{"id":9377,"date":"2013-07-01T02:19:15","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T06:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=9377"},"modified":"2014-11-03T02:22:03","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T07:22:03","slug":"a-conversation-with-jd-sullivan-president-of-image-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/dealer-spotlight\/2013\/07\/a-conversation-with-jd-sullivan-president-of-image-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation with JD Sullivan, President of Image Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Conversation with JD Sullivan, President of Image Matters<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"JD<\/a>

JD Sullivan – Image Matters<\/p><\/div>\n

Founded in 1999, Image Matters is an office technology dealership based in Knoxville, TN. The dealership and its 36 employees serve a diverse customer base, providing technology from Konica Minolta, Sharp, and Muratec as well as MPS and commercial print and copy retail services. It\u2019s a small business that makes a big difference in its customer\u2019s operations. Recently I had the opportunity to speak with President JD Sullivan about the company, its success in MPS, and the industry.<\/p>\n

How\u2019s business?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan: <\/strong>Good, we\u2019re continuing to grow, continuing to move forward.
\n
\nWhat are you doing right?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan: <\/strong>The continued growth of managed print. Our structure is built around a managed print model; we transitioned out of a traditional office technology model and we\u2019ve been extremely successful.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m curious, how\u2019d you get into this business?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan: <\/strong>I graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1995 and went into retail management and was working in retail here [in Knoxville]. I had forgotten to take my r\u00e9sum\u00e9 out of the UT career center and this guy named Bob Lovelace called me and asked if I\u2019d be interested in outside sales. I had no interest, but I ended up going to work for Bob at a small office equipment dealership here and four years later he and I started Image Matters. I just kind of fell into it; I don\u2019t think anybody gets into this business intentionally.<\/p>\n

Tell me about Imagelink, your branded MPS program.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan:<\/strong> In 2007 we had clients asking us to service products for them. As you know traditional philosophy stated that we don\u2019t service anything that we aren\u2019t authorized to sell or can\u2019t sell. If we can\u2019t make GP on the sale we\u2019re not going to service it. Then Bob and I came to the realization that was stupid, as people were asking to pay us to service a product that is much more simplified than what we currently do. So we started dabbling in it, and by 2008 we realized it was a model we could adapt. We just had to be committed to changing the way we think.<\/p>\n

Tell me about that commitment.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan:<\/strong> That commitment piece is key and that\u2019s why so many dealers fail. They just want to stick a toe in the water, but you\u2019d better get scuba gear because you really have to jump into it. We committed time, we committed resources, and we created a team culture. All 35 of my employees can tell you about our managed print services program in detail, what it is, how it works. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve built our business around. When the economy started to fail people stopped buying office equipment, but they wanted to keep things going so we just ramped up managed print at that time. We launched our print shop around that time as well.<\/p>\n

For us, that\u2019s where we see Image Matters continuing to grow. Don\u2019t get me wrong, we sell a lot of copiers\u2014that\u2019s our foundation, and our customer service model is built on that office technology platform. But we will walk by your copiers to help you with your printers because your printers are costing you more and we can be of better service to you by facilitating that printer.
\n
\nWhere are you finding opportunities for MPS?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan:<\/strong> We\u2019re actually finding more outside of our base. I feel we need to do a better job of providing this opportunity to our clients. Our large MPS clients were not clients before. We don\u2019t service the MFPs of our largest MPS clients, we just service their printers.<\/p>\n

How did you hook up with these clients in the first place?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan:<\/strong> All of my sales team lead with managed print. I have six managed print specialists that also sell copiers. It\u2019s a more technological sale, there are no speeds and feeds, there\u2019s no demo. Dinosaurs like me can sell boxes, but these kids, and when I say kids, my oldest sales rep is 27 years old. Our reps range in age from 23 to 27 and every one of them can load a DCS, every one of them can log into a server, and every one of them can remote into a client site.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t teach them, they just know that; they\u2019ve grown up in this technology world. What we think of copier sales is a big deal, but to them it\u2019s just doing business. On the other hand, they don\u2019t know what we know because they don\u2019t have that tried and true sales call, cold calls to appointments, appointments to demos, and demos to sales [experience]. You\u2019ll hear a lot of older dealers say, \u201cThat\u2019s the way it\u2019s always been; it\u2019s never going to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t teach them those steps so when they approach a decision maker who already has the script to keep the copier salesperson out of the building, the decision maker doesn\u2019t have a script for a managed print specialist. They\u2019re interested because they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re spending. They don\u2019t know their toner costs, they don\u2019t know their volumes, and that\u2019s what my reps focus on. We\u2019re not talking about their copiers. That\u2019s not our focus. We want to speak to them about their 65 printers not their three copy machines. Our sales reps go after the fleet and their comp plan is built around service contracts.<\/p>\n

How did everyone in your company acquire the knowledge to speak intelligently about MPS?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan: <\/strong>Bob and I are active owners. We\u2019re here every day and we sell every day. We just have an open dialog. We are so passionate about the managed print space and that\u2019s what we talk about. We enjoy it. It\u2019s exciting and that excitement spreads through the company. We\u2019re growing 12-15 percent for equipment sales, but have 600-1,000 percent growth in managed print. When our employees see what\u2019s going on, they have to be involved because a down printer is different than a down copier. It has to be addressed differently, the protocol is different, the replacement methodology is different, and they all have to understand that, from the delivery team to the front office billing team. It\u2019s a much more fluid process so everybody must be involved.<\/p>\n

Who do you find yourself competing with on the MPS side of things?
\n<\/em>
\nSullivan: <\/strong>There are very few people we compete with on a regular basis simply because there\u2019s so little commitment and so much fear of the managed print space. Our close rate on competitive deals is about 95 percent because we service every make and model known to man.<\/p>\n

Most dealers when they first do MPS want to go in and refresh somebody\u2019s entire fleet. But at the end of the day they\u2019re still dropping boxes. We truly do not care if we ever sell them a printer. And if they want to buy a printer from us they can. If not, give us a call and we\u2019ll let you know about a unit with a low CPP and you can buy that from anywhere you like. That\u2019s where we differentiate ourselves. We have always implemented into our program what\u2019s best for the client. It may not always be profitable for the dealer; I\u2019m not going to sell 100 printers that I could have probably sold. If they have a great printer in place and I know it\u2019s a great printer, I\u2019m not going to replace it, I\u2019m just going to service it.<\/p>\n

How do you differentiate yourself in your market whether it\u2019s for MPS or for just the hardware sales?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan:<\/strong> We\u2019re the only dealer in our area that focuses heavily on managed print and the only dealer with a print shop. We have a dedicated team of people and a dedicated person in my building that watches four huge screens all day long and monitors our PrintFleet servers and does real-time monitoring of supplies. A just-in-time program only works when you have someone that watches that program. That\u2019s what Jenny, our dedicated person does, and she interacts with every managed print client on a one-on-one basis. If you have an office equipment call it goes into our customer service center for MFPs, if it\u2019s a printer call and comes in over the phone it goes directly to our MPS advisor. She works with them so it\u2019s almost like they have a personal concierge.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the biggest challenge facing your dealership?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan:<\/strong> We have two. The first is to continue to maintain the rapid pace of growth and level of services and keep those consistent. The second is to fully launch a managed network offering in 2014. Anytime we launch a new product we take it to our best clients so over the next year we\u2019ll be running our betas and getting feedback from key clients. We\u2019ve got to make sure we stay diligent in that process as we learn this new business.<\/p>\n

What are your expectations when it comes to growth in the next two to three years?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan: <\/strong>We\u2019re at $6 million now, we\u2019ll be happy with 12 percent a year, but anticipate it to be more like 20-25 percent a year.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s it going to take to do that?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan: <\/strong>Commitment and buy in from the Image Matters family because when everybody believes in the processes it just naturally progresses forward.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best thing about your job?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan: <\/strong>Realizing that you\u2019ve built so many friendships and relationships through the process of providing for your family. Another is just coming into this office every day. That\u2019s the best part, being able to come in and interact every day and keeping busy.<\/p>\n

If you weren\u2019t doing this, what do you think you\u2019d be doing instead?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sullivan:<\/strong> I\u2019d probably be on the beach surfing somewhere, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d have a job or not, but I\u2019d be happy when the sun came up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Conversation with JD Sullivan, President of Image Matters Founded in 1999, Image Matters is an office technology dealership based in Knoxville, TN. The dealership and its 36 employees serve a diverse customer base, providing technology from Konica Minolta, Sharp, and Muratec as well as MPS and commercial print and copy retail services. It\u2019s a small business that makes a big difference in its customer\u2019s operations. Recently I had the opportunity to speak with President JD Sullivan about the company, its success in MPS, and the industry. How\u2019s business? Sullivan: Good, we\u2019re continuing to grow, continuing to move forward. What are you doing right? Sullivan: The continued growth of managed print. Our structure is built around a managed print model; we transitioned out of a traditional office technology model and we\u2019ve been extremely successful. I\u2019m curious, how\u2019d you get into this business? Sullivan: I graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1995 and went into retail management and was working in retail here [in Knoxville]. I had forgotten to take my r\u00e9sum\u00e9 out of the UT career center and this guy named Bob Lovelace called me and asked if I\u2019d be interested in outside sales. I had no interest, but I ended up going to work for Bob at a small office equipment dealership here and four years later he and I started Image Matters. I just kind of fell into it; I don\u2019t think anybody gets into this business intentionally. Tell me about Imagelink, your branded MPS program. Sullivan: In 2007 we had clients asking us to service products for them. As you know traditional philosophy stated that we don\u2019t service anything that we aren\u2019t authorized to sell or can\u2019t sell. If we can\u2019t make GP on the sale we\u2019re not going to service it. Then Bob and I came to the realization that was stupid, as people were asking to pay us to service a product that is much more simplified than what we currently do. So we started dabbling in it, and by 2008 we realized it was a model we could adapt. We just had to be committed to changing the way we think. Tell me about that commitment. Sullivan: That commitment piece is key and that\u2019s why so many dealers fail. They just want to stick a toe in the water, but you\u2019d better get scuba gear because you really have to jump into it. We committed time, we committed resources, and we created a team culture. All 35 of my employees can tell you about our managed print services program in detail, what it is, how it works. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve built our business around. When the economy started to fail people stopped buying office equipment, but they wanted to keep things going so we just ramped up managed print at that time. We launched our print shop around that time as well. For us, that\u2019s where we see Image Matters continuing to grow. Don\u2019t get me wrong, we sell a lot of copiers\u2014that\u2019s our foundation, and our customer service model is built on that office technology platform. But we will walk by your copiers to help you with your printers because your printers are costing you more and we can be of better service to you by facilitating that printer. Where are you finding opportunities for MPS? Sullivan: We\u2019re actually finding more outside of our base. I feel we need to do a better job of providing this opportunity to our clients. Our large MPS clients were not clients before. We don\u2019t service the MFPs of our largest MPS clients, we just service their printers. How did you hook up with these clients in the first place? Sullivan: All of my sales team lead with managed print. I have six managed print specialists that also sell copiers. It\u2019s a more technological sale, there are no speeds and feeds, there\u2019s no demo. Dinosaurs like me can sell boxes, but these kids, and when I say kids, my oldest sales rep is 27 years old. Our reps range in age from 23 to 27 and every one of them can load a DCS, every one of them can log into a server, and every one of them can remote into a client site. We didn\u2019t teach them, they just know that; they\u2019ve grown up in this technology world. What we think of copier sales is a big deal, but to them it\u2019s just doing business. On the other hand, they don\u2019t know what we know because they don\u2019t have that tried and true sales call, cold calls to appointments, appointments to demos, and demos to sales [experience]. You\u2019ll hear a lot of older dealers say, \u201cThat\u2019s the way it\u2019s always been; it\u2019s never going to change.\u201d We didn\u2019t teach them those steps so when they approach a decision maker who already has the script to keep the copier salesperson out of the building, the decision maker doesn\u2019t have a script for a managed print specialist. They\u2019re interested because they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re spending. They don\u2019t know their toner costs, they don\u2019t know their volumes, and that\u2019s what my reps focus on. We\u2019re not talking about their copiers. That\u2019s not our focus. We want to speak to them about their 65 printers not their three copy machines. Our sales reps go after the fleet and their comp plan is built around service contracts. How did everyone in your company acquire the knowledge to speak intelligently about MPS? Sullivan: Bob and I are active owners. We\u2019re here every day and we sell every day. We just have an open dialog. We are so passionate about the managed print space and that\u2019s what we talk about. We enjoy it. It\u2019s exciting and that excitement spreads through the company. We\u2019re growing 12-15 percent for equipment sales, but have 600-1,000 percent growth in managed print. When our employees see what\u2019s going on, they have to be involved because a down printer is different than a down copier. It has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1643,1649,1814],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9377"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9380,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9377\/revisions\/9380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}