A Dedicated Staff = MPS Success at GFI Digital

By Scott Cullen

St. Louis has the Cardinals, Rams, and the Blues, but one of the most successful teams in the market by far can be found at GFI Digital, an independent office technology dealership that’s grown into a $50-million business in 11 years.

The GFI Digital team covers a good portion of Missouri along with western Illinois, and has emerged as a leader and trend setter in the markets it serves. Customers have high expectations as well they should from their office technology provider, and if it weren’t for the dealership’s commitment towards providing solutions, top-notch customer service and support, it’s unlikely GFI Digital would be enjoying the success they do today. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing right, from the top of the 150 personnel organization to the bottom and everyone in between.

Dealerships across the country may still be crying the blues as the economy stumbles and fumbles along, but at GFI Digital, business is up 22 percent this year. How can that be?

Mark Kehoe, vice president print management and one of GFI’s owners, and a man of few words depending on what you’re asking him, simply responds, “Work.”

Okay, can you elaborate on that, please?

“We’re protecting the base and pumping for net new business,” he adds. “The economy has opened up accounts that we normally wouldn’t get a chance at because they were happy with their current vendor. Now the higher ups are asking them to shop it a little bit and it’s creating opportunities.”

GFI Digital does well in what Kehoe describes as B-size and larger accounts. They tend to shy away from the smaller accounts with Kehoe stating, “We don’t need the practice.”

Asked why customers like doing business with GFI Digital, Kehoe cites reliable, prompt, excellent service. We’ve heard that line before and it’s an easy claim to make but a difficult one to put in practice. GFI Digital seems to be nailing it though and their reputation for service seems to precede them.

“St. Louis is a big ‘show me’ state, and once you start getting traction in these accounts and you’re doing business with this person, that other person is going to look at you,” explains Kehoe.

GFI Digital has plenty of competition although its most serious competitors tend to be other independent dealers and IKON. As far as direct branches, there aren’t that many to compete with and what’s there Kehoe describes as “weak.”

Five years ago the company made a strategic decision to move into managed print. It was a smart decision even though Kehoe realizes their initial approach to it was skewed.

“We were doing it the wrong way by selling equipment into the accounts,” states Kehoe. “And we were doing it with our general sales staff.”

Although GFI Digital enjoyed some success selling managed print the first four years, they could have done better. The big turnaround came last November when they assembled a dedicated sales staff focused exclusively on MPS.

Kehoe acknowledges the challenges of selling MPS, lamenting the longer sales cycles and the danger of getting bogged down with customers who are not going to make a decision, leaving the dealer holding the bag after doing a lot of work for nothing. That’s still a danger, but GFI Digital has learned from its mistakes.

“We’ve gotten a lot better at identifying where we need to focus,” says Kehoe. “If it’s not a go, they’re not wasting their time doing a bunch of work for someone who’s not making a decision.”
Transitioning its MPS approach from an equipment first mentality was a smart move.

“That wasn’t the right way to do it,” notes Kehoe. “First you pick up the maintenance contract and then you get the equipment, so it’s a totally different mindset.”

In Kehoe’s estimation, there’s no big secret in identifying an MPS candidate—it’s an organization with 40 machines or 100,000 minimum clicks.

“Our dedicated MPS staff is focused on the higher end customer.”

Along the road to MPS success, GFI Digital has had to deal with certain misconceptions among Kehoe’s prospects and customer base. He mentions customers who were at one time quoted a nickel a copy, telling GFI Digital reps, ‘We looked at that, we’re fine with what we’re doing.’

“We tell them, ‘keep an open mind; we have a new approach to MPS and it has nothing to do with selling hardware and no, you’re not going to be paying a nickel a print,’” says Kehoe.

That message is breaking down the misconceptions and GFI Digital is now billing $194,000 a month for services. And new MPS business just keeps rolling in. They just picked up a new $25,000 a month account and another big account is pending.

No wonder Kehoe says, “Our MPS business is growing dramatically.” Plus he expects the MPS portion of the business to reach $8 million annually in three years.

What makes Kehoe so confident?

“Because we have a three-year plan,” he responds. “Our plan is to add $15,000 a month in additional billings.”

The biggest obstacle to hitting those numbers is losing focus. Kehoe doesn’t expect that to happen now that he has a dedicated sales staff.

“It’s really not that hard if you focus on true MPS and only MPS and you’ve got six reps and all you’re looking for is $15,000 additional billings per month,” emphasizes Kehoe. “If you get off the focus of what you’re supposed to be doing—driving printer service—you’re not going to reach it. If you’re not focused on true MPS and MPS accounts, dedicated MPS, you’ll never get there.”

Identifying the decision maker for an MPS engagement is always critical and Kehoe identifies C-level executives as prime targets, but he does offer a word of caution before going there.

“You’ve got to be careful with the CFO or CIO because all of a sudden you’re alienating the director of IT so you have to quickly bring them into the fold, explaining to them, ‘No, we’re going to make you look good, not make you look bad in this process.’”

He adds that sometimes the CIO is too high, so then the focus should be on the director of IT or the person responsible for the organization’s help desk.

Kehoe has found that it’s not difficult finding the proper person to speak with, but the hardest part is simply getting in front of them. No big revelation there.

“Once you get in front of them, 70 percent of the time you’re going to at least get something moving forward,” he says.

GFI Digital wasn’t afraid to ask for help in developing its MPS strategy. Kehoe reveals that Strategy Development has helped them formulate the direction they should be going with MPS along with a compensation plan for the dedicated reps even though the compensation for GFI Digital’s higher end reps is higher on the salary side than what Strategy Development’s model shows.

Kehoe concedes that doing it right in the MPS world requires a financial investment to get things moving in the right direction.

“At the end of the first year we’re probably going to lose $63,000, but by the second year we’ll be making $1 million, and then it goes crazy from there,” reports Kehoe.

Asked if he has any words of wisdom for dealers who haven’t taken the plunge into MPS, Kehoe doesn’t hesitate, “ Don’t do it unless you’re going to commit to it, hire a dedicated staff, and then manage to a plan and stick with the plan. If you don’t, don’t even get involved with it because you’ll get frustrated quick.”


Scott Cullen has been covering the office equipment industry since 1986. Scott is Publisher/Editorial Director for Imaging Solutions Reseller; Editorial Director/Managing Editor for OfficeSOLUTIONS and OfficeDEALER; Editor for PC Solutions; and a contributing writer and Editor for Independent Dealer, OFDA, Mercer Business, ENX, BERTL’s iTchat, Repro Report.