Double Your Document Management Revenue

It's not often that you are greeted by the opportunity to win a 2008 Porsche Boxster when you visit an enterprise content management (ECM) VAR's website. Nor do you expect to see that VAR as the sponsor of four sports teams, including the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL. Nonetheless, that is exactly what you will find when you visit the website of Impact Networking, a $40 million company built up from its roots as a traditional office equipment dealer.

Based in Waukegan, IL, Impact had established a strong enough reputation in the copier market to virtually guarantee its survival despite commoditization, but for the company's executives, mere survival was not enough. After all, you don't get to be this successful by simply settling for survival. Growth was the goal, and accomplishing it led Impact to abandon its traditional copier dealer business model and make the transformation to VAR and systems integrator. Impact's services now span from print management to networking and VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol); however, the VAR's main focus is on the creation and implementation of complete document management strategies. To this end, Impact created a Strategic Services Division dedicated to document management. This was definitely the right decision, as document management sales have already reached the $5 million mark in just a few years. In addition, the five-step sales process developed by the Strategic Services Division has the VAR anticipating revenue from document management solutions to climb at a rate of 100% annually over the next several years.

Build A Dedicated Document Management Team
For a copier dealer, making the transformation from hardware dealer to ECM VAR is no easy task, especially when your entire team has spent decades selling hardware focused on creating documents, rather than managing them. "We needed a team that could evaluate the impact of documents on an entire organization and assist with the development of comprehensive electronic document management strategies, rather than continuing to focus our efforts on a specific piece of hardware," says John Larson. Larson was the first member of that team and now serves as VP of what has become Impact's Strategic Services Division.

Developing the Strategic Services Division included hiring a division manager for each of the company's eight branches. These managers have the knowledge and expertise to understand, develop, and deploy corporate document management strategies and are in place to provide direct line support to the 8 to 12 sales reps in each branch. Managers are available to assist reps at each step of the process, from accompanying reps on first appointments to serving as the project lead during solution implementation. In fact, the division manager is the person who gets pulled in every time an Impact rep uncovers a potential document management opportunity.

Larson labels his division managers as 'triple threats,' because each was chosen based on their level of business acumen, technical expertise, and most importantly, sales expertise. "Unlike most of the providers we see, our primary focus is on the business acumen of our consultants," says Larson. "The others are usually positioning the technical guys at the top of their professional services groups, but what many organizations don't realize is that there is a strategic model involved in marketing and implementation of a document management strategy." Not surprisingly, the overarching responsibility of the division managers is to support and enforce the specific selling process developed by the Strategic Services Division.

Deploy A Well-Defined Sales Strategy
One of the consequences of operating in a commoditized market is the loss of perceived value with respect to your product offering. Impact's Strategic Services Division makes sure its reps avoid this consequence by mandating a prescribed sales approach that is broken down into five critical areas, the first of which is to develop a strong value proposition. Although the value proposition may vary somewhat from customer to customer, the underlying premise is the same. "Documents have a significant impact on an organization, both in operational and financial terms," says Larson. "The value proposition for our customers is that Impact has a dedicated team with the vision and expertise to create, implement, and manage a comprehensive document management strategy." According to Larson, many companies don't have a document management strategy, and if they do, it is fragmented and unstructured. Wrapping education regarding the benefits of electronic document management around that value statement enables reps to engage the interest of an organization and move the process forward.

Once interest has been generated, the second step is to earn the support of the prospect's top executive. "Even if we sit down with an IT director or an office manager, our goal is to work as a team with that individual to get alignment (i.e. buy-in) with the top executive," says Larson. "It makes sense to at least gain sponsorship on the project and have a conceptual conversation with the executive early in the process."

Establishing this executive rapport early in the process ensures Larson's team isn't wasting precious time and resources on what could end up being a nonopportunity. "Every VAR has been involved in projects where they've put in a tremendous amount of time and research only to have that opportunity never come to fruition," says Larson. "Our goal is to not waste anybody's time." Having the support of a top executive validates there is some degree of interest in gaining additional information regarding a document management strategy.

Being in alignment with a top executive not only gains early buy-in, but also secures access to employees across the board in preparation for the next step of Impact's sales process — performing a document impact assessment. Like its overall sales process, Impact breaks this assessment into five components. The first is output analysis, where benchmark volumes for copy, print, and fax are gathered, including equipment configurations and vendors. Next is a workflow assessment that evaluates the flow of paper through each business process, such as in purchasing or HR. Third is an evaluation of compliance and audit risks, which vary by industry, such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) in healthcare or FDA regulations in pharmaceuticals. Fourth is a technology assessment to determine current infrastructure in terms of networks, databases, and back end systems such as ERP (enterprise resource planning). Finally, Impact conducts a financial assessment that analyzes the hard and soft costs associated with the organization's paper-based processes from a TCO (total cost of ownership) standpoint. For example, how much does it cost to handle a document more than one time, or what is the cost of storage?

The assessment phase concludes with the presentation of a validation report. The report gives Impact the chance to illustrate exactly what was learned during the assessment and gain validation of those findings directly from the customer. "Most companies don't have any clue about the impact their current document management strategies are having on business operations," says Larson. "And those that think they do are often surprised by how far they have underestimated." Larson's team may make a few recommendations at this point, and it usually provides a proof-of-concept demo, but not a formal proposal. It is important to validate that a company is in agreement with what the assessment has revealed, and also that there is still interest in moving forward before formulating a proposal. "For my team, I compare this to a lawyer asking a question of a witness," says Larson. "A lawyer never asks a question to which he doesn't already know the answer."

The fourth step of Impact's sales process encompasses formal proposal, solution design, and implementation. Impact follows an established, best practices approach during this phase. Impact's proposal takes the primary form of what Larson calls a "left side/right side financial justification," meaning a cost- versus-savings analysis. It paints a clear, concise picture of the cost of the solution compared to the savings over time, providing the customer with an immediate ROI analysis. A solutions component page is also included that lists all the 'nuts and bolts' of the solution, including a combination of hardware, electronic document management software, and implementation services. This stage concludes when the rep officially asks for — and gets — the customer's business.

The final phase of Impact's five-step sales process is the ongoing management of the strategy. The company makes sure the strategy is running as planned and that any ongoing revenue is captured when the customer is ready to expand or enhance the original solution. "Almost every customer we have has come back to us for something else later," says Larson.

Impact recently went through this process with a large healthcare company in Milwaukee. The VAR had made a recommendation to manage numerous printers and copiers and also proposed using DocuWare electronic document management software to streamline billing and AP. The customer wasn't ready to tackle the document management strategy, but did elect to move forward with the proposal to manage its hardware. "After the users started to experience a little of the scanning capability, the CFO realized they needed a way to manage all of the scanned images," says Larson. "Just two months later, he called to say he was definitely ready for DocuWare."

The sales process developed by Impact is more structured than many VARs' I have spoken to, especially when you consider the company's foundation was in the copier market, where sales pitches are traditionally based on product features. Consultative sales processes are the way to go, and developing a true partnership with your customer early in the relationship is the key to lasting success throughout all of an economy's ups and downs. One thing is certain: Impact's Strategic Services Division's five-step sales process will continue to play a key role in Impact's growth within the document imaging market.