As office technology offerings become more diverse and complex, strong partnerships are essential.
It’s a simple, win-win equation: OEMs help office technology dealers sell more equipment, which leads to everyone making more money. The business reality, of course, can be complicated. Print volumes in the office were contracting even before the COVID-19 virus outbreak in 2020. Akin to Bruce Springsteen’s My Hometown lyrics, “These jobs are goin’ boys, and they ain’t comin’ back.”
The situation worsened during the pandemic as global supply chain challenges reared their ugly heads. “It was really tough sledding,” recalled Tim Renegar, president and co-owner of Kelly Office Solutions, an office technology and equipment dealership based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Looking back with hindsight, however, Renegar sees the silver lining from those dark COVID clouds: Weathering the storm was a shared experience that has fostered a renewed bond of loyalty among many dealers and their suppliers.
In the ongoing pursuit of clicks, the mutual appreciation between office technology dealers and vendors is, perhaps, stronger than ever before. Within the dealer channel, efforts truly are orchestrated. “OEMs depend on the aftermarket, so they need us, and we need them,” said Renegar. A trio of OEM partners—Brother USA, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., and Ricoh USA—go above and beyond for his firmly entrenched, 76-year-old office technology dealership.
“We have strong relationships,” Renegar acknowledged, adding that, post-pandemic, each partner seems even more willing to listen. That cooperative spirit often extends beyond nuts-and-bolts training and education. “Our OEM partners come up with marketing programs and ‘knockout’ promotions that build in additional discounts to incentivize our sales reps and customers,” he explained.
Mike Lepper can relate. As senior sales vice president for Impact Networking based in Lake Forest, Illinois, he oversees a large geographic region in the Midwest with a $100-million budget. In addition to Konica Minolta and Ricoh, Impact Networking also sells Kyocera.
“We maintain close relationships with all three of our partners on the imaging side,” said Lepper. They provide his eight teams, which consist of some 50 account representatives, with solutions-based pricing support to help seal deals, as well as with tools such as software and applications. All told, Impact Networking employs more than 200 sales professionals, including some 50 sales development telemarketing reps and another 20 or so business development specialists.
IT, Cybersecurity, Production Print, and Wide Format
Impact Networking’s reps often see hardware equipment leases as a pass-through, crossing over to the IT side of the house, which now accounts for half of the dealer’s $200 million annual revenues. “We’re scaling our business as a managed IT provider which can open the door to other aspects of a customer’s operations,” revealed Lepper.
For its standard-stack, distributed network offering, Impact Networking resells switching products developed by cloud-managed IT partner Cisco Meraki. “Meraki’s products tend to be on the higher end of the pricing scale, so the people there help us to strategize how best to structure deals,” noted Lepper.
On the cybersecurity side, DOT Security (an Impact Networking spinoff) has forged a strong alliance with SentinelOne, Inc. “Beyond building basic firewalls and switches, the security business can be highly complex,” explained Lepper. “It’s smart to have a partner to help us walk our customers through antivirus challenges and licensed upgrades, etc.” One common scenario, which involves a lot of variables and parameters, is which type of server setup best suits a client’s requirements: on-premises servers from HP or Dell versus Azure cloud-hosting servers from Microsoft?
Sometimes, technological obstacles impede progress. Citing a recent example, Renegar praised Brother’s team for solving an issue with a Kelly customer’s outdated software system, which was experiencing problems integrating with a proprietary program created internally. “The Brother engineers implemented a firmware change, which literally saved this business in our healthcare vertical,” said Renegar about his account with a chain of orthopedic doctor offices that has more than 500 machines. This fix, thanks to Brother, smoothed the path to a new, neurosurgeon client with another 200-plus devices.
With production print, Renegar says Konica Minolta helps his team provide the best possible service. New to Kelly’s OEM fold in the large-format print space is Epson America, whose team members are confident in their products and are comfortable thinking outside the box. Epson shipped one of its new wide format systems to a customer site, which showed Renegar how much the company cared about helping Kelly win the business. The bet was on Epson’s dime, so Kelly didn’t have to pay for the machine. The client loved how it operated, and the OEM’s gamble paid off. “We ended up buying the demo and everybody’s happy,” said Renegar.
Another way in which Epson has stepped up is by helping Kelly’s dealer representatives understand the environmental benefits of inkjet printing so that they can, in turn, lead discussions with customers and prospects. “Inkjet is up and coming in terms of copiers,” Renegar contends. “Our people need to learn about how this technology can reduce carbon footprints.” Such sustainability details are important, especially to government contractors.
Marketing 2.0 for Office Technology Dealers
Vendor partnerships extend beyond hardware OEMs and IT expertise. Some office technology dealers such as central Minnesota-based Marco Technologies seek out assistance in the marketing realm. When the mega-dealer redefined its corporate identity as a B2B tech company in late 2022, it turned to Vye, a local marketing partner, for rebranding support. The creative agency and Marco have worked together for over 10 years, dating back to when Vye was known as Leighton Interactive. Their relationship started with a relaunch of the Marco Technologies website, which now runs on HubSpot’s content management system (CMS).
“Today, most customers and prospects want to be able to educate themselves first and have done their homework before coming to us,” noted Shelly Caldwell, Marco sales director and a 17-year veteran of the office technology company, which today employs more than 1,250 people, including a national sales force of 330 solutions experts.
During the due diligence process, Vye built Marco Technologies a long-term strategy that can ebb and flow with consumer demand. Additionally, they have worked to establish Marco as an industry thought leader through a unique focus combining empathy with data and creativity which can be seen through their wide range of capabilities, including but not limited to blogs, social media posts, short videos, webinars, and email campaigns.
“We focus on inbound marketing using a targeted, holistic approach,” explained Kim Tant, Vye’s strategic account manager who used to work at Marco Technologies. When people search the internet for topics such as “how secure are you?” and “copier service repair near me,” the goal is for related Marco content to populate high up on that first page of results. To maximize search engine optimization (SEO), Tant’s team uses keywords and paid search tactics that help to identify who Marco is.
Tant may be the day-to-day contact person for the Marco account at Vye, but she’s far from alone. Her teammates include an assigned writer and three graphic designers, as well as video and website developers. Nearly every activity is tracked, from inbound leads, page views, number of sessions, and the amount of time visitors stay on Marco’s website, to email click/open/bounce rates. “We know that 65% of visitors are using desktop PCs, laptops, or tablet computers, while 35% are on mobile devices,” Tant said. Behind the scenes driving the overall marketing strategy is Vye COO Jennifer Lawrence.
“Having so much information available online nowadays at their fingertips really has changed buyers,” Caldwell pointed out, acknowledging that the pandemic was a catalyst that forced Marco Technologies to ratchet things up a notch. “Some people prefer to skim info quickly and won’t take the time to read a blog. If results aren’t received in an instant, we risk losing their attention,” she said.
According to Caldwell, the way in which people consume services has changed, too. Google and Yelp listings and reviews have become increasingly important among online shoppers, many of whom place a premium on peer opinions. Some of these B2C trends have carried over into the B2B world of the office technology dealer channel.
She added that Marco Technologies primarily uses LinkedIn and Facebook social-media platforms (which Vye coordinates) but also has a presence on X (Twitter) and Instagram. “We use IG more for cultural purposes and award-related news,” Caldwell shares. A YouTube channel features case studies and similar content.
To Caldwell, a vendor is merely a company offering something for sale, but a partner is something else entirely. Partners are engaged beyond the sales cycle. “A partner works and consults with you to better serve the client,” she said, citing Vye and Konica Minolta as prime examples.
In Your Face!
Without the threat of the pandemic, we have one final takeaway: Do not undervalue the importance of face-to-face meetings in Q2 ’24. Zoom and Teams video-conference calls are great alternatives, but Impact Networking prefers in-person meetings, whenever possible, with its office technology partners, Lepper said. “We feel that’s the best way to develop rapport and build relationships.”
Folks at Marco Technologies agree with the assessment that one-on-one attention in the flesh can be paramount to success. This past June through November, Marco’s data intelligence experts joined with Konica Minolta teams to grow mutual sales pipelines. “We hit the road as part of intense business-development ‘blitzes,’” said Caldwell. On visits to nine key regions, the Marco-Konica Minolta task forces sat down and discussed with each client their preference for print versus digital workflows.
“Many customers had not physically seen their sales team in three years, since before COVID!” exclaimed Caldwell. The in-person face time, sans masks, was long overdue.
