Don’t start an office technology dealership during a pandemic unless you offer a product your competitors don’t.
Above: Epic Office Solutions Co-owners Cliff Kilman and Mark Allen.
How insane is this? Two partners, one with a 25-plus year history in the office technology industry, and one with a background in the health care industry, launch a new office technology dealership in June 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in a mature market no less. What are the odds of success for that venture in that environment?
Jump to 2023, and Epic Office Solutions, based in Tyler, Texas, has grown from two employees to more than 40 in eight locations across four states (Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Florida), with plans to expand to 84 locations and become a $100 million dealership. “We’re moving at breakneck speed,” said Mark Allen, owner and president. “We had lofty goals from a revenue standpoint, and we’ve reached them, doubling each year for the last couple of years. You don’t know until you’re in the middle of it how difficult it is to grow these locations and ensure they are profitable. But we’re on track, we have a plan, and we are implementing it.”
Building Epic Office Solutions’ Foundation
The inspiration for starting a dealership came to owner and CEO Cliff Kilman during the early days of the pandemic after he had been furloughed by the office technology dealership where he had been working. He knew he needed a partner to implement the plan, so he asked Allen to join him. Kilman’s two-and-a-half decades of experience in sales and service balanced nicely with Allen’s skillsets. Allen had previously been the owner of a hospice care company and a health care company. Oh, and by the way, there’s a family connection too. Kilman is married to Allen’s cousin.
“I always wanted to have my own company but was a little nervous about doing it,” said Kilman. “But for some reason, during the pandemic, I’m like, everybody has to think about change during that timeframe. Nobody knew what was going to happen. So, I thought, I’m furloughed; I want to work.”
Besides his experience running healthcare organizations, Allen had some previous experience working with Kilman selling copiers. “I was horrible at it,” he laughed. But that experience didn’t discourage Allen back in 2020. “When he came to me with the idea, I had just sold a business. I was playing a lot of golf, and I was like, what an opportunity to get into something fun. I thought I would kind of do half and half—a half day off and a half day working. That did not last very long. It just blew up.”
This venture is vastly different from owning a hospice care and a home health company. “I had 60 employees at one point,” recalled Allen. “They were all nurses. That was tough, 24/7, people with major medical issues, and people passing away. When we started this, it was really easy. I would tell Cliff this is easy compared to what I did before. Well, now that we’re bigger, it’s not so easy anymore. But that’s okay, too. What gets me up in the morning is growing this thing.”
As the company grew in 2020, finding talented sales reps to keep pace with the growth was easy. Kilman knew people he had worked with before who were also laid off and who jumped at the opportunity to join the new dealership. Finding customers was not a huge challenge either. Between the two partners, they have a large network of connections. And Allen’s background in his previous career made it easy for him to connect with C-level executives.
There was also a home field advantage. “There’s probably a hundred thousand people here in Tyler, Texas,” noted Kilman. “So, you know everybody who owns everything here. There’s a lot of large business here. We had a couple of large customers that we could attack right away.”
Another challenge—but one that has been instrumental in Epic Office Solutions’ success—was finding the perfect office technology partner. “There wasn’t a whole lot of people that wanted to take on new dealers,” acknowledged Kilman. “And there wasn’t a whole lot of leasing companies that wanted to take on a new dealer that hadn’t been in business for two or three years. Of course, being in the industry for a long time, I had some contacts, and we made that happen.”
Epic Office Solutions’ Inkjet Difference
Before Epic Office Solutions even opened its doors for business, Kilman knew they had to offer something different to help them stand out from the competition. That was Epson inkjet, a product Kilman had been researching for about two years.
Kilman and Allen accept the award for Epson Dealer of the Year at the 2023 Epson InkBoldly Partner Conference in February. From left to right: Mark Mathews, Junkichi Yoshida of Seiko Epson, Kilman, Allen, Keith Kratzberg, and Joe Contreras.
One reason for selecting inkjet technology was because those products don’t require as much service as a laser device. “That was our go-to-market approach,” explained Kilman. “If we were going to market in this timeframe, we’d better do something different. We chose Epson because it was very different.”
The first big sale was a large health care organization that did not want to have outside technicians constantly visiting their facility to repair machines in the midst of a pandemic. “We went in with the approach that because of the inkjet technology, you shouldn’t have to see a technician very often or at all,” recalled Kilman. “That’s been true for this account for the last two years. That won us the deal.”
Allen shares Epic’s Epson success story at Epson’s InkBoldly Partner Conference.
Starting with a staff of two, Kilman was responsible for sales and service, which meant after 20 years of selling, he had to return to his roots and get trained on servicing the Epson product line.
“If we’re going to sell it, I want to know the ins and outs,” he said. “It took me about eight months. to understand what I had at my fingertips because I’d done laser for almost 30 years. It was a total mind shift. Once I went through the training and I saw how some of these machines were running in customers’ environments, it all started clicking.”
Kilman added, “Epson’s has just been fantastic for us. “They haven’t been in this too long either and we’re growing together. One of the cool things about working with Epson is that they’ve met our needs on some very specific account needs in the field. Their engineering team has done some things for us that helped us win a deal that was very large. They didn’t hesitate. It was about a one-month turnaround, and we were able to fulfill the customer’s need with special firmware.”
Epic Office Solutions also sells Epson wide format and scanners. Label printers are another product from Epson that Kilman is exploring. Besides Epson, Epic Office Solutions sells Toshiba and is set up as a Xerox and a Kyocera dealer through distribution. Epic also sells Sharp A3 and A4, as well as whiteboards and computers, at a couple of its locations. A visit to Epic’s website reveals logos for almost every other A3 and A4 OEM. Even though Epic doesn’t sell those products, its technicians have the experience to service them.
Epic Office Solutions also sells software, shredders, folders, and plotters. “We are starting to evolve into everything in the office,” said Kilman.
A Bright Future
For Kilman and Allen, the sky’s the limit when it comes to growth thanks in large part to getting in on the ground floor with an emerging technology in the traditional office space.
“We’re leading the way with a product that everybody else is now getting excited about,” said Kilman. “We’ve been excited about it for two years, and we’re two years ahead of a lot of companies. You don’t just come from the laser world and jump into this world and everything’s all the same, because it’s not. There’s a lot to learn, and we’re still learning. What’s really cool is we’re doing this with a different OEM, and it’s taken off. And the reason why is because it is something different.”
IT/Printer Techs Wanted
One of the biggest challenges Epic Office Solutions has faced during its rapid growth spurt has been finding technicians. Then, Kilman started advertising for IT/printer techs who could learn how to service inkjet technology. “We were bombarded with hundreds of résumés from people in their twenties and early thirties,” he revealed. “I don’t need to teach them the laser world of break-fix. I just need them to understand the Epson world where there isn’t as much break-fix. That’s worked out well for us.”
