With the Seattle Space Needle looming in the backdrop of the company’s block-wide main campus, Copiers Northwest has some impressive technology and retail heavyweight neighbors in the form of Amazon and Facebook, with Microsoft a short distance away and Google soon to set up shop as well.
A rear view of Copiers Northwest’s facility, with the Seattle Space Needle in the background
But as the accompanying piece on Copiers Northwest illustrates, this is not your garden variety office technology dealership. Sure, it has many of the traditional product offerings from Canon, Sharp, HP, Konica Minolta, Lexmark and others, but its burgeoning foray into production printing and its newly-christened Imagination Studio helps extend the boundaries of what is possible. Its Canon relationship has fostered much of the growth, representing more than 60 percent of the firm’s equipment sales.
From its humble beginnings as a seller of Panasonic copier and fax machines in 1986 to a $50 million performer with 235 employees and 12 facilities today, Copiers Northwest has amassed a technical knowledge base of individuals who help fortify its army of 50-plus sales reps. Whether it’s managed print and IT services, MFPs and copiers, wide/grand-format and production print, data security and business process optimization, Copiers Northwest can respond to virtually any client need. Plus, the aforementioned Imagination Studio—when it’s not leaving visiting customers with their mouths agape—can provide that roadmap to exciting and new opportunities beyond toner on paper.
We sat down with CEO Mark Petrie and President Gregg Petrie to gain insight into how the dealership has leveraged its relationship with Canon to gain a stronghold in the Great Northwest.
What were some of the key drivers behind your 2018 performance?
Gregg Petrie: Our equipment sales were up 17 percent overall from the previous year. The Canon C650 was really a key driver of our equipment increase. Overall, production equipment represents about 20 percent of our equipment sales, and we see that continuing to increase. In fact, Canon told us during an annual review that we have sold more of their C650s than any other dealer in the country.
What does Copiers Northwest pride itself on?
Mark Petrie: We’re a great services company. We have many long-term employees, with an average of 22 years of experience for our service staff. Most of our managers have been here at least 20 years, and some have upwards of 30 years. Our slogan is “Custom solutions from your local business partner.” We have 12 locations in the northwest. We go into Oregon with facilities in Bend, Salem and Beaverton. We have facilities in eastern Washington, Spokane and northern Idaho to go with Washington state branches in Yakima, Tri-Cities, Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia. We also own five of our 12 locations.
Gregg Petrie: We have a call center based in the Philippines that sets up first-time new-customer appointments for our staff of more than 50 sales reps. Our reps provide information on prospects to the call center, which makes the phone calls and get the first appointments set. We have seven dedicated full-time employees who call between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. their time.
Tell us about your most recent acquisitions.
Gregg Petrie: A little more than two years ago, we acquired Blackburn’s, a small Sharp dealer in Bellingham, WA. We already had a branch there and we expanded our operations by acquiring them. We also bought a Canon dealer called Synergy, located in Bend, OR, in 2015.
We have a pipeline of more than a dozen targeted companies that we’re currently in talks with, and we’re looking to close two or three of those deals in the next 18 months. With a few others, we’re in the initial discussions stage.
A colorful front façade adorns the Copiers Northwest headquarters in Seattle
What was the biggest highlight for your company in 2018?
Gregg Petrie: We maintained a 90-plus Net Promoter Score all year long; CEO Juice tracks our numbers. One month we achieved 100 percent, which is pretty awesome. It’s the only time we achieved 100 percent, but hey, we hit it! Being named an Elite Dealer by ENX Magazine was another highlight of our year.
Aside from production printing, what would you say are your other strengths?
Mark Petrie: I think it’s the fact that Mark and I have been involved in the company daily. We both work close to 50 hours a week. We know a lot of our customers by having met them face to face, and they love that we foster open communications; they can always reach us if needed. We pride ourselves on that direct access. They don’t have to go through a lot of bureaucracy, which can be the case with some of our competitors or the direct manufacturers, where it’s hard to get ahold of anybody to help resolve issues in a timely manner. We can quickly provide answers for them.
What was the greatest challenge you faced in the past year?
Gregg Petrie: Recruiting sales reps has really become a challenge, especially in Seattle, where the job market is white hot and minimum wage is $15 an hour. A lot of competition for quality sales reps comes from tech companies like Amazon; we’re literally a block away from their headquarters. Fortunately, we do have service techs knocking on our doors on a regular basis. Also, we’re able to find sales reps through our referral program that incents our employees for successful recruits of their friends and acquaintances.
Mark Petrie: We’re located right in the northwest tech hub. Amazon is a block away, Facebook has just moved here in a big way in recent years and Google’s moving in later this year. As a result, recruiting IT-type people, as well as admin, has become a significant challenge.
Is it tough to maintain quality employees?
Mark Petrie: We have a generally low turnover rate everywhere except delivery drivers, which tend to have a high turnover rate. Even though we pay well, it’s still hard to train and retain drivers.
What do you feel sets your company apart from the competition?
Mark Petrie: I’d say it’s a combination of our Net Promoter Score, our customized billing, our great response times and our technicians not having harsh parts budgets. Our Imagination Studio really amazes clients and opens their eyes to all the things that we can do. There’s nothing like the power of a demonstration to show the output and illustrate how simple the equipment is to use, along with all the benefits. And while we can’t have all that heavy equipment at all of our showrooms, they are stocked with many samples of the items we produce on the equipment we have here. We have significant showrooms in all of our locations.
Experience is a key for Copiers Northwest, led by (from left): John Hines, CFO; Mark Petrie, CEO; Gregg Petrie, President and Brad Mofield, Vice President of Services. Hines and Mofield have spent 29 and 30 years, respectively, with the firm
How do you view the industry changing in the future, and what are you doing to adapt?
Mark Petrie: We’ll continue to offer more services and solutions that benefit the customer. That’s partly why we have the Imagination Studio—that’s more specialty graphics and services we can offer. The online retailers such as Amazon are looking to get into this space. And with the acquisition (of DEX Imaging) that Staples just made, one has to wonder what the manufacturers will do with authorizing their products. But we feel very strongly that the independent dealer has many strengths in that first-line service that we believe in, as opposed to clicking and ordering something online, where you don’t know how long it will take to be delivered. Plus, there’s the question of who’s going to help you set it up and provide training on it. That’s all the services the local dealer offers, so we feel we’re in a great position to compete with some of those national players and online offerings.
Gregg Petrie: We’ve been a Business Technology Association and a Copier Dealers Association member for over 20 years. When I first started going to those meetings, the independent dealers were worried the manufacturers were taking over the world. I feel the independent dealer is stronger and is winning that war. I think the future looks bright for growth for strong independent dealers. The ones that cannot offer that high level of service, however, are going to have a tough time competing in the future.
CEO Mark Petrie (left) and President Gregg Petrie
What are your goals for the next 12-18 months?
Gregg Petrie: We’re looking to complete those acquisitions we mentioned previously. We have an emphasis on managed print services, and we’ll continue to grow with production and solutions. Those three areas are really critical to our growth and success moving forward.
The $50 million dollar dealership is a hybrid of sorts, part of a small fraternity of MFP and copier dealers that not only lease (and service) production printing equipment, but has its own digital production operation next door to its main headquarters. Yes, Copiers Northwest can handle office equipment needs through Sharp, HP, Konica Minolta, Canon/Océ and Lexmark lines of product, but it can also provide specialty graphics for clients courtesy of its fleet of five digital units, which have black-and-white and color capabilities.
Copiers Northwest has stepped up its production printing capabilities with the addition of a Canon Océ Colorado 1640 wide-format printer. The unit, installed last summer, has sparked 300 percent growth in volume as the dealer has benefitted from the trifecta of high-quality production, high speeds and 40 percent lower costs. But to appreciate the value that the printer adds to Copiers Northwest is to understand the role production printing plays at the dealer/printer.
The 32-year-old company began its relationship with Canon in 2000, and three years later it embarked down the road of in-house production printing. Copiers Northwest had a core of about 20 facilities management clients, and opened the Document Services Group to service a number of the smaller FM sites through the Imagination Studio.
“It’s a great training ground here to get them to work with all of the various types of equipment instead of learning on the customer’s site,” Copiers Northwest CEO Mark Petrie said.
Lease or Print
The Imagination Studio now serves multiple purposes. If a client runs into a tight spot with capacity—maybe a quick-turn project needs to be run ASAP—or perhaps its production print specialist is unavailable, Copiers Northwest can handle emergency and overflow jobs. Some clients may not be able to justify the cost, floor space and/or other resources to purchase their own Colorado or Canon Océ Arizona flatbed printer, in which case Imagination Studio can fill a need.
While leasing the equipment is the primary initiative, there’s no better sales tool than to introduce clients to the Imagination Studio and demonstrate live the capabilities of wide-format and other digital machines. “We’re not just slick salesmen trying to sell them the features and advantages of the machine that are listed on the brochure,” Petrie noted. “We run customer jobs and can prove to them what the equipment can do. They trust us because we know what we’re doing in fulfilling actual jobs, which increases customer confidence in being able to provide the right equipment for their needs.
“When customers come in for what we call an Office Technology Experience, they’ll look at the equipment and solutions they want for their office,” he added. “When we walk them next door to the Imagination Studio, invariably they’ll say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know you did all of this.’ It starts spurring on the excitement of what other things they can do to market their company, to brand their company and have all of these graphics. Then it turns into, ‘We’re going to get our office equipment from you, and we want to use your production center.’”
Eric Watson, production/operator for Copiers Northwest, notes the center sees heavy utilization for color products for clients in the AEC, legal, government and manufacturing spaces, along with marketing divisions. Copiers Northwest has a number of universities with fleets that it manages, but the dealer also provides them with specialty graphics such as banners, signage and other custom graphics.
From left, Copiers Northwest Production Operations Manager Eric Watson, CEO Mark Petrie and President Gregg Petrie pose alongside the company’s Canon Océ Arizona flatbed printer
“Part of what hiring production people in our overflow center allows us to do is be subject-matter experts for professional services,” Watson said. “People who I hire have industry experience, and are able to train our customers and offer user testimonials on software, workflow and the equipment itself.”
Hybrid Dealer
While Copiers Northwest may not boast four-leaf-clover-level uniqueness when it comes to leasing and printing alike, it is fairly uncommon. Sal Sheikh, vice president of marketing for Océ North America, notes that the vast majority of dealers only resell the Canon equipment, while Copiers Northwest enjoys success in leasing and offering “print-for-pay” services.
“For those that do have an in-house print shop, the Océ Colorado 1640 provides a fantastic opportunity to provide large-format graphics services,” he said. Sheikh attributed Copiers Northwest’s early success to the dealer’s print volumes, the low cost of operation offered by the Colorado 1640 and its speed/throughput capabilities.
Again, the advantage Copiers Northwest can offer is the output capabilities of a machine that is out of reach investment-wise for many customers, along with the overflow function for a shop that is taxed with capacity. “We think it really accelerates our sales and our customers’ confidence in us that we know what we’re doing to provide services to them,” Petrie added. “I think we’re quite unique.”
Colorado 1640
Petrie had been tracking the Colorado’s release and was intrigued by the prospect of getting into different applications beyond the basics of what the Océ wide-format and Canon inkjet machines could produce. He felt the market lacked a solution for the wide/grand format segment that boasted the output speed, quality, production automation and self-maintenance capabilities of the Colorado, particularly at a viable price point.
Another member of Copiers Northwest production fleet is the Canon imagePRESS C10000VP color digital press
Copiers Northwest’s production team is fully trained on both the Arizona and Colorado products, which gives the dealer another critical edge. Most other Canon dealers are brokers who sell the product, but turn servicing over to the manufacturer. Copiers Northwest can lease and service the machines, which adds more credibility to the offering.
According to Watson, one of the biggest under-the-hood draws for the Colorado 1640 is the Canon UVgel technology with cold curing that provides for instantly dry prints. The machine can output photo-quality prints at 430 square feet per hour. Ink durability is critical; whether it’s for banners or some other outdoor signage, the printed output can withstand long periods outdoors without the need to over-laminate, which saves Copiers Northwest labor time and material costs while decreasing turnaround time.
The newest member of Copiers Northwest’s fleet is the Canon Océ Colorado 1640 wide-format printer, flanked by Production Operations Manager Eric Watson, CEO Mark Petrie and President Gregg Petrie
The Colorado has really enabled Copiers Northwest to expand the boundaries of banners and signage to include wall, window and floor graphics. Mesh banners for construction sites is a major area of need for clients, and other applications include wallpaper, window clings and window screens. The shop can print on a variety of materials that can be applied to virtually any surface.
Floor Show
One of the biggest growth areas is floor graphics. It’s a product of the times; as many people have their heads down looking at their phones, floor graphics have become attention grabbers. This enables marketers to leverage a greenfield chunk of real estate.
“From an owner’s standpoint, we see a lot of opportunity and growth with specialty graphics,” Petrie noted. “The SGIA show was a real eye-opener for me, it was really amazing to see all the graphics and equipment that were there. That convinced me it’s the next big area to get into for the growth of a dealership like ours.
“We’re a larger dealership that has the resources and customers to sell these types of products to, and the margins in specialty graphics are strong. Wide-format hasn’t been commoditized like the rest of the markets. There’s still money to be made in this segment for the companies that are buying it and the dealers that are selling it. And the expanded offerings attract a wider range of customers that weren’t really available to us in the past.”
Whether Copiers Northwest is leasing, servicing or printing on the Colorado 1640 and other production machines, the dealership certainly has positioned itself uniquely in a segment where it has precious few competitors capable of doing all three. That definitely enables the dealer to be, in Petrie’s words, one throat to choke…not to mention one provider to pay.
