Pearson-Kelly Technology’s success is rooted in its culture and ability to identify new opportunities.
Pearson-Kelly Technology in Springfield, Missouri, is having a pretty good year as it approaches the midway point of 2021. Business is up in many segments, and even though the challenges of 2020 haven’t completely dissipated, optimism runs high with Chelsey Bode, president.
Although revenue took a significant hit last year, as it did for most dealerships, Pearson-Kelly still turned a modest profit. “That was our goal, $1 in the bank,” said Bode. “And we exceeded that.”
Above: Chelsey Bode, president of Pearson-Kelly Technology
Asked off the record if she had to furlough or lay off any employees, she promptly replied for the record, “We were super proud that we didn’t have to go in that direction. We recognized what we owed our employees was to make sure that we stayed in business. We tried really hard to avoid it, and we’re better off for it.”
Bode, profiled in The Cannata Report’s 2018 Young Influencer issue, is a rarity in the office technology industry—a woman under 40 helming a dealership. To the best of our knowledge, she is the only person under 40, male or female, serving as president of a dealership. She’s held the position since 2018.
Above: Chelsey and her father, Mike Kelly
When Bode joined her father Mike Kelly’s three-year-old dealership in 2007, she was one of six employees. The company has since grown to 44 employees. Today, her father is semi-retired.
“Day to day, he does what he wants,” said Bode. “He’s here when he wants and he vacations with my mom when he wants to. He’ll pop into meetings after they start, pop out, probably before they’re over, engage with the sales team, and engage with the admin team. He’s still a huge part of our culture.”
Bode excels at seeing the big picture, and she’s brutally honest about her vision.
“I’m a visionary out the wazoo,” she said. “When I first became president, I was trying to execute all these crazy ideas, which made everybody crazy. I’m also a light-switch person. I want things done yesterday.”
Lee Flood, the dealership’s executive vice president, serves as Bode’s integrator or an accountability partner. He helps her fine tune her vision or see when one of her ideas might not be a good fit for the dealership. The integrator role comes from the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), a set of simple concepts and tools used by entrepreneurs worldwide to help execute their visions.
“It’s really helped us get in the right groove and play up each other’s strengths,” she said.
New Opportunities
Pearson-Kelly isn’t just another copier dealership. It emphasizes IT services and offers managed voice, document management, and offers managed print, although the dealership does not emphasize the latter. It also sells security cameras in addition to the ubiquitous printing systems.
As the company has added new product lines, the expectation was that the biggest opportunities were with existing customers. That’s not how things have played out. Instead, most opportunities are net-new business. These new product lines give Pearson-Kelly’s salesforce something different to talk about with customers and sometimes lets them engage with another decision-maker beyond those responsible for the copier purchase.
Above: The lobby of Pearson-Kelly Technology’s Springfield, MO headquarters.
Building out its offerings has gone a long way in changing the perception of Pearson-Kelly in the marketplace. “Where the copier game is just so dog eat dog, we’ve trained everyone basically not to talk to us as copier dealers,” said Bode.
Diversifying into managed IT, security, and telephony has been a huge plus and easier than expected.
“The copier game is really hard, and we still do pretty well at it,” stated Bode. “But the other [products], they’re not that hard. It’s just a different game.”
Sales reps are expected to uncover opportunities in current accounts, as well as find net new business. However, reps aren’t expected to be an expert on the new product lines. “We want them to know how to look for opportunities, how to ask questions, and how to listen,” explained Bode.
Once they find an opportunity, a subject matter expert is brought in. “Yes, we’ve gone a little more off the beaten path than what most of my peers have done, which is have their IT division separate with IT salespeople supporting that—almost operating as a couple of different companies under one roof,” observed Bode. “Instead, we want the same account manager for all things we do.”
That includes support. “We want to be easy to do business with,” stated Bode. “We want that one process for implementation and one process for how [customers] receive support. It shouldn’t be complicated.”
It took some time to figure that out, particularly in the IT services space. For example, the IT services business boomed out of the gate, growing from zero to a half-million in revenue within the first 12 months. “And we sucked at it,” said Bode. “We sucked at supporting it. We were a copier organization and didn’t understand that that game is different. You need repeatable practices to be profitable in that space. And you have to say no to the accounts that don’t align with your offerings. We weren’t doing any of those things.”
Most kinks were worked out of the process last year when business was slow because of the pandemic. Bode acknowledged that it was much easier when a rep only sold a customer a copier, but once managed IT, security, or telephony were part of the sale, it became complicated because the customer had too many sales contacts. Now, there is a single point of contact, making things simpler and easier for customers.
Pearson-Kelly learned from those mistakes, and even though Bode says they still beat themselves up daily about those earlier missteps, she feels the dealership is doing a much better job selling and supporting IT services today. What is particularly appealing in that segment and the other new product categories the dealership sells, like managed voice, is the recurring revenue. Dealers love recurring revenue and Bode says that’s the business the dealership is chasing.
“It’s still there in print,” she said. “But if we lead with managed IT, the other stuff will trail. They’re going to need a phone system, and at some point, they’re going to need a copier.”
As Pearson-Kelly has added new lines of business, its competition has multiplied. “Now that we’re all things business tech, every time I walk out of the door, there’s a competitor because we compete with your pure-play MSPs, copier dealers, the telephony companies, and even companies selling security.”
Above: Pearson-Kelly’s primary vendor is Konica Minolta.
Although Pearson-Kelly is primarily a Konica Minolta dealer, it recently added the Epson inkjet line. Bode resisted her father’s recommendation to do this at first, but after hearing an Epson presentation at an ACDI event, she was swayed and now sees huge opportunities for those A3 and A4 products going forward.
An area that continues to grow and is a surprise to everyone in the company is MPS, especially since there’s not a lot of emphasis placed on it. “Our salespeople don’t have quotas for it, we don’t try to do it, but it just keeps growing,” revealed Bode.
When Bode says, “We don’t offer MPS,” what she means is it’s not something sales reps market, even though MPS is referenced on Pearson-Kelly’s website. “It’s just not been a priority,” she said. “We joke about it every time we go over our quarterly numbers. How is this the one area that continues to grow? It’s what people want.”
Growing Plans and Growing Pains
Since its inception, the dealership has grown consistently, excluding last year, and enjoyed substantial growth, particularly in 2018 and 2019. This year, Pearson-Kelly is poised to double what it did last year in revenue. And its goals for the future are even more ambitious.
“We are looking to be double in size in three years from where we end this year,” revealed Bode. “Our 10-year plan is pretty scary but keeps us on track and our heads high.”
Considering its ambitious growth plans, Pearson-Kelly has shied away from acquisitions, mostly out of concern for how employees in acquired companies would adapt to the dealership’s culture. “We’re very specific on who we hire,” explained Bode. “Our core values are dear to us. That’s how we recruit and hire people. It’s how we coach. It becomes very clear to both parties when somebody is not engaged with the Pearson-Kelly DNA. It’s why we separate when that alignment is missing on our end, or they decide they no longer want to be part of a fast-paced organization.”
But never say never about acquisitions. Growth plans for 2021 include expanding into the Northwest Arkansas market. “We are flirting with a couple of things that look rather interesting in the way of acquisition that actually checks those boxes that I mentioned that we want,” stated Bode. If an acquisition isn’t in the cards, the plan is to penetrate that market organically by hiring the right people.
With such a heavy emphasis on finding employees who fit with Pearson-Kelly’s culture, what is Bode’s formula for identifying credible candidates?
“I usually look for people that aren’t looking for a different opportunity,” she replied. “I like people that are dynamic and happy in what they’re doing. That’s what draws me to that individual who appears like they would probably fit our culture. We’re a high energy, fast-paced organization. It takes that right type of persona to be attracted to us and want to stay here. Usually, the individual has to be very outgoing, and fast-paced, regardless of the position.”
Many of the salespeople she has hired recently are individuals with an educational background. “We like to say, we are out-educating the market,” said Bode. “We’re not really selling, we’re explaining and helping customers achieve best practices.”
She describes herself as a secret shopper, attending different events with her eyes open for new talent. LinkedIn has been a useful recruiting tool. And unlike some of her peers in the industry, she’s had success finding young people.
“A lot of people like to say that they’re not out there, but they are,” said Bode. “I like to see people get spanked by the world for a couple of years before we get them. We have better opportunities to retain those individuals and help them understand what the real world looks like. Those are usually our better finds.”
No Excuses
The theme at Pearson-Kelly for 2021 is, “No excuses.” Bode acknowledged there were many excuses in 2020, but excuses will no longer be tolerated in 2021. “We don’t want to hear about the competition,” she said. “We frankly don’t care. We probably don’t do as much competitor research as we should. Instead, we compete with ourselves. All we can do is continue to be a better form of ourselves. If we stay focused and keep our heads down and [understand] who we are and who we want to be, the rest will work itself out.”
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