Do you sell managed print services (MPS)?
If so, are you looking to expand your operation?
While most companies are most likely interested, you’ll see much better results if you know where your best chances for success are waiting.
While selling managed print services should be fairly easy –here are four areas to focus your efforts in order to improve your results. Still, if you’re interested in building out your MPS business and significantly expanding your market share, the four areas below represent the greatest opportunities at the moment.
1. Go to Companies That Already Value MPS
Selling MPS is always going to be easiest to companies that already value this service. You don’t need to spend a lot of time explaining what MPS is, you just have to sell them on why your managed print services are the best. Traditionally, these industries tend to make the best MPS customers because they do the most amount of printing:
If you can provide them with the equipment they need and keep their supplies stocked, you’ll have a reliable source of revenue.
Of course, the downside is that these industries are well known to others selling MPS. In order to build your list of clients, you’ll either need better managed print services and possibly added solutions such as document services or printer security. You can also work on targeting new businesses in these industries before your competitors get to them.
2. Focus on Growing CompaniesSimilarly, another method for selling MPS is to look for companies that are in the process of scaling up. While the outcome will provide them with numerous benefits, getting there will require they revamp a lot of their operation.
This will include how they print: the volume and the equipment and supplies it will require.
Obviously, MPS is going to help them save money, something every company is interested in, especially those that are already spending a lot of it to grow bigger.
However, you can also position yourself as a solution because of your experience. For example, the members of a startup probably don’t have a lot of experience when it comes to managed print services. They’ve never expanded like this before. They know they need to adjust their print services, but they also have countless other demands to attend to for the foreseeable future.
Thanks to your level of experience in this field, they can stay focused on their growth while you put together a plan that will meet their printing needs and keep them on budget.
3. Help Small Businesses
That’s not to say that small businesses can’t provide profitable opportunities, though. You’ll need more of them to equal the same amount you’d make from a larger organization, but there are some promising reasons not to pass up this sector.
First of all, as a whole, small businesses don’t have the same diverse range of needs when it comes to managed print services. Therefore, their MPS needs will be relatively similar across industries, which makes it much easier as a provider.
Secondly, these companies don’t have the same tolerance for overhead. As you well know, printers can be expensive when you factor in their ongoing maintenance costs. The same goes for toner, ink, and other supplies.
Prove to small business owners that your MPS represents a real savings to them and they’ll be happy to accept your help.
4. Look for Companies That Are Growing Green
As companies continue to invest in sustainability, you will continue to have prospects to increase your MPS business.
A big part of becoming “sustainable” means switching to green alternatives to the normal way of operating. For a lot of companies, this means going paperless.
At first glance, then, these businesses may seem like the last that would be interested in paying for your MPS offerings.
The truth, though, is that most companies can’t go completely paperless. They still need printers and all the supplies that go with them for a number of indispensable operations. And for those that do want to go paperless, there are document management solutions that can help your practice so you can still capture the document.
For example, law firms will probably never be able to go paperless. They need massive amounts of documents printed every single day. The healthcare industry is in a similar position.
Can they decrease some of their reliability on paper? Absolutely.
Can they completely give up paper? No.
Nonetheless, these businesses still want to go green as much as possible and therein lies your opportunity. As MPS helps cut down on unnecessary waste – both of paper and also ink and toner – you have something to offer them.
Also, as many of your competitors will steer clear of any company that proclaims it’s working to “go green”, you may find that there are many markets where your offering goes uncontested.
There’s no doubt that the popularity of MPS is on the rise. As we just covered, this is true even in light of many companies making an effort to reduce their use of paper. The major hurdle you’ll find when trying to increase your MPS business is simply other competitors. You now have four areas to explore where your services are in need. Learn to differentiate yourself from the competition and they’ll each offer you major opportunities.