An oft-cited statistic from office technology marketing suggests that prospects today are at least 60% of the way into the buyer’s journey when they engage dealers. The actual number isn’t as important as the prime takeaway, which is that buyers have already done a great deal of homework. They don’t require hand-holding as much as assurance that your company is capable of delivering on value and promises.
This is why PERRY proTECH continuously seeks to bolster its brand awareness. The Lima, Ohio-based dealer, with six satellite locations throughout the Buckeye State and Indiana, already boasts a high profile within the industry, backed by 300 team members. But companies that celebrate their 60th anniversary, as is the case with PERRY proTECH, can’t survive that long by employing outdated marketing strategies and/or misreading the needs of their customer base.
As such, President and CEO Patrick Summers knows leveraging his dealer’s resources is one critical step in corralling prospects deep in their buyer’s journey. “You need to have the right resources—the pre-sales people, sales, analysts and production service engineers—with the right kind of marketing wrapped around it,” he said.
A managed service provider, PERRY proTECH is a multi-line dealer offering Ricoh, Lexmark, Konica Minolta and Kyocera boxes as well as Duplo (finishing) and Mimaki (wide-format) equipment. Its market reach includes much of Ohio, eastern Indiana and southern Michigan, and while the dealer pulls in up-and-down-the-street business, its big three client verticals are education, health care and business services.
Strong Growth in Production and IT
Managed IT and production print are the twin fortes of PERRY proTECH. The latter provided a company-best 17% year-over-year increase, while the former continues to grow on the strength of security applications (more on both shortly). Both played significant roles in ensuring that 2024 wasn’t a letdown year coming off a 2023 that saw a large number of backlog orders fulfilled. In order to accomplish this, the dealer had to “recalibrate and make sure we got back to the roots of our business.” Q1 of 2025 was equally successful.
The company has changed how it markets itself, moving from broad advertising to more targeted efforts. About two years ago, a newly hired in-house marketing professional began using tools such as HubSpot to run focused campaigns. These include direct mail, social media, email marketing, and events that highlight specific technologies such as IT or flatbed printing.
“We’re into laser direct marketing campaigns geared toward certain types of businesses who we know have the needs and wants for the technology we’re trying to sell,” Summers said. “We may have a two-month marketing campaign on social media, and by using tools such as HubSpot, we can host a technology show in one of our locations.”
These new, targeted events now draw 50 to 100 interested businesses at each location—a noticeable increase—and lead to quick sales since they’ve been seeing the content for months. Summers says it’s not just about showing products anymore; it’s about demonstrating expertise and giving people a reason to trust them and the team. A prime example of this saw PERRY proTECH make four sales of highlighted technologies within a few days of the event.
“People aren’t attending just because they want to see what we’re selling,” he noted. “They’re coming because we’re going to be focusing on flatbed printing, IT or another particular technology. We’re also seeing different show attendees; it’s not just buyers and procurement people. We want brand awareness in our marketplaces. Buyers today are doing more research than ever, and we need to be readily providing them with relevant information. The goal was to create an outbound strategy that creates inbound leads.”
“We also sought to expand the bandwidth of sales—it’s about ensuring our talent is focused on the right opportunities,” he added. “When we can get them to come to us/engage us, it’s better for everyone.”
Production equipment has been a consistent growth vehicle for PERRY proTECH. Summers notes it’s an area the dealership tracks on a monthly, weekly and daily basis. Again here, he feels it’s a matter of having the right resources—presales, sales, production analysts and production engineers, among others.
“We measure production monthly; whether it’s revenue, clicks or units placed, we manage it and make it visible,” he said. “It’s really about the people. It’s ingrained throughout our entire footprint, something we emphasize every day.”
Vertical Targeting
While print-for-pay has long been the vertical hunting ground, Summers sees PERRY proTECH’s prime targets as manufacturing, industrial print and in-plants. One common denominator is companies seeking to automate their processes. Another entails companies that previously outsourced their printing needs and now want to bring the jobs in-house—ultimately providing a higher ROI and reducing the added turnaround time that generally accompanies outsourced work.
Here, too, marketing has played a role in facilitating production sales. “Our marketing department is really changing where we’re finding some of these opportunities,” Summers added. “Marketing inside of companies is really a one-to-one strategy, and our production is being sold to a lot of clients so they can do one-to-one marketing with their prospects. We still sell production product—whether it’s education, health care or even commercial print—but we’re seeing more and more regular-old companies becoming more sophisticated inside their marketing departments or inside their print shops. I believe marketing inside companies is driving some of this.”
Managed IT is another cornerstone offering for PERRY proTECH. Its managed network services feature server and network monitoring, firewall protection and Microsoft 365 management. Cybersecurity is another major part of the dealer’s offering, from multi-factor identification to endpoint protection, data backup and mobile threat defense. Security awareness training, vulnerability scanning and cybersecurity consultation make for a well-rounded platform.
“We specialize in anything related to a network, whether it’s cybersecurity, the technologies that wrap around it, or the tools or software that help people protect their information,” Summers related “We have agreements with clients where we’re their IT business; it’s 100% outsourced to us. With other clients, we work directly with their IT staff. We can serve them at whatever level they require.”
AI’s Future Role
Summers believes PERRY proTECH is just scratching the surface when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) and expects it to become more important in meeting rising customer expectations. The company is starting to use AI in customer service, sales and marketing, and current applications include scripting, proposals, correspondence and messaging.
“Right now, we’re at the tip of the iceberg with AI,” he said. “We’re on step one of 100. I think a lot of dealers are searching for the right platform that would allow them to do more with less. Today’s world is moving awfully fast, and customers have high expectations. Being in the business that we’re in, we have to be able to exceed these expectations.”
While it’s been a few years since PERRY proTECH completed an acquisition, Summers is always on the lookout for sellers that could represent a strategic fit for the company. He believes the next 24 months will be most telling, given the volume of change that’s taking place in the manufacturer community and with potentially more on the horizon. Maintaining viability moving forward, for OEMs and dealers, will test resourcefulness.
“You need to have the right resources, whether it’s financial or people, to remain in business,” Summers added. “We’ll continue to look for opportunities to acquire businesses, and geographically, we’re really not even concerned much about where they’re located. But it needs to be a good fit.”
Any additions would need to be complementary to growth, and the best candidates should offer a combination of MFP and managed IT or specialize in one or the other. The companies he won’t consider deviate sharply from PERRY proTECH’s product and service catalog.
Customer Experience
The company invests heavily in employee training and customer service in part because Summers believes the key to growth is delivering great service and hiring talented people. As an employee-owned company, everyone at PERRY proTECH benefits when the company succeeds. That ownership helps drive commitment, low turnover and strong culture.
As a dealer that works under an employee stock ownership plan (see sidebar), driving stock value will continue to be a main priority. Fulfilling the tenets of the annual business plan, from growth to continued training in 2025, will go a long way toward checking off the desired boxes. There are certain performance aspects of PERRY proTECH’s business that are measured “maniacally,” and Summers is relentless in making sure these metrics tell the real story.
“Everything we do is about growing through service, products and people,” he noted. “And the only way to grow your company is through great service to your customers. Every conversation we have and every time we have a meeting, the focus is on how we continue to deliver the highest level of support for our customers and how we continue to grow through products, services and people development. Nothing is more important than the benefits we offer to our customers and the advantages we provide that enable them to grow their companies and reach their goals. If we help our customers succeed, we’ll grow too.”
PERRY proTECH Employees Take Ownership in their Company—Literally
If one were to ask the employees of PERRY proTECH—all 300 of them—what the greatest benefits are in working under an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), company CEO Patrick Summers cautions there could be as many as 300 different responses. As for the top executive, Summers sees it as an “unbelievable cultural flag to rally around,” and there’s little doubt that it’s a common thread among all the team members.
One could easily assess that having your financial fortunes tied into that of the company is a motivating factor. And the opportunity to build a tidy nest egg for retirement is compelling. Certainly, one doesn’t have to work under an ESOP to achieve both. However, that feeling of having a shared stake—in tandem with Summers’ cultural flag—has undoubtedly provided the foundation for its success.
Considering the extremely low rate of turnover at PERRY proTECH, the program, implemented in the mid-1980s (before becoming 100% ESOP a decade later), certainly resonates throughout the organization. “People stick around because they know the power the ESOP will have in the future for them individually,” Summers pointed out.
There’s a sizable core of team members who’ve logged 20, 30 and even 40 years with the firm. This validates Summers’ belief that the ESOP is woven into the fabric of the culture.
“It’s just a very powerful thing,” he added.
