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Leveraging Solutions to Grow Your Business (and sell more hardware)

By Darrell Amy

Selling office equipment is tougher today than it has ever been.  The customer’s expectations are higher.  The implementation and training is more involved.  And competition is driving profit margins lower and lower. 

Then there are forces outside our industry.  Getting the attention of new customers is more challenging than it has ever been.  Have you noticed that our society is downright hostile to “cold calls?”  In the past year, congress has literally passed legislation against cold calling to individuals on the phone.   

At the same time, hiring, training and retaining sales people is a growing challenge.  In the old days, it was hard enough to get a new sales rep up to speed.  What about now with all of the technology?  How do you get a sales person up to speed?   

With this increased competition and increased resistance, what can a dealer do to retain profitability and grow revenue?  Well, you could churn your base.  Sure, it is profitable to roll leases. But what about the clients you are losing?  Is your market share growing?   

How are you going to get new business?  The starting place is attention!  You need to capture the attention of your marketplace. 

The problem is commodities don’t capture attention.  Consider the personal computer.  Remember the days when a PC cost over $5,000?  Remember how exciting it was to watch 64 kilobytes turn into 2 megabytes and then 10 gigabytes?  Remember the buzz about the new Windows 98 system?  What about the advent of the internet and email?  It all used to be so exciting until… 

…it became a commodity.

The New Reality:  A MFP = A Gallon of Milk

Commodities are hard to sell.  Let’s face the facts:  the copier has become a commodity.  Yes, even the connected digital multifunction system is quickly becoming a commodity as well.  Sure, you may get a quick boost from the new color enabled devices.  But even color will quickly become a commodity.   

There are two problems with commodities.  First, the profit evaporates.  InfoTrends put it well: 

“It is critical to keep in mind how unkind mature markets are to the profit margins of commodity products.  This is especially true in mature technology markets.” 

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