Business Profile: Axtron

Axtron

Dealers, Get Focused

Is it hard to get focused between business propositions, marketing campaigns, branding decisions, customer service operations, drop-ship distribution, website service decisions, new business development, and maintaining excellent sales report?

Axtron—a toner cartridge manufacturer in Washington D.C.—knows how you feel.  In fact, they are willing to take care of some of your main concerns for you while you concentrate on managing your business day to day.  All you have to do is get focused, Focused Image.

Focused Image is a program—not just another brand name—that offers dealers a complete marketing solution:  glossy packaging, geographic-specific telemarketing services, and design consultation of Focused Image marketing materials.

Sound too good to be true?  For dealers nationwide, it’s not only working it’s a helping hand up, in a world of consolidators.  Axtron can keep your dealership looking like a big guy and servicing customers with the individual attention they deserve.

“If you sell toner, rely on Axtron.  Our Focused Image Brand Toner will make you more money.  That’s why we’ve been the most reliable supplier of compatible toner for over 12 years!  We’ve seen others come and go, yet we continue to grow because we help create success for our customers.  If you’re tired of broken promises and excuses from other suppliers, it’s time to call Axtron,” taken from Axtron reading materials.

How It Works

The Focused Image strategy is to provide dealers with a marketing service.  Unheard of in the industry until its inception in late ‘99, Axtron introduced this program to help its customers’ customers.  Essentially, the more dealers succeed, the more Axtron profits and everyone, including the end-user, has benefited from financial gain. It’s a Win-Win-Win.

With the philosophy that dealers’ success equals their own, Axtron concentrates on its dealers’ future business ventures with the same intensity that drives them forward.  While branding a cartridge would benefit Axtron’s in some ways, with Focused Image, dealers benefit most.  Here’s how:

First, Focused Image customers get a high-quality toner cartridge in glossy packaging.  The four-color carton is designed with skill:  a dreamy technical sky where graphics of office personnel models materialize behind razor-sharp, 3-D photographs of printers and toners positioned ideally in front make up its composition.  “Focused Image” dons the top like an emblem of quality.  Additionally, Matching marketing materials, including retail price sheet, are free to Focused Image dealers.

"When you put a brand name on the product, you immediately add value," said owner Jeffery Lesser, "Our customers look at that box and know that we have made him look very good."

Next, Axtron offers high-volume Focused Image dealers a telemarketing service one day a month in a geographic area specified by the dealer.  Axtron will make the calls, then turn over an interested-clients report to the dealer for follow-up and ordering. “A lot of people in the industry are uncomfortable with cold-calling," Lesser said. "They rely strictly on word-of-mouth referrals for new business."

While word of mouth referrals can take you far, getting your name to those potential customers who would have never seen you otherwise can lead your business into quick, unexpected success.  Similarly, advertising can play a big part in establishing a neighboring, business network.

Local advertising for Focused Image dealers can prove to be very effective with the professional ad materials/ consultation Axtron provides dealers.  Consummating the branding experience for potential customers, four-color-designed ads in local publications go a long way toward added exposure for dealers.  Axtron will help dealers create an ad that is right for them free of charge.

Finally, opportunities to order Focused Image shirts for your technicians to encourage the sell of the toner products are also available.  Adding that last dimension puts the finishing touches on your service and your profit margins as the brand begins to get the recognition of a choice to OEM’s and your competition.

“We build more than cartridges, we are building an entire image for them,” Lesser said, “The cartridges at Office Depot have a presence on the shelf.  Remanufacturers are competing with that.  This program will help them compete with the OEM, but it also completely separates them from the usual competition they encounter.”

Full Service Product Line

Axtron began selling toner in 1991.  Since then, they have achieved some of the highest quality cartridges in the business.  From HP, Canon, Lexmark, Brother and Panafax compatible cartridges to MICR toner, Axtron has it all.

If you’ve never ordered from Axtron before, new customer compatible specials include Series 4 / 5 cartridges for $19.95, Series 4000 cartridges for $29.95, Series 4100 toners for $34.95, and Series 8100 cartridges for $45.95.  These low prices are pretty incredible coming from such a large, reputable supplier that offers the level of quality and service that Axtron dealers experience. 

Blind drop shipments, 95% same-day ship rate, and free tech support for printer and computer repair are just a few more perks that dealers will encounter when they contact Axtron.

Locally, Axtron services businesses with networking, printer service, and office machine supplies.  They mirror their customers so they know what you’re going through and, thus, how to service your needs.  Axtron knows what the market demands for this week are and they share the instant changes that you will experience in the weeks to come.

“We sell to end users only in our geographic area and provide service to these customers, so we know exactly what our customers challenges and opportunities are,” said Lesser.

Who is Axtron, Honestly?

Axtron was founded in 1991 by Apollo Nguyen while he was attending the George Washington University to receive a degree in Zoology and Psychology as a means to help pay for school.  After getting his degree, Axtron kept growing and so did the industry. 

Today, Axtron’s two managing owners work in their own ways to keep up the business’s perpetual roll of success.  Mr. Nguyen concentrates on overseeing accounting and production while Mr. Lesser directs sales and marketing.

Having a degree from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce with concentrations in marketing and MIS as well as spending 5 years working at Mobil Corporation managing and rolling out national computer projects, Lesser was well molded for his position as Axtron’s sales guru and Focused Image inventor.  He began with the company in 1993.

Axtron’s business mentality is as equally unique as their services:  Honesty and Quality are as basic as gravity.  Production cannot run without them and cartridges cannot ship. Simply, sales are driven by them.  “Virtually every wholesale distributor out there will quote customers a 1 or 2% defect rate.  I’d sooner tell a customer that I’m the queen of England, because both of those statements have an equal amount of truth,” says Lesser. 

He went on to say, “We don’t simply tell our customers what we think they want to hear.  Rather, we tell them the truth.  Most of our customers appreciate that and it helps us build a strong relationship.  Those who can’t deal with the truth may be better off buying from someone else until they realize they’re not getting the truth.” 

When customers know they are getting the truth and high quality, they respond.  This is well noted at Axtron’s facility, as can be seen from their wall of letters from satisfied customers.  Each one unique, Axtron received so many letters from customers that they eventually ran out of room to put them on.  

Truth in manufacturing is hard to come by.  That’s why Axtron knows it can’t cut corners.  “We use all new components whenever we can,” Lesser said.  “We don’t cut corners by reusing parts that should not be reused.  That’s why we don’t compete with the guys that are selling a $15 EX cartridge.  We know that they are lying when they say the parts are all new.  People go out of business selling junk, and even quicker if they don’t tell the truth.”