Tremendous Takedowns: Dealers Share Insights into Constructing the Seven-Figure Deal

For a dealer account representative, building an impressive (and lucrative) deal that only begins with an MFP is like organizing a parade. Think of the most impressive one you’ve attended and all the elements that combined to make for an epic experience. Consider the coordination and preparation, and the disparate features that tied it all together: floats, rescue vehicles, youth and adult marching and string bands, community organizations, food and souvenir vendors, politicians, muscle cars—the list goes on and on.

Then ask yourself one question: was a single person responsible for bringing it all together? That answer is easy—of course not. It was an all-hands-on-deck exercise to make sure the event would go off as planned with as few hitches as possible.

Selling certainly isn’t a solo act. All things considered, every sales rep should seek to close a significant deal that will result in:

1. A substantial installation
2. A host of managed services
3. Software
4. A bevy of add-ons that will yield monthly recurring revenue
5. The door left open for growth
6. Entrenchment as a provider, making it difficult for the customer to look elsewhere
7. Significant revenue for the dealership
8. One spicy commission meatball!

Thinking big is the first step toward reaping the benefits of a huge multi-faceted deal, an epic takedown that will reverberate across the company. It also takes painstaking research and the ability to leverage sales managers, product managers, subject-matter experts and manufacturer resources, not to mention the corner office. Many presidents and CEOs made their bones as salespeople, and most love to get involved in major projects.

For our State of the Industry report on contractual success, we’ve collected the thoughts of some of the industry’s leading sales mavens who are always seeking to turn a possible MFP sale into a high six- or seven-figure megadeal. They’ll share the methods behind their line of attack while providing examples of trophy takedowns and the story behind how they took on a life of their own.

Enterprise Liftoff

When a dealer such as United Business Technologies (UBT) of Gaithersburg, Maryland, enjoys success in enterprise accounts—household names in the entertainment, real estate, hospitality and charter school worlds—it’s not uncommon to have large-scale installations become the default setting. Being one of the largest Canon dealers in the country, backed by veteran sales and service team members, creates an atmosphere that encourages big thinking, according to Stu Wise, president and COO of UBT.

There’s no secret to UBT’s success. Cultivating decades-long relationships has served it well, but sometimes clients need to be reclaimed. Timing is everything, Wise notes; knowing when an agreement is sunsetting is vital, particularly when struggling manufacturers—which have the ability to craft a national solution for multi-facility clients—are becoming more aggressive. Those prospects that do RFPs tend to keep the field to five or fewer suitors.

Enterprise clients tend not to vendor-hop, and when they do look elsewhere, dissatisfaction with the incumbent provider is generally the culprit. UBT will assess the level of contact it’s already established (if any) with the prospect, particularly in the C-suite or at the VP/director level. Another checkpoint is whether UBT will get a chance to make an oral presentation. If all these factors aren’t present, the dealer tends not to pursue.

We cultivate that prospect over time and communicate with them, invite them to an educational event or a ballgame. So when an account comes up for renewal, and the client is dissatisfied, we’ll have that level of contact and have the opportunity to present.

– Stu Wise, United Business Technologies

Biding one’s time is a lost art form. “We tend to play more in the Fortune 1000-2000 space,” Wise noted. “We cultivate that prospect over time and communicate with them, invite them to an educational event or a ballgame. So when an account comes up for renewal, and the client is dissatisfied, we’ll have that level of contact and have the opportunity to present.”

Wise finds that 12-18 months before a deal’s expiration is generally when a dissatisfied prospect will give serious thought to making a change, as the client generally requires that span to begin the vetting process. In some cases, reps have been calling on prospects for 10 or more years.

One of the largest players in the entertainment industry leaned on UBT for a (still) growing deal that carried a high degree of difficulty. The client wanted flexibility to downsize, given a rash of acquisitions the client made. In all, more than 2,000 units were installed across the country, and while UBT has offices in New York and Los Angeles, it required project managers coordinating with other dealers nationwide that could adhere to delivery schedules and meet high-quality standards. The level of detail required kept the project managers on their toes. It also entailed migrating print, scan and the client’s server infrastructure to uniFLOW cloud.

Without naming the clients, UBT previously had the business of another entity that eventually joined forces with the client in question. Backed by a crew of three veteran IT analysts, the dealer was able to meld the two organizations together from an IT infrastructure standpoint. One UBT analyst dedicated an entire year to the installation and networking.

“It was taxing logistically,” Wise admitted. “We had to acquire extra warehouse space, which proved to be an expense. And your people need to have aptitude and flexibility. It just required a lot of resources that many independent dealers couldn’t handle.”

No Easy Shortcuts

Hunter Woolfolk wishes he had a secret recipe he could hide from competitors, but the co-president of DOCUmation in San Antonio, Texas, knows it’s just a matter of executing on the blocking and tackling fundamentals. Prospecting and referrals lead to the best opportunities, and when the client in question is a large hospital system or an oil company, that’s when a garden variety opportunity can turn into a strategic account.

The best first step toward a major deal can be a facilities management (FM) contract, which goes beyond managing a fleet of MFPs and printers to include the client’s production facility and the half-million dollar devices. As the manager, DOCUmation might act as backup for the client’s reception services, perform mail management, or provide scanning/digitizing of office documents. The client can also take advantage of the dealer’s print shop to handle their outsourcing needs.

Beyond FM, an array of offerings including interactive display panels and phone systems help take clients across DOCUmation’s full catalog. Process automation from DocuWare and PaperCut software keeps the deal snowballing.

“A million-dollar customer can quickly turn into a $2-$3 million customer when they’re aware of all the solutions we can provide,” he said. “We keep assessing individually, and it keeps growing.”

Previously, a down-the-street rep might’ve had 400 customers, and with such a wide base to maintain, cultivating the larger strategic accounts becomes more difficult. A modified approach has bolstered DOCUmation’s account reps and the ability to scale deals. Using a more team-based philosophy, the rep can focus on the printing fleet. The director of the strategic account division engages the client with analysts, CSRs, project managers, pre-sales production, the FM team and others, providing a broader understanding of the dealer’s value propositions. That’s where the deal transforms from a fleet purchase to a strategic offering.

A million-dollar customer can quickly turn into a $2-$3 million customer when they’re aware of all the solutions we can provide.

– Hunter Woolfolk, DOCUmation

Sometimes, revisiting an existing account has the same upsell potential as a new client. One long-term print customer, a non-profit organization, yielded a tremendous upswing in MRR after engaging with DOCUmation’s solutions director. What started out as software turned into a million-dollar scanning deal, later sweetened with a DocuWare process automation solution. The deeper DOCUmation’s solutions team dug, the deeper the roots it was able to grow with the client.

“The key was the strategic team coming in and loving on [the client], spending time to really dive into their needs,” Woolfolk noted. “We discovered they had another division of remote locations that we didn’t serve. That transformed a $1 million account to a $3 million account.”

The line between winning and losing a deal is perhaps not as thin as it should be, as the blocking and tackling Woolfolk alluded to earlier is often neglected in the form of extreme billing issues, poor support, ugly overages on pricing programs, terrible service—the list goes on. The service decline, he feels, has been precipitous in the years following the pandemic.

On the other hand, Woolfolk sees a high-performing class of dealers that still knows how to treat a customer. “In Texas, there’s a handful of dealers, $10 million and higher privately held companies, that have thrived and grown,” he said. “Across the U.S., companies such as RJ Young and Applied Innovation—those companies that can provide quality service—are eating up the base because the mega dealers are worse than ever and the little ones are disappearing.”

Known Quality

When vying for a project, be it in a competitive situation or an instance when a potential client has reached out, having a sterling reputation is a tremendous asset. Businesses within a vertical talk to one another more often than we imagine, and having a positive reputation that precedes a vendor can essentially do some of the legwork of a sales or marketing effort. It comes as no surprise, however, that the very best vendors can often justify higher prices, and part of that is due to the fact they’re not interested in clients seeking the lowest-cost solutions.

Applied Innovation fits this description. The Grand Rapids, Michigan, dealer has spent virtually its entire existence crafting a hallowed reputation, one that permeates its corporate culture and denotes high quality, excellent service and top-flight managed services. These qualities stand in stark contrast to many competitors, particularly those in the manufacturer direct landscape, that cannot deliver on the most rudimentary value propositions, notes John Konynenbelt, vice president of sales for Applied Innovation. Directs often lack the flexibility of independent dealers when confronted with customization or special requests; Konynenbelt uses the analogy of “turning a cruise ship around in a creek.”

This only underscores the value of Applied Innovation. “The customization, that adherence to end-user satisfaction, is important,” he said. “Our ideal clients value quality. Those that value lowest price—quite frankly, I don’t want them as clients.”

One of the more impressive deals Applied Imaging managed to secure was, at face value, nothing all that spectacular. In fact, Konynenbelt notes the total product offering didn’t vary much from what the client—a health care provider—already had in place. But the manufacturer direct couldn’t keep pace with the dealer when it came to elements falling under the three main areas of imaging, technology and automation: business process management, managed IT and remote support. The incumbent’s service component was woefully lacking, whether it came to issues of billing or technical service.

“It all came down to our ability to implement some of the same solutions in a much quicker, more flexible, easier-to-understand way than what they were previously getting,” Konynenbelt said. “One of our greatest benefits is our call center (CLC), where the phone is answered within four rings by a person and not an automated system. We can deliver the service in a timely manner.”

Our ideal clients value quality. Those that value lowest price—quite frankly, I don’t want them as clients.

– John Konynenbelt, Applied Innovation

Konynenbelt’s case in point: Applied Innovation held a panel for its sales team of 125 sales professionals, consisting of five clients, occupying mostly CIO/CFO/IT director roles. The main question posed was why larger accounts selected Applied Innovation. One of the most revealing comments came from a client who had left Applied in favor of another provider, only to come back. The account stated the reason he returned was because while no contract and or vendor always executes to perfection, Applied Innovation was quick to respond and pivot wherever and whenever needed to keep the client happy. The ability to adapt and respond to constantly changing business conditions at the client level made all the difference.

“That’s a great value proposition to have, whether you’re big or small,” Konynenbelt added.

Follow the Process

Constructing the ultimate contract or agreement is a matter of following a systemic approach for UBEO Business Services of Austin, Texas. Like most dealers, UBEO leverages business reviews to identify clients that have the potential to benefit from the full line of products and services. Where President Jim Morrissey feels UBEO separates itself is in the planning and execution of this process. The net-new line of attack is mapped out by sales representatives at the onset of a new year. The account representatives have to identify all their targets as part of their business plan.

“We then put all our guns on that customer relative to solicitation,” he said. “We built a demand gen team that’s very sophisticated with tons of technology wrapped around it with HubSpot. It’s a high-powered call center, and we focus on those accounts and getting appointments with them for the sales professionals. The CRM is connected to the demand gen and HubSpot, so the reps can see the activity that has been going on. And then the rep is responsible for coordinating that effort to get an appointment in that account.”

Once the appointment is secured, Morrissey is confident that UBEO’s value proposition can do the heavy lifting in getting wider and deeper into an account at the C-level, which is critical. Penetrating a new account at the print procurement level will not produce the desired results, and reps must discover the vital contacts for each of the disciplines UBEO may be able to address, from production print to security and workflow. This helps to avoid conversations that revolve just around print pricing.

We built a demand gen team that’s very sophisticated with tons of technology wrapped around it with HubSpot.

– Jim Morrissey, UBEO Business Services

Like other panelists, Morrissey has taken note of the sharp declines in service competence, particularly from manufacturer direct operations, likely exacerbated by the heavy layoffs that have ttranspired within that space. Independent of that, he feels the best lever UBEO has is its ability to deliver a sense of confidence and security with service and software solutions. UBEO boasts a 1:1 ratio of support to salespeople, which ensures current and net-new clients receive the level of service they have been promised.

One of the bigger deals that Morrissey believes is a model for the entire organization saw UBEO construct a multi-pronged solution for a northeastern Texas college. Refreshing all of the copiers amounted to $100,000, but that only scratched the surface. UBEO installed high-end graphics printers, Duplo offline finishing units, a robust software bundle and a digital storefront for the school. The dealer also helped the client convert an aging cafeteria into a state-of-the-art workshop that serves not only the student population but the community at large. The shop’s storefront graphics includes a logo that reads, “Powered by UBEO.”

“This was an existing account where we had just a small portion of the fleet,” Morrissey said. “They had three vendors. But we were able to map out a plan that encompasses the in-plant print center, which was sorely needed because they were outsourcing a ton. It turned into a $1 million-plus project. We have been having terrific success in health care systems and small regional hospitals by basically employing the same approach.”

Multiple Entry Points

One of the important aspects in attacking a market is being able to wrap one’s arms around it, so to speak. Take Blue Technologies of Cleveland. It has a top 40 list for its territories, and account representatives are tasked with researching the C-level influencers—down to where they went to school and previous positions with other organizations.

Lauren Hanna, vice president of sales, notes the effort her reps put into amassing a deep knowledge of the vertical markets is crucial in demonstrating an awareness of those sectors’ challenges. It also helps for reps to be able to share Blue Technologies’ success stories in other verticals. Blue relies on a team approach, with the rep and solutions specialist mapping out a line of attack to enter a new account. For existing accounts, the dealer emphasizes its “pillars of success” accompanied by subject-matter experts to demonstrate value, backed again by the company’s knowledge of specific vertical markets.

“Our thorough discovery process during the introductory meeting is really to understand what else is going on in their business so we can try to customize a bundled solution to solve their business challenges,” she said. “Regardless of what’s going on and their drivers, we can tell pretty quickly—based on the vertical market, who we’re meeting with and the size of the company—if it’s going to be a multi-tiered opportunity for us.”

This approach is what led to a lucrative opportunity with a manufacturing company that produces DVDs for libraries across the country. Hanna and a Blue rep met with the client initially to discuss their multifunction print needs, and during the discovery, an opportunity arose to discuss their black-and-white production needs for applications such as pick tickets and shipping labels. Instead of allowing the deal to snowball, however, Hanna pumped the brakes.

“We actually stalled the process, which the client was resistant to at first, but we wanted to get a better understanding of what was being printed and what the impact was on their business, so we shadowed their team for a day,” she explained. “So it wasn’t just a matter of replacing their printers; we ended up improving their workflow as well. Instead of just telling them the way they were doing things was the most optimal, we asked a lot of layered questions that got to the heart of what they were doing. In the end, we beat out one manufacturer and the incumbent OEM—which had served the client for 20 years—for the job.”

Regardless of what’s going on and their drivers, we can tell pretty quickly—based on the vertical market, who we’re meeting with and the size of the company—if it’s going to be a multi-tiered opportunity for us.

– Lauren Hanna, Blue Technologies

The Blue Technologies solution consisted of a pair of Konica Minolta devices that provided redundancy and software to help streamline the client’s process and improve their workflow. During the engagement, Hanna and her team became aware that the client’s color production pact was also coming up for renewal down the road. Given the lengths Hanna and Co. went to in ensuring the client was reaping the most efficiency possible, the color job was won as well following a similar process. The Blue team studied the workflow and offered multiple alternatives and innovations. This set them apart once again from the competition. More contractual opportunities are looming on the horizon with the same client.

“I think it shows that we care about their business and that we aren’t just trying to do things the same way they’ve always done it,” she said. “Our goal is to add value. They didn’t go with all our ideas, but they appreciated someone trying to show them new things instead of just going for the quick sale.”