Managed Print Services, Copier and IT Sales Employment: More Signs or Bucking Trends?

The business landscape is improving in all directions, but check out these employment charts from indeed.com:

managed print services Job Trends

Managed Print Services jobs

Manage print services spiked back in '09, yet looks like its about to either level or fall off a cliff.

copier sales Job Trends

Copier Sales jobs

The roller coaster that is copier sales! A bump in 2010.  Still, my neck hurts just looking at it.

IT sales Job Trends

IT Sales jobs

The 'other side of the fence' is experiencing a slow bleed.  IT sales futures "ain't what it used to be..."

managed print services hp Job Trends

Managed Print Services HP jobs

Mother Blue's, Mps evolution is trending...

home building Job Trends

Home Building jobs

Home building is creeping up.  Is this another sign of the recovery?  How many construction sites need copiers?


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#9 & #10 Managed Print Services Truth: Be the Ruler. "Stand or Fall"

9. Be the ruler

This is simple: Comparing yourself to others is a standard approach, but I suggest you look inside before looking to others. They’re simply guidelines; the only comparison that really matters is internal. Gartner, IDC, Canon, Ricoh, HP, Xerox, Toshiba, Konica Minolta, Sharp, OKI Data, Kyocera, Lexmark, IBM, Cisco, Apple — they all have their rules. With few exceptions, their rules are not serving us very well. Don’t ignore their musings; just be open and dubious. Make your rules, Your Rules. And then live by them.

10. Stand or fall

This is the big one. The above recommendations are simply that: suggestions. I’ve seen dealerships, OEMs and general business models over the past 24 years grow, stumble, recover and fade. I’ve watched IBM transform and Compaq assimilated. I was the first generation of VARs born in the 1980s and destroyed in the 1990s. I’ve helped dealerships grow and evolve and watched others crash, burn and be born again under a new moniker.

Change is eternal, transformation unavoidable. And like the Matrix, this has all happened before. Right now, the wolf is at our door. We are simply collateral in the big shift from slow, paper-based transfer of knowledge to instantaneous, screen-based modes of communication. While digital content is set to grow 18 times over, print is dying.

Now is the time to make a stand, to burn the ships at the shore or dust off that exit strategy you designed. If you look at the rules and don’t see a happy ending, get out. Save yourself. Give your employees the opportunity to grow beyond your little dealership. But if you do decide to stay and circle the wagons, get your rules set, and then ride with them.

Stand or Fall.

So ends our journey into 10 separate aspects and sides of the MpS ecosystem.

Managed print Services Truth #7 & #8 - Be Defiant, Be Basic "Thinking Out Loud"

Two defining qualities of any cutting edge, evangelist of change - what once was MpS - is Defiance of the status quo and the ability to cover the basics

7. Be defiant

Test everything every day. Your processes can always be better, and your costs reduced. Take a page out of Six Sigma or any one of the hundreds of business books, scale it down, and apply the lessons to your everyday business process. Make quarterly reviews mean something internally. And if you ever hear the phrase, “This is how we always do it,” refer back to that Lyra chart.

Transformation is continuous, and your improvement should be too. The number of imaging providers will decrease by half or more. Copiers are not what they used to be. Be ready for anything by challenging everything. MPS is bigger than toner and service, so you need to be ready to shift and move at the drop of a hat. What was done in the past simply does not apply today, so challenge the existing.

8. Be basic

Think about the days when you knew nothing about copiers or toner. Remember how it was to make it up as you went — how you demonstrated over-jammed originals, around faulty color and through spilled toner? Call up the days when there were no rules in toner — or copier — sales. What did you have? A phone, the Yellow Pages, Rolodex, and some ideas? A pager? What the heck is a pager? How did you survive?

I hate to say it, but get some of the grind work done; that means calls and marketing — in the trenches. Because like never before in history, we — providers and prospects — are on the same page. The field is level. It comes down to two people making something happen — a basic relationship built on solid intent.

014: Are Assessments Real?

Originally posted, 3/14

"Wait...you want to stick your USB, in my what? I don't know where that thing has been!"

"Oh, okay, so I simply download a zip file, unzip and follow the installation procedure. Then off it goes, traipsing through my firewalls and jumping networks, reporting up to your cloud.  Do I have that right?"

"Yes, I will install your DCA.  And yes, I will indulge you by reviewing your proposal. I have just a few questions:"

"How long will you need to interview my end users?  Oh, you don't interview anybody?  But you said you know the workflow."

"How long will you be observing the way we do business?  Oh, you don't look at our existing processes?  But you said you were going to compare current and future states."

"How much will my costs relate to printing decrease year, over year, over, year? Oh, you can't guess?  But you said you conduct quarterly reviews.  What are we going to discuss during these meetings?" 

Why shouldn’t you allow your print/copier vendor to do assessments? Because their assessments are not for you, the customer - their assessments are for them, the providers.

Having performed assessments, in one fashion or another, from the network, storage, workflow, print, data, and systems analysis perspectives for over 25 years,  we’ve seen an awful lot of environments and know clients (end users, not providers) who roll their eyes as soon as they hear the word “assessment” - it's pavlovian.

How many times do those on the provider side conduct assessments with the intent to sell more stuff, gain more ’share of wallet’, and increase margin? Often.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that - but let us be very clear: intent is everything and the true intent is sustainable - performing assessments to land more equipment is short-cycled (30 days) and disingenuous.

NOT EVERYONE PERFORMS ASSESSMENTS TO THIS END.

But here are some common styles of assessments:

Assessments coming from mal-intent - 

Once a vendor knows your toner volume, they know what flexibility they have in terms of profit.  Everybody has the opportunity to turn a profit, it's part and parcel of this free enterprise experiment.  But to the "Trojan Horse" one's way into a prospect's kingdom is malevolent.

Shallow assessments - 

Again, when a vendor simply counts "clicks" and the number of devices over a certain age, hunting for upgrades and new placements, they do you a disservice and contribute to the not-so-stellar reputation the niche seems to wallow. (see toner pirate and flexing leases)

I've implemented software to look at the fleet in as deep a fashion as possible, contributing to a holistic approach to managed services, not automatically generating a stock proposal or price sheet.

Assessments that are nothing more than a sales tool - 

In the olden days, I evangelized the data collection agent (DCA) as a qualification tool: if a prospect was unwilling to install my DCA, he or she was not qualified to be one of my clients - I moved on. But that was because I was looking beyond the toner and service delivery and could not afford to invest time into a ‘transactional’ relationship - I was looking to move across the WS Relationship Spectrum ©, becoming a 'partner' not a vendor.

Today, getting a piece of software installed or inquiring about the number of toner cartridges you purchase each month is like reading your dates diary the night before Prom. Wait for it...wait...there!

Bottom line, just as it was in 2009, the idea of an ‘assessment’ is not flawed, camouflaging simple sales techniques as an ‘impartial assessment of your print environment is insidious.

Beware, dear reader, there be skullduggery about.