LDI Color ToolBox is poised to succeed in a post-pandemic business climate thanks to its lifelong focus on digital technology.
Above: Jerry Blaine and his daughter Becky.
Imagine your two biggest markets being the New York metropolitan area and Los Angeles. Then consider what would happen if those two markets were ravaged by COVID-19 with millions of workers no longer working onsite. Not a pretty picture. That’s what LDI Color ToolBox, headquartered in Jericho, New York, has had to deal with for more than a year.
On April 19, the day we interviewed Jerry Blaine, president & CEO and his daughter Becky, the company’s director of marketing, Jerry had just returned to his Jericho office after an appointment in New York City across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Rockefeller Center.
Above: LDI’s New York City office can be found in the heart of Times Square.
“There’s nobody in the buildings, nobody in St. Patrick’s,” recalled Jerry. “You can walk across the middle of the street against the light in Rockefeller Center.”
That’s a vivid reflection of what LDI has experienced in its two major markets. According to Jerry, less than 10% of workers have returned to their offices in those two markets. “You know what means?” he asked rhetorically. “Millions of people are not making copies, and tens of thousands of companies are either not renewing leases or signing new leases.”
Despite the current business climate, Jerry sees things turning around by the fall as more workers return to the workplace. However, he pulls no punches describing the impact of the past year.
“It was the most challenging year we’ve ever had. Nothing comes close. Not the Great Recession, not 9/11, and we’re still pretty much in it.”
If fewer people return to the office full time and customer’s real estate footprints shrink, might LDI be placing as much as 50% less traditional hardware to these customers as the more pessimistic industry insiders predict?
Jerry doesn’t anticipate that large of a decline. Instead, he predicts that LDI will likely do 20% less business in print than pre-pandemic. “Once things hopefully get back to pre-COVID normal, my feeling is that the print market will be down somewhat, but not drastically,” said Jerry. “People will come back and go back to their old habits.”
Above: LDI’s Times Square showroom
“They will still want the same type of quality and speed and accessibility that they had before,” added Becky, who sees the hybrid workforce needing a new type of structure, which LDI is poised to provide. “They need to work from anywhere and have different solutions and different software. That brings new opportunities.”
Pivot Points
Like so many other dealers, LDI had to pivot last year in terms of its products and services offerings. As business declined, Jerry was forced to scale the business, including furloughing some team members. At the same time, LDI strategically retrained select employees, particularly engineers who were more focused on print and document management, on managed IT, unified communications, and security solutions.
LDI’s managed IT business is healthy as the company onboards growing numbers of customers. Unified communications (telephony, videoconferencing, unified messaging, security) are another bright spot. The key is adding what Jerry described as “bigger and better customers,” meaning customers interested in using LDI for a wider variety of services. Another one of those services is Pro AV (signage, displays, and Zoom rooms), which LDI has been offering for years. The focus is on providing customers with integrated solutions. The plan was to pivot towards managed IT, unified communications, and security cameras all along, but the pandemic accelerated things.
These also represent segments of the business that Jerry wants to scale upwards. “We have more people than revenue,” he acknowledged. “We’re not selling a $250,000 production machine with a lot of profit in it. We’re selling a monthly fee per person. That, from the revenue and the profit side, takes time to catch up. So that’s a challenge.”
Above: LDI is famous for its customer events in its Times Square showroom.
But this is the time to do it because, as Becky noted, many of LDI’s clients are moving or downsizing. “They are very much in need of these services, and many unfortunately didn’t know that we provided these services pre-pandemic.”
The marketing team led by Becky is constantly communicating with customers, asking how they can help, and educating them about this broad array of offerings.
To Market, To Market
Marketing during a pandemic has been a challenge, and Becky, who has been with the company for nearly 20 years, reports that the pandemic has enabled the company to try things it might not have done otherwise. For example, Becky’s group’s primary focus is now on digital sales and marketing strategies. This involves creating short (less than a minute) one-to-one videos with LDI’s sales reps for clients and prospects. LDI uses Vidyard, an online marketing platform that provides video tools for sales and marketing teams. The videos strengthen existing relationships and help forge new ones.
“It’s more personal and a way of communicating that’s as in as person as it can get,” said Becky.
The dealership also writes and generates content in house that sales reps can reference in their one-to-one videos or during and after QVR meetings with clients. This helps create interest in LDI’s managed IT offerings, for example. “That kind of marketing had not been done pre-pandemic, and that’s leading our strategy now,” noted Becky.
She has been pleasantly surprised by the way even LDI’s veteran reps have embraced this initiative. “They realized that the way that they’ve been doing it in the past is not going to work anymore. This is the first time almost 100% of the sales force is open to implementing this type of strategy into their sales process.”
Next on the agenda is a website update and a rebranding that better explains and highlights LDI’s current focus. It’s a little too early to talk about that now, although Jerry hinted that the focus will be on everything a customer will need in terms of technology and how LDI can meet those needs.
Establishing an effective online presence is critical in Becky’s view. “As much as we have the most talented people in-house and the most knowledgeable people in the industry, we need to make sure that those people are getting to our experts, and a lot of times that first step is online. We need to make sure that our presence is there and in a way that people respond to, and that they look at us as critical and can see when they’re searching online the company that we truly are.”
During her tenure at LDI, Becky has seen customer expectations change. “People want access to information immediately. They want to find it quickly and find the answers to their questions right away.”
LDI is famous for its customer relationship-building events, many of those taking place in its Times Square location. Because of the pandemic, those events are on hold. “It’s been tough not being able to do that,” acknowledged Becky. Instead, LDI has been hosting webinars, which Becky emphasized won’t replace in-person events even as new technology emerges that recreates an in-person event virtually.
“Knowing us and knowing our people, as soon as we can, we’re going to have an in-person event,” she said.
“Our strategy has always been that we’re going to provide a personal, boutique experience to the end-user costumer and that they’re going to get the best of the industry in terms of knowledge as well as delivery,” added Jerry.
At the Core
While much of our conversation with Jerry and Becky focused on the here and now and what’s next for LDI, it is impossible not to reference its rich 22-year history. Founded in 1999, LDI has a firm foundation in digital print and color as well as production print thanks in large part to its primary hardware manufacturer Canon U.S.A. Since 1999, the company has grown to a $75+ million dealership led by Jerry and COO Paul Schwartz. What differentiates the company from so many other dealerships is that from the moment it opened its doors in 1999, it was a digital-only company, no analog allowed. “That was radical,” said Jerry. “And we’ve grown with that.”
The color devices LDI was selling at the time were the first digital printing devices that Jerry described as “anywhere near worthwhile.”
“As the applications grew, as the technology grew, as the integration with the other technologies inside the office grew, we just rode along with that,” said Jerry. “We had the right people with the right education and the right experience to be able to guide us and our customers.”
LDI does business in one of the most competitive markets in the country and boasts a client retention rate of more than 90%. The reason for such a high retention rate, according to Jerry, is a focus on building strong customer relationships and leveraging its value proposition, which includes promoting its independence. Indeed, the company takes an agnostic sales approach that is not dictated by its three primary vendors, Canon U.S.A., Sharp, or Xerox.
“What we want to know is what you need, or we can educate you, and then we’ll tell you what products and services are appropriate,” said Jerry.
LDI has what Jerry described as an “A relationship” with its vendors although some relationships can be challenging at times. “The ones in the other disciplines are better than A,” added Jerry, pointing out Intermedia, its unified communications vendor as an example. “We don’t use them for everything that most people do,” said Jerry. “We have our own people who are just as smart as they are, or in some cases, better equipped. And we still maintain that independent status so that we can truthfully tell the customer that this is what they should be doing in our opinion.”
Still Stable After All These Years
As LDI’s products and services offerings evolve and its marketing efforts take on a new spin, one thing that remains unchanged at LDI is Jerry Blaine who maintains that he hasn’t changed since he started the business.
“My tennis game has gotten a little bit slower, but I’m still playing the same amount and enjoying it as much if not more,” he quipped. “And the three things that I treasure are still there: my interest in the company, my interest in my family and those values, and the interest I have in my community. That remains very stable and similar to where I was 22 years ago.”
Access Related Content
To become a subscriber, visit www.thecannatareport.com/register or contact cjcannata@cannatareport.com directly. Bulk subscription rates are also available.
