The Do Everything Industry Coming Soon!

by ray stasieczko August 17, 2024

I went to the car dealer and was amazed that they now sell asphalt and build roads. The general manager told me that the auto dealers association had a speaker at their last gathering who told the dealers "that if you own the road, you will sell the cars that travel on it."

I called my car insurance broker. He tried selling their new offering—Titleist Golf Clubs! My insurance rep said, "Since competition is so strong in auto insurance and people don't need in-person insurance reps, he now has diversified into Golf Clubs."

I called my printer company to get a desktop printer. My sales rep told me, "If I bought the printer today, he would do an IT assessment for free." The printer sales rep said, "Since the printer market has become a commodity business, to add value, the company decided to give away free IT assessments!"

One in the industry who sells print equipment to businesses would understand the insanity in these last three paragraphs. Yet, many of these folks still believe that diversifying outside skills or realities will eventually work out.

As you listen to some of the industry's diversification strategies, they are building environments where printer/copier sales companies and their salespeople will now solve all their customers' issues.

Think about the irony of an industry that believes the end users who need print equipment are not smart enough to choose a printer online without the intervention of an in-person expert. But selling cyber security or doing in-depth IT assessments is as easy as attending a couple of workshops, getting some marketing material, and putting cyber security language all over your website.

Hopefully, This mentality is not the mentality of a psychiatrist. Could you imagine going to a psychiatrist and, after a few minutes of talking, the psychiatrist suggested following them to the next room, an operating room. The psychiatrist then said that since she already understands what your brain is thinking, she is more than equipped to cut open your skull to look inside.

OK, that sounds crazy! It sure" does. However, when I see some in the print industry discussing cyber security or IT services or suggesting dealers sell EV charging stations Or Inkjet industrial textile printers, I want to scream, "Don't let them cut open your skull!

OK, I get it. The industry needs to"diversify its deliverables as print, its core deliverable, is quickly eroding from its glory days.

However, as long as the print industry maintains overconfidence in its capabilities or believes its great customer relationships will afford it great leeway in faking something until it makes it, the industry will continue procrastinating its needed changes.

Here's my thinking - regardless of great intentions or what I sometimes refer to as the charlatans looking for the next sucker. Dealers must thoroughly plan out their diversification.

Dealers should insist on a proven concept, completely understand the required skills, and have a proforma, an actual business plan to monitor and hold the plan's navigation accountable.

It seems that accountability is difficult for an industry that has welcomed gratuitous platitudes for decades. Unfortunately, the true cost of free pandering is now rearing its ugly head.

The past successes of the print industry's deliverables have given the industry a great deal of leeway regarding accountability. That leeway may have, in fact, become the industry's Achilles' Heel as it seeks its continuous relevance.

Some of the industry's past add-ons to the print industry were just that—add-ons, and few thought how these occasional add-ons actually affected the dealership's PnL.

Sometimes, these add-ons were only evaluated based on the cost of the product or software. In other words, the cost of the noise and distractions involved in implementing these add-ons was never calculated. In essence, the industry's lucrative print service annuities allowed it to ignore ineffective management.

The first thing to evaluate in all diversifications is the effectiveness of current management. The most disruptive component of all diversification strategies is the realization that many of the navigators who led a legacy business to its current relevance may have reached the end of the journey.

The print industry sells, supplies, and services a business's print infrastructure. Its business model does not automatically position the industry to move beyond its core scope.

A company should only see itself as in a position to diversify once it clearly understands the cost of doing so. Remember, the further the industry's actors stray from the industry's core, the more in-depth the diversification analysis should be.

Those costs must include the cost of distraction and the cost of failure. When those costs are calculated, the summation might conclude that they are too risky and that the investment dollars could be better spent on something else.

In closing, the print industry, like all disrupted industries, must first align its mindset with its realities and hold its optimism accountable to time and facts.

Status quo is the killer of all that will be invented.

Ray Stasieczko, Host of The End Of The Day With Ray!

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