LMI’s New and Versatile Approach to Print Management and MPS
Above: LMI’s headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona
This past February, we had a very ambitious dealer tour on the schedule. We started with a visit to Ray Morgan Company in Chico, California, followed by WiZiX in Roseville, California, before traveling to Chicago to visit Impact Networking. We had promised Frank Gaspari, CEO of Flex Technology Group, that we would visit him as well, so we added a trip to Phoenix for the tour.
At that point, CJ suggested we contact Gary Willert of LMI to see if he was open to a visit. Fortunately for us, Willert was pleased to hear we wanted to spend some time with him.
LMI was founded in 1997 and currently has 400 employees. Its leading products continue to be remanufactured toner. We all know LMI as a manufacturer and distributor of aftermarket print consumables to office equipment dealers, VARs, and office supply retailers throughout North America. The company, headquartered in Phoenix Arizona, has distribution centers across the United States and Canada.
“Dealers now more than ever are looking to us for the high-quality and extended-yield toner that is perfect for MPS environments,” said Willert. “We think our MPS software infrastructure is the product of the future to help our dealers become more efficient and thus, more profitable in the way they manage MPS contracts.”
In our 33rd Annual Dealer Survey in 2018, LMI was not rated as highly as in the past. Willert acknowledged he had some issues to deal with, and he set about fixing the problems that were impeding LMI’s success. Last year, LMI joined forces with investment firm Turnspire Capital Partners. According to the press release issued on August 22, 2018, this partnership will enable LMI to accelerate its expansion and investments in manufacturing high-quality products for its network of dealers in North America
Not long after that announcement, Willert reached out to me to reconnect and catch up.
LMI supports more than 700 office equipment dealers with 1,000 SKUs, including OEM and non-OEM options. Its product portfolio includes more than 350 popular aftermarket color, as well as black-and-white, products. All toner cartridges are backed by a satisfaction guarantee.
From what we have been hearing, dealers have responded to LMI’s versatile approach to the market. Its toner cartridges can be private-labeled and have bar-code scanning for blind-drop shipping, which facilitates order accuracy.
For MPS dealers, LMI offers the PageTrac Advantage, a suite of MPS tools and resources, as well as print management software. This includes a total cost of ownership (TCO) calculator, an automated proposal generator, and MPS sales training and marketing program, plus a fulfillment system.
LMI is not alone in providing these services. It has some very strong competitors, providing dealers engaged in MPS with several reliable sources to fulfill their needs.
“Our software tools that we’ve spent almost three years building are certainly our biggest point of differentiation,” said Willert. “We are really excited about marketing it and bringing it to the dealer channel this year.”
Willert also believes LMI provides tools that can help dealers increase efficiencies and profitability, as well as differentiate itself overall from its competitors. Furthermore, he believes LMI can help dealers do each of these things at no additional cost to the dealer.
On a personal level, we thoroughly enjoyed re-connecting with Willert. He and I are both going through a transition plan in our businesses, as he has both his son Kevin, who is vice president of finance, and daughter Annie, who is vice president of sales and marketing, working in the business. Both Kevin and Annie are very bright and enthusiastic and bring something that is new and fresh to the business””optimism about the future. That is something that my son CJ certainly shares with them.
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