I've been saying this from the beginning: Covid changed the way we saw work, it illuminated the managerial redundancies and hierarchy hypocrisies - then AI hit the masses - and is changing everything again.
"I think the pandemic showed the different way of work, create a different type of need...this is showing that all of us as companies, we need to make significant changes in how do we connect, manage, develop, grow our employees to make them successful." L, HP
We are doing more with less, because of Ai.
There's more. NVidia, HP, Dell are going to catch headwinds like nothing else since the 90s. Indeed, this next iteration will blow all other KPIs, benchmarks and models off the planet.
Imagine, if you will, every PC being refreshed in a five year period...or 24 months or in twelve.
"State Governments' Failure to Scrutinize the Purchase of Lenovo and Lexmark Equipment Jeopardizes Data Security"
A report released from embargo on February 24, 2020, "Stealing From States: China's Power Play in IT Contracts" unearths scathing facts around Lexmark, the US military, Communist Red China, and state/federal contracts.
Lexmark doesn't want you reading the report - and for good reason. You will be shocked to learn the degree to which Lexmark has been challenged in the past over security issues, and why being connected to or owned by a Chinese company is worthy of high concern. For instance, in 2016 the Chinese Communist Party passed the China Internet Security Law. This law requires any company headquartered in China, to keep data in-country and allow Chinese authorities to 'spot-check' on the data at any time.
"A Chinese military unit has been inserting tiny microchips into computer servers used by companies including Apple and Amazon that give China unprecedented backdoor access to computers and data, according to a new Bloomberg report."
Noodle this: How often do you walk over to a machine, place an original on glass, push a button and make a copy? The archaic organizations, state and local government, schools, and churches need not reply or read on - everyone else, stop and think. How many times a day do you make walk-up copies? “Many.” is the usual answer.
At some point in history, the average number of copies made per device was around 10k/week. Think about it. Do you copy 10,000 documents a week? Do you know your machine was designed to handle that level of volume? Seriously, take a day or a week and monitor the number of times and document types your staff is copying.
Let’s go deeper.
Observe the grandeur that is your office copier - paper drawers, nearby recycling bin - it's big, domineering, and physically impressive. Open the lid. The flat piece of glass is called a “platen”. How big is your platen and when was the last time you used it? How many walk-up, 11x17 copies do you produce in a year?
Deeper, still.
Now, walk over to your accounts payable department, dig through one of those big filing cabinets and find your monthly copier bills - look for the lease invoice. Because you’re with a typical copier provider, finding your lease payment could take a while. I’ll wait…
Still waiting…
Okay, do the math. Why are you paying for features and functions you do not use? Better yet, ask yourself, “Why was I SOLD capabilities I never use?”
When you do make copies, I’m guessing the majority of documents originate outside your organization, are letter size, initiate a process, and are finally filed away.
So here’s an idea. When your lease expiration date comes up - you’ll know its close by the increased number of voicemails, unannounced drop-bys, and invites to 'technology luncheons’ your current copier rep hits you with - go to the interwebs and start pricing out ‘workgroup’ scanners. While you're at it, check into the latest Epson or HP inkjet printers. Why not replace that $200-$400 monthly lease payment with a fast scanner and an efficient printer?
Install a printer and a stand-alone scanner.
When the need for an actual, real copy comes up, simply scan the document and print a copy. Now you’ve got a digital version of the original that can be printed or emailed and filed away.
As an added bonus, you've just taken your first baby steps into the digital workflow realm.
The game is changing, but it always has been. The way businesses align purchasing is shifting, but it always has been. New marketing platforms are emerging but always have been. Sales are evolving but always have been.
There is talk of a selling rebellion, but there always has been.
There's chatter about the new selling, the new way businesses are buying, and how the sales professionals of today had better change their ways. We've got to multiply our efforts tenfold, continue to cold call and embrace social media.
Today, "Kings", "Cowboys" and "Warriors" populate our little niche and we've got professionals "saving the industry one copier at a time". Worthy, noble, and authentic efforts - I'm all for self-branding and rebellion. I question the focus of our current emotional revolt.
Words mean things -
Revolt: refuse to acknowledge someone or something as having authority
Revolution: a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favor of a new system
So yes, we as a profession, are in the mood for revolt and revolution. It's understood the selling representatives are the Rebels but who are we 'rebelling' against? Who are the bad guys?
Are we taking on the old-school mentality? Assaulting old techniques is one thing, but these are outdated tools, not the root of evil.
Maybe we're rebelling against our prospects and customers - not the brightest idea.
Conducting a revolution against other sales people is self-destructive and most likely a strategy our nemesis relies upon. From the outside, it must look like we're a bunch of self-loathing, never good enough yahoo's running around spewing "transformation, this" and "the new way of that...".
To summarize:
Revolting against prospects and clients is not the way.
We are not our greatest enemy, we will not self-destruct.
The "Evil Empire" is not the past.
Again, who is the enemy?
I know who. If you're a sales trainer, you're not going to like it. If you're a sales manager, you're not going to like it. If you're selling anything through a tiered channel, you are not going to like it. Heck, I don't even like it.
The target of our revolution are those who inflict quotas, false ideals and untrustworthy sales techniques: OEMs, Mega dealers, and vendors of the day are the enemy.
I have moved from certainty to doubt, from devotion to rebellion.
- Phil Donahue
I am the last one to call for unionization - unions kill - but an organized resistance is the only alternative. I'm talking about a guild of selling professionals - similar to the Screen Actor's Guild.
So who is in a position to organize contemporary selling professionals? I have no idea but a great start would be for sales people to think differently:
start selling for yourself
form your own brand
invest in yourself
CAUTION: Rebellions require blood. The cost of freedom is never free and all revolutions, have casualties. Who, in this cause, will give all? Who will create change through sacrifice?
Will any of the new sales trainers step up to form The Guild or continue taking money from the establishment?
Will mega-dealers change the way reps are paid or continue to support an archaic standard?
Will OEMs get rid of their tiered approach?
And who in their right mind would join such a movement, let alone LEAD against these most formidable foes?
I don't have the answer to that question. I can say finding a leader within the Empire(OEM,Trainers, MegaDealers) is at best dubious. Perhaps an older, wiser Rebel will make their way center stage.
Caution: As a metaphor, in the movie Rogue One, can you recall how many of the small rebel team survived?
Heck, you've probably viewed a clip or two during one of your Monday morning sales meetings intended.
I get it.
These Hollywood caricatures display the gumption of legends - cold calling, motivating speeches, wild excesses of the selling life. Success. Power. Influence. Acceptance.
But there's more to the story, isn't there? The movies tell the entire story, but we don't replay those bad bits do we? No manager is going to show Bud's perp-walk in Wall Street. Nobody is getting motivated watching the federal cops pull into the J.T. Marlin parking lot complete with busses and tow trucks(Boiler Room).
And sure as shooting, no one remembers the ending of Glengarry Glen Ross, when Shelly Levene steals those leads.
Consider the following examples:
"Greed is Good"
Major Wall Street player earns millions through purchasing and breaking up family owned companies supported with insider information. Protagonist seduces young upstart anding ends up in prison.
- Wall Street
"Put that coffee down! Coffee is for closers."
Real Estate agents complain about the leads, smart-dressed, hit-man comes in from HQ to deliver a high pressure, all or nothing, speech intended to get sales back on track. Salesman descends into chaos and steals leads.
- Glen Gerry Glenn Ross
"...act as if..."
Sharp dressed, smooth talking broker initiates new employees into the world of shady deals and illegal trading. Cold calling taken to a new low, one scene depicts a broker lying to a prospect, along with a cheering team of cohorts, and bamboozling a victim out of thousands. The movie ends with federal agents storming HQ complete with tow trucks to recover the fleet of ill-gotten automobiles.
- Boiler Room
These stories end in flames, yet sales 'mentors' still run around telling newbies to, "Sell me this pen."
Why do all sales people know "Coffee is for Closers"? Why do we cheer when Vin Diesel lies his way into a sale? Yeah, sure, we'd love to deliver that Alec Baldwin speech, or kill it on the phone like Leonardo DiCaprio. We project ourselves into those situations - understanding the dramatic and sexy scenarios - who wouldn't?
Why?
I'll tell you why. Motivating you to sell more, no matter how, is good for the OEMs and ownership. Sure, it feels good to you, right? That feeling is false and manipulative. I get it, we need to sell to feed our families and survive - that's the way the game is set up - and watching a fictitious "selling animals" provides a fleeting moment of entertainment and hours of motivation. But it is propaganda. It isn't real. If it is for you, chances are, it will end badly.
Showing rundown videos of yesterday's demons is just another symptom of the slow to change selling ecosystem. I'm not sure what we should utilize in place of these video's but there must be something; there must be thousands of quick, 30 second video's of new sales consultants spewing nuggets of re-treads.
Change, real change through turbulence, must occur at ALL LEVELS of the ecosystem, not just in the trenches. Selling will become more relevant, consultative and fulfilling after the pillars of the status quo resign to the future and ceasing to show criminals and thieves as selling examples is just the beginning.
Could end in burning flames or paradise..." - T. Swift
Mps Practice Managers, salespeople, BDMs, specialists, consultants, experts, evangelists, directors, principals, planning managers, and vice-presidents - I got a question for you:
If you had the chance to build an MPS practice, today, from scratch, inside a VAR, how would you do it?
Where would you start? Building a team? Compensation plans? Assessment tools and DCAs?
What's your visionary statement? Would you put together another, two-dimensional, old-school, top-down, business plan? Really?
What about legacy accounting systems, dispatch, vendor relationships, existing BDM mentality, corporate philosophy/culture, probes, NOC, SLAs, BDR, MS, and customer transformation off paper? Can you lead or will past mistakes haunt you like the phantoms of Macbeth?
It's an outhouse. Made out of the shipping container for Edgeline.
For years the definition of managed print services has been bandied around like a beach ball on Labor Day Weekend. Your definition of MPS rotated around your particular strengths.
For instance, if you refilled empty toner cartridges, your MpS is all about less expensive toner. If you're a copier dealership, your MpS may orient around centralized MFD's and optimization means a single brand of devices. Still, if you are a big box, office supplies vendor, your MpS is all about desk side toner delivery.
My definition of MPS tries to be encompassing: my monitoring software is in on a screen inside my NOC, right next to the CCTV and Level Platforms. My optimization, for example, includes reducing the number of devices in an accounting department to zero and implementing digital workflow systems and dual monitors.
So, back in 2009, my MPS included everything from ink and service delivery, staff augmentation, Sharepoint, laptop imaging, and unified communications. I was a big HP house. I sold only HP toner, servers, laptops, printers and...oh yeah, Edgeline multifunction behemoths.
"Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks Had I from old and young ! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung."
--- Coleridge In 1991 Lexmark was formed when IBM divested its printer and printer supply operations to an investment firm. On November 15, 1995, Lexmark was publicly traded . Today the company is trading at $41.59 has a revenue around $3.7B and about 12,000 employees. Back in the 90's, Lexmark boasted a revenue of nearly $2.0B.
IBM was in the midst of one of the greatest corporate transformations in history. The company was in turmoil; internal leadership changes, intense competitive pressures, economic headwinds and a fractured self-image. They didn't know who they were, what they did or how to do whatever it was they were going to do, better.
Crazy times, the 90's.
Today, another great technology firm finds herself in the throws of transformation - HP offers everything from servers, clouds, PC's, laptops, printers, supplies and services. But its not enough. More accurately, its just too much. What IBM grew through, HP is now experiencing - you can't be everything to everyone. If that were all, it would be bad enough, but its worse. HP, Microsoft and the rest of the WinTel realm can no longer dictate demand. Their rule is not as relevant as in the past.
Take printers, for example. HP brought the laser printer into the business world and for a decade or two, HP was synonymous with printing. But in 2007, the winds of change were upon us. No matter how much marketing tries to accentuate the shift from toner to ink, black and white to color, desktop to mobile, hard copy print will never rebound; sinking more resources against the tide is folly.
What made HP great, is holding her back. Print is the albatross.
Some will herald the move as great strategy - it might be - for sure, this is a responsive tact, not one that bends the market to HP's will.
Nothing, not even the company who brought the laser printer to nearly every desktop in the land, can reverse the trend. Printing is dying. Not because we've all decided to stop killing trees, or understand printing decreases the ozone layer or bringing on the next ice age. HP is a victim of the shift in How We Work:
No more desktop PCs
No more servers
Fewer laptops
We do not print the same
We communicate differently
Fewer printers
Almost no copiers
Today, we communicate under glass more than ever before. Generations of young adults live in a world without PC's, rotary phones, black and white TV, newspaper delivery or a printer. Like generations before them understood life with electricity, they've never known a world without the internet. Why in the world would they ever want or need to print anything? Why? Ask them.
Tablets, smart phones and new workflows, oh my.
"No one in the printing industry, or outside it, had any idea that the iPad would come along and destroy three- to four-thousand-year-old human traditions concerning paper," explained Gary Peterson, chief executive at Gap Intelligence, a San Diego-based research analysis firm.
If OEMs can re-establish the relevancy of print...
then...
Why did International Paper shutter it's biggest, 8.5x11 sized paper producing plant if print volumes are increasing?
Why did HP layoff 40,000 employees when the second coming, mobil print or ink, is just around the corner? Think of layoffs as The Rapture.
Why is less than half of Xerox's revenue generated through equipment sales?
Why would a leading copier manufacturer build an erasable copier?
Even without printing capabilities, Apple still sold more than a dozen iPads
Denial.
"HP profits are reliant on selling "consumables" like inkjet cartridges, so the company can't be eager to see that business sidelined by the new prominence of tablets and smartphones. Even though mobile device make it easier to skip the printer in some cases, for example with electronic boarding passes and mapping apps, McCoog doesn't see printing as an endangered business.
Yeah, right.
What does this mean to all of you selling copiers and MpS? Keep doing what you're doing, your resume clean and enhance your PERSONAL ACUMEN every day. The change isn't coming, it is already here and you've got to improve yourself beyond the box and away from marks on paper.
Perhaps two decades from today, we'll look back and remember how HP built a great print business, sold it off and turned into the technology powerhouse Bill and Dave envisioned.