Waiting for OEMs to deliver more printers to your loading dock? Stand in line. I’ve spoken to some resellers that tell me their sales reps have nothing to sell. My simple answer? You have 1.6 million different technology SKUs to sell. If you chose to ignore IT hardware, that’s a missed opportunity.
Most print resellers I speak to accept that print revenue is decreasing. Even so, they have continued on and the business model of compensating sales when new hardware was placed, then generating profit on “service” (pages) just worked.
Trying to get the attention of a sales team to sell laptops, desktop print, peripherals, and software was just noise and it distracted salespeople from the important business of A3 sales. Who could blame the sales team for their lack of attention? Even if the company recognized that print is in decline, so long as you were still seeing results, they could be forgiven.
But now?
Salespeople are coin operated. They don’t make money unless they are selling. They have no printers to sell—they are trickling in, but there is no reliable timeline for their return. If only there was something to sell…
Print dealerships are now in an interesting position.
Your revenue may be down because new A3 placements are falling, but why are profits also not falling at the same rate? Maybe your biggest expense—sales commissions, have also shrunk. New A3 placements never generated much profit—your profits came post sale. Today, as contracts are going into their final year, or even extend on month to month deals, or going evergreen, they may actually start to generate higher gross margins and profits. Machines might not be printing as high of a volume, but they may now require little service technician intervention—and THERE'S where you'll see some profit.
Back to the salespeople. Zig Ziggler used to say, bad salespeople have skinny kids. Well, so do salespeople that have nothing to sell. The difference is:
Good salespeople that can’t make money because of a product shortage will leave and find another opportunity.
So what do you have to sell? IT products.
There are hundreds of thousands of laptops, monitors, desktops, phone systems, peripherals and subscription software in distributors like Tech Data Synnex, and Ingram. These items can easily be financed. They have the same useful lifecycle as those old reliable A3s you’re so fond of selling.
These products can be added to your website in less than a couple of weeks. Your sales reps will have stuff to sell. You’ll expand your footprint inside your customers.
You have always wanted to expand and provide more products and services into your customer base, maybe the supply chain issues could be the catalyst for your product shift.
Best of all? Nobody's kids will get skinny.
Reach out today if you’re ready to start 2022 off right.
