to fix this,’ that’s your chance to show that you can deliver.

– Larry Weiss, Atlantic Tomorrow’s Office

“You have to be in touch with an account at the C level on a constant basis,” Weiss explained. “You have to be sharing information and emphasize how you’re leveraging technology. You need to provide information about webinars, any technology shows relevant to them and, in our case, the IT webinar series we do. You have to be constantly communicating with that person, and it needs to be someone in the C suite. Leveraging social networks such as LinkedIn is important too, as they could end up recommending your company.”

In Atlantic’s case, a 17-year client came under new administration, and that regime had a previous relationship with the OEM. Throughout the first two years of the new five-year deal, Atlantic nonetheless stayed in close contact with the hospital, and it became clear the OEM couldn’t deliver on the promises it made at the onset. By year three, the hospital’s purchasing group was replaced and filled by incumbent personnel who knew Atlantic was more than capable of living up to its word.

“They did the process again and we won,” Weiss noted. “As easily as we lost, we regained the business.”

Better yet, Atlantic was able to double the size of the deal. It hired techs from the OEM and placed some on-site, assumed control of the servers and the gear, refreshed some of the equipment and managed it via MPS technology. Weiss is also looking to burgeon the agreement with label printers for badging and medical purposes. With additional software and other enhancements, Atlantic is not only bringing this customer’s engagement to new heights, it’s also effectively locking out threats from future competitors.

“We meet with their IT staff, they tell us what they’re looking for and we share with them the ways we can accomplish it. There’s a meeting of the minds, and we find the right solution,” he said. “I think the important thing is when you do lose an account, the inclination is to stop calling on them. We make an effort to drill it into everyone’s head to stay in touch. When relationships change, that creates a new opportunity. Or if the new provider screws up and the client says, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to fix this,’ that’s your chance to show that you can deliver.”

Being Authentic(ated) Nets New Client

Repeat Business Systems
Albany, New York

There must be something about Empire State dealers and health care facilities that makes for terrific theater. In the case of Repeat Business Systems (RBS)—which counts health care, finance and education among its strongest verticals—it was a matter of capitalizing on relationships and leveraging goodwill via preventive medicine that helped unseat a health care network’s business, according to President Dawn Abbuhl.

When dealing with local prospects and current clients, it’s always been a solid practice to be firmly entrenched within a community. With decades of business and involvement within Albany, a relatively small and tight-knit community, Abbuhl has that box checked. Ditto for keeping tabs on when contracts or leases are coming up for renewal.

With this particular prospect, the organization’s decision-maker—with whom Abbuhl had cultivated a relationship—decided to exit the company, leaving RBS temporarily in the dark. Fortunately, an RBS employee’s wife worked for the hospital and was able to identify the new point person.

“Our approach is multifaceted,” Abbuhl noted. “You have to use everything at your disposal. So we make sure that we develop relationships with key decision-makers, whether it’s somebody knows someone socially in the community or through a board. In this case, we had to rely on a little creativity.”

Our goal is to provide as many comprehensive services that we have at our disposal. Clients appreciate having one vendor that’s familiar with their copiers, network, VoIP and mailing, which are all interrelated.

– Dawn Abbuhl, Repeat Business Systems

RBS boasts divisions for IT, software, VoIP, mailing and shipping, with subject-matter experts in each, to draw upon. So when RBS’ IT division alerted the entire company to a development—Google requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) for platform access—it quickly became apparent that not all copiers and printers had the ability to comply. RBS notified its clients and shared an action plan for addressing the issue to mitigate business impacts.

The dealer also conveyed the news with prospects as a friendly gesture and to enhance its credibility. Included in that group was the health care prospect Abbuhl had been nurturing, which soon found that its vendor’s line of 250 devices wouldn’t function for scanning in the Google environment. Resolving the problem became a fast-track priority, and the hospital system continued to work with the manufacturer to rectify the compatibility issue.

In the interim, Abbuhl supplied them with a Ricoh loaner that was compatible to the Google MFA—which made for a quasi-audition, so to speak. The prospect appreciated RBS’ proactive approach (a full month before the new MFA standards would kick in), so when the incumbent provider failed to rectify the issue, the reins were handed over to Abbuhl and Co.

“We really took over that account because our IT department was proactive in providing us information that was valuable to every business,” she said. “And the more we get to know an account, the more opportunities we can find. Our goal is to provide as many comprehensive services that we have at our disposal. Clients appreciate having one vendor that’s familiar with their copiers, network, VoIP and mailing, which are all interrelated.

“Technology and needs are constantly changing. For example, security awareness training wasn’t really a thing 15 years ago, but now it’s big, and we provide options for it. It’s a combination of leading with that comprehensive group of services, learning more about the account and their workflow, and continuing to add more and more value to the relationship.”

Boxes of Technology for Big Move

Nauticon Office Solutions
Gaithersburg, Maryland

There’s an old quote popularly attributed to Woody Allen, though it likely predates the movie mogul, that observes, “If 90% of life is showing up, the other 10% depends on what you’re showing up for.” There’s something to be said for just being there, and while success in the office industry dictates much more is needed, opportunistic dealers can often flourish in the face of competitors that fail with some of the more elementary underpinnings of sales and service.

Nauticon Office Solutions doesn’t need foundering competition to elevate its sales game. However, in the mid-Atlantic region, a number of current and former core members of a manufacturer’s direct branch have experienced changes in their service and support functions in recent years. As such, John-Austin Shepard—Nauticon’s vice president of sales—believes it only magnifies his dealership’s status as a locally owned business that provides the highest quality of customer service.

In Shepard’s view, Nauticon’s business development approach remains fairly static, regardless of the deal’s eventual magnitude. “There’s typically more research, more of a personal touch and more contacts that we’re prospecting into a larger account, including multiple departments, key influencers, levels of decision-makers and the like,” he said. “However, our sales strategy and sales process methodology is, and has been, a great pillar of success to help clients of all sizes assess their new way of work to ensure they have the right technology in the right place doing the right jobs.”

We’ve continued to provide recommendations that allow [THE CLIENT] to expand within the Microsoft Office suite and access those tools through their MFPs.

– John-Austin Shepard, Nauticon Office Solutions

One of the most successful recent projects for Nauticon involved a large financial services firm that was moving into a new office space. The objective was to determine how their future printer and copier environment would look, and Nauticon was tasked with providing all walk-up copiers in addition to a production device for the firm’s internal marketing department.

The process required multiple walkthroughs and inventory of the client’s current office and a mapping of the new environment, which included multiple floors. Once completed, Nauticon was able to map out recommendations and assist in consolidating a lion’s share of the smaller printers into larger MFPs.

In terms of the production device, the client had been relying on another manufacturer’s hardware. So Nauticon showcased the capabilities of the Xerox Versant 280, which included color quality and device flexibility that could grow with their needs. Another selling point was the optional Vivid toner kits (gold, white, silver and clear) that could be incorporated into their direct marketing endeavors.

According to Shepard, the deal took slightly less than two months to complete, and the customer has grown its engagement with the dealer beyond the initial implementation. “We’ve continued to provide recommendations that allow them to expand within the Microsoft Office suite and access those tools through their MFPs,” he said. “The most recent addition was an MFP to replace their existing equipment in their New York office. We regularly get feedback from key stakeholders that we’re living up to our core value and mission of ‘Service First!’”

Transforming Races into Strolls

Spectrum Technologies
El Paso, Texas

The biggest takedowns, while offering a tidy profit, are generally the most competitive. Unfortunately, with competition comes the unfortunate race to the bottom, as we noted earlier. That makes it incumbent upon organizations such as Spectrum Technologies to change the tone and focus of the conversation. President Kyle Elliott believes the best tack is to turn the race into a walk.

“If possible, we really try to slow down the process and get a deep understanding of the landscape,” he said. “We need to determine what’s most valuable to the client and what pain points we can help them relieve. It could be price, but many times it’s not the primary factor.

“Our goal is to become a trusted asset and solve problems in their organization,” Elliott added. “It’s these opportunities that have provided a relative amount of success in recent years.”

One such example came earlier this year, when Spectrum hammered out a deal with a state, local and education (SLED) client for several thousand laptop computers. Elliott believes one of the reasons dealers avoid the space is because they anticipate single-digit margins in conjunction with long delivery times and lethargic payments. However, the value-add Spectrum’s team provided spoke to the client’s overtaxed IT department.

“Their internal IT department placed great value on our ability to layer in professional services such as imaging, asset-tagging, desktop deployment, domain connectivity and lifecycle management,” Elliott noted. “We’ve also developed custom software that allows our clients to view the real-time inventory they purchased (and stock in our warehouse) and place delivery tickets as needed.”

We need to determine what’s most valuable to the client and what pain points we can help them relieve. It could be price, but many times it’s not the primary factor.

– Kyle Elliott, Spectrum Technologies

Thus, despite the vertical’s reputation for not providing meaningful profits, Spectrum Technologies was able to flip the client into the win column in significant fashion. “Overall margins are solid, especially on larger ticket opportunities like this,” Elliott said.

Relentless Pursuit of Education

Donnellon McCarthy Enterprises
Cincinnati

Many dealers would probably enjoy reading a book touching on the success stories of sales reps who have spent years, and sometimes decades, in cultivating a customer. The relationship factor has long been the key to engagements, and timing can make all the difference—eventually. All the calls, lunches, tickets to a ball game and invitations to open houses may not pay off as quickly as a rep (and his/her dealership) would like, and sometimes a deal just never materializes.

One thing’s for sure—no calls, no sales. And when that persistence does pay off, it can be quite satisfying. Such was the case for Donnellon McCarthy Enterprises (DME) and a higher-education client in which it previously had sparse luck, managing to place a device here and there. Thus, when a major contract came up for bid, DME was able to leverage its previous cultivation investments, according to Rich Brandenburg, senior vice president of sales.

“The rep played a major role because he had built a great relationship over the course of 10 years meeting with them on a regular basis,” Brandenburg noted. “We have a proactive approach to working large deals with customers and net-new opportunities. Large deals that DME has come across are a product of the rep discovering them through their relationships.”

In putting the job out for bid, the higher-ed client was seeking to address a multitude of concerns stemming from the previous vendor. The primary issues arose from service times and supply chain disruptions that caused long waits for parts and supplies. DME was able to rise above the incumbent and other suitors via a regimented discovery and multiple presentations conducted on-site and at the dealer’s offices.

We have a proactive approach to working large deals with customers and net-new opportunities. Large deals that DME has come across are a product of the rep discovering them through their relationships.

– Rich Brandenburg, Donnellon McCarthy Enterprises

As Brandenburg observed, “We won their trust. Plus, we leveraged winning the MPS portion because we were awarded the copier business.”