When is the last time you saw someone with a 100 page a minute MFP in their home office?
Nearly 5 million Americans (not including self-employed) work from home at least 50% of the time. That number has grown 159% since 2005, which is 11x faster than the rest of the workforce. Is your business relevant to Home Office Workers (HOW)? It can and should be. Here’s how.
There are huge benefits for companies offering work from home options. In terms of attracting talent, 68% of millennials report that the option would be a significant decider in taking a position with a company. Attracting talent and keeping it is critical for any business. At the same time, lower transportation costs save the employee on average $4,000 per year, and increase their productivity and working time by the equivalent of 11 days per year.
We often spend time considering why office print is decreasing so fast—maybe some of it is just migrating to the HOW. Are those prints out of your reach? It depends on your strategy. What are the pain points of supporting a HOW?
Make Office Set-up a Pain Point
Do you think companies and their respective IT departments want employees running around and procuring their own technology and office needs? Since most home workers are expensive employees, spending two or three days shopping, assembling and connecting equipment becomes really expensive, really fast. Then what do they buy?
- A $99 printer/MFP that cannot print more than 100 pages before requiring expensive ink.
- A “toy” laptop that will breakdown and possibly have the wrong operating system.
- MS Office 365 license—even though the company has a corporate license.
- A unique Cloud backup that puts all the sensitive documents they work on at risk.
- All manner of office furniture that may be unsuitable or expensive.
- An internet phone system with a copy of online meeting software you have an existing subscription to.
The Catch-22 here is that IT wants to control and manage this, but really, it’s a tedious task for them as well. This is where you come in. Create a one-click, IT approved Home Office Setup for new employees. Watch this video to see how easy it is to set up, and then how easy it is to order.
A few key takeaways.
- The value of this bundle is over $5,000. That’s a good sale. This should also represent a solid margin of 15-20%. Any complaint about the price you have vs. some online comparison misses the whole point. “Yes, by all means, go ahead and take your time, every time you buy this.” What price do you put on your time?
- This could and should be set up as a monthly service/contract. Employees should be set up for technology refreshes every three years. As you know from your print experience, making this program $149/month is much more palatable than a $5,000 outlay.
- Document management and security is also a significant sales point here. The cost of HOW finding the right files, using outdated ones, and saving proprietary files on other servers is a hidden cost and problem. You have solutions for this.
You might think the Home Office is not a space you wish to play in. You may think 5 million potential sales targets is not that many when compared to the overall size of the workforce. This may be true, but the HOW play is a huge push for Amazon, CDW and Office Depot. If they offer a service you cannot, it could result in the rest of the office migrating away as well.
