PIA/GATF Converge Conference — 10 Ways to Become an MSP

FOR REASONS I don’t quite understand, lists seem to be one of the hottest media items. People want a quick solution for all that ills them—losing weight, getting rich, finding happiness, etc.

It seems the idea of lists is a magnet for catching our attention. When you walk past the newsstand, there is hardly a magazine cover that doesn’t have some sort of list prominently displayed. Even late night television talk show host David Letterman has his nightly lists mocking some person, idea or political thought.

So now it is time for me to succumb and offer my newly minted Steven Schnoll list, which deals with the topic of Marketing Service Provider (MSP). As I speak around the country illuminating the need for printers to morph from just being a printer to an MSP, people continually ask me, “How do I become a Marketing Service Provider?”

So, in the famous words of David Letterman, let’s get started with my 10 steps on “How a printer can become a Marketing Services Provider.”

1| Change your company name to remove any connection with print, graphics, lithography, etc. Printing is a declining business model. Every statistic we read, even in the most recently released PIA/GATF report “Looking Forward: What’s Next for the Economy and Print Markets in 2008-2009,” illustrates that the act of putting ink on paper is declining. Your name must reflect a more generic association—not just one associated with print.

The statistic quoted in this comprehensive report reveals that between 2005 to 2007, printing and prepress declined 5.2 percent as a part of total revenue, while ancillary services, the ones that are the core offerings of an MSP, grew by 2.6 percent in the same time period and are expected to grow by more than 10 percent by 2020. If you call yourself a printer, you are a printer.

Some very successful companies that have already taken the name game seriously are Knapp Printing, now K/P Corp.; Great Lakes Lithography, now Great Lakes Integrated; and Royal Impressions, now RI Communications. It may not be a bad idea to copy some of the profit leaders.

2| Listening and not selling. Most salespeople have been trained to sell what their company can do best, which, in the past, meant putting ink on paper. But now, customers need and want more services. If a sales rep sets up a series of questions that probe into a company’s pain points, a sound understanding what a potential or existing client actually needs generally surfaces. A compassionate understanding of those challenges, coupled with a solution-oriented sales approach, quite often wins new work.

3| Create a business and marketing plan. Every company needs a plan of what they need to be in order to grow their business. It is very challenging to lead a business without some sort of blueprint. Liken it to building a house. Can you build a house, or for that matter any type of structure, without a set of blueprints?

When I ask a group of industry owners or executives at one of my speaking engagements if they have a marketing or business plan, I can never understand why very few hands go up. Such a plan need not be long or complicated, but it must be reflective of what a company needs to do to morph its image. Remember that this plan must be flexible to adapt to quick changes in the economy and in technology.

4| Offer services customers need, not just the services you currently have. If you listen carefully to your customers, they’re saying they require services like digital printing, mailing, database management, digital asset management and many others.

Investigate how you can get started by bringing these services in-house or by partnering with a local company. Listening to suppliers that can help is often a great starting point. There are many resources available, and quite often they are free. Remember that customized services that can show a clear ROI for customers are an essential.

5| Hire people who can offer you the skills that will propel your company forward or partner with a third party organization. This is complementary to the previous step. Many times, there are people within a company that can easily adapt to new technology, but sometimes an MSP must go outside and look in places they are not familiar. When a company starts to offer high-tech services like database and digital asset management, a person with no knowledge of the printing industry coming from a local junior college may be a better fit.

6| Focused leadership starts at the top. Businesses need strong leadership—Top Guns, Rain Makers—to meet the many changes head on. People are most often comfortable doing what they know and do best. The problem is that many times that expertise is not necessarily what is needed going forward. A strong leader understands these issues and makes the tough decisions to keep an MSP focused and on course. Leveraging existing expertise can be an important part of this step.

7| Hire or retrain sales- people who understand the MSP concept. Most traditional salespeople may be great at selling print, but they have a tough time grasping the idea that these projects may involve many other services besides print and typically have a very long sales cycle. Patience, persistence and perseverance are the words of any dynamic, consultative salesperson. Don’t waste time on people who don’t get it. In all likelihood, they never will.

8| Think “cross-media.” Content is no longer a one-dimensional offering. If companies are going to be successful as MSPs, they need to feel comfortable in several media arenas. Firms that don’t feel they have the necessary expertise to offer Web, personalized URL (PURL), database or content services should seek out partners. Customized services that can show a clear ROI for customers drives mutual success. One caveat is developing the right set of metric tools that track the effectiveness of programs. The best way to do this is to walk the walk for your own company before offering these services to your customers.

9| Create a features and benefits list that illuminates how you are creating customer value. A feature like variable data digital printing is worthless unless you can clearly and concisely present the benefits of such an offering to customers in terms that they can understand clearly.

10| Brand is a concept lost on most print providers. Historically, printers thought if they supplied an equipment list, showed some samples and then asked for the opportunity to quote some jobs, work would come. That field of dreams concept is dead. Today, if a potential customer doesn’t know who you are and what problem you can solve for them, you will have a challenging time getting work. Print is becoming a commodity purchase. Instead, brand your company as a “thought leadership” organization and see the business grow.

Yes, these 10 steps require some out-of-the-box thinking and may challenge organizations to rethink how they operate. But my research shows that the companies that have been following these steps, in some form or another, are firms among the PIA/GATF profit leader list. Remember: One of business history’s great lessons is that nothing is permanent. Be flexible, open to changing technology and listen, and you’ll be on your way to becoming an MSP. PI

About the Author
Steven Schnoll is managing director of Schnoll Media Consulting, a thought leadership organization based in New Providence, NJ. He can be reached via e-mail at steven@schnollconsult.com.