It’s that time of year where most of us make New Year’s commitments!
Wonder what your peers are up to? Here’s what most leaders in the imaging industry have as their New Year’s resolution.
- Re-Evaluate New Build Toner Options
Most imaging resellers agree that toner represents between 60 – 80% of the internal cost to deliver a cost-per-page program to end users that includes services and toner. This is why so many resellers are switching to new build toner cartridges like ARLINGTON’s exclusive NXT Line.
Unlike remanufactured print cartridges, the new generation of new build cartridges are packing way more punch with higher quality components that perform like OEMs for less money than popular remanufactured cartridges. The choice is yours, but you can expect more and more resellers to start offering new build toner cartridges in 2019.
- Convert Transactional Customers to Contractual Revenues
The shift to selling things as a service (aaS) continues to help imaging resellers grow their monthly recurring revenues and normalize cashflow. The definition of Managed Print Services now expands from simple toner fulfillment to advanced workflow automation so there’s lots of opportunity to offer a basic or advanced service. Most resellers have found success starting with a basic offering to their high value transactional customers before their competitors do.
- Warehouse Less / Increase Drop Shipments
With increasing margin pressure and less need to carry expensive inventory, many resellers are looking to eliminate needless steps and expense in their order fulfillment process. A “drop shipment” refers to the ability of a distributor like ARLINGTON to deliver your toner or equipment order directly to your customers located anywhere in the United States. Usually the orders arrive quicker and the reseller can skip the need to receive, inventory and re-deliver which saves both time and money. If you need ideas on how best to use drop shipping, your ARLINGTON representative would be pleased to explain how it works!
- Implement a Sales Training Program
Do you have a sales training plan to help your people sell more in 2019? Too often training is a one-time event for most resellers and not a recurring series of skill development activities that yield a greater ROI. Many resellers are also awakening to the fact that there’s big a difference between training someone about product features versus selling skills. Both are necessary and there is a difference. This year we expect more resellers to leverage their ARLINGTON partnership to get access to our Partner Pro B2B Training Series. An industry specific on-demand learning platform now used by the top Managed Service Providers in North America. Our top 3 courses attended by resellers in 2018 included, How to Use LinkedIn to Win, Selling Business to Business Boot Camp and Selling Managed Print Services to Win.
It’s 2019 and people will be online looking for what you sell more than ever before. That’s why many resellers are making a commitment to improve their website and do a better job promoting their brand through social media and other digital channels. Elite resellers know they need to meet their customers where they are and that’s why they’re planning to elevate the digital DNA of their brand this year.
The challenge for most resellers is the lack of time and the expertise required to elevate their website in Google search rankings or keeping up with social media, blogging and email content. If you need help, ask your teammates at ARLINGTON about our exclusive Managed Digital Marketing Services for imaging resellers.
Do these TOP 5 most common New Year’s resolutions look familiar?
The key is to make a commitment to your commitment. We say this because stats indicate that 80% of New Year’s resolutions don’t last until February and only 8% of people succeed in what they committed to on January 1st.
But we know you can achieve your goal and we’d love to be a part of it with the NEW Power of 3 at your side!
