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Looking for an application that offers recurring revenue and have customers in the direct mail and transactional printing space? You might want to look into selling jumbo rolls. (See our post with an introduction to jumbo rolls here.) These products aren’t being printed on sheets like many business forms and labels products. They are printed on giant rolls feeding paper into a high-speed press. This allows the press to run millions of documents nonstop.
Jumbo roll applications—such as financial statements, invoices, utility bills, and preprinted shells for overprinting—offer long-term revenue opportunities. Once you sell them into an account, they are likely to repeat month after month, year after year. (We call these “print annuities.”) You just need the right customer base to make it happen. We looked at many of these customers in a previous post. Now you just need to know how to do the selling.
Tapping Opportunity in Jumbo Rolls
Generally, distributors are able to sell jumbo rolls when the end customer (which is likely already printing jumbo rolls in-house) has a problem they can’t solve on their own. For example, they might not be able to hit specific colors. They might not have the equipment to do a certain perf, or the logo just isn’t printing properly.
If you think you might be one of those with an opportunity, where do you start? You start with the most unlikely customers—those printing jumbo rolls already. In fact, you may already be selling them commercial print and promo products. Ask questions such as:
- “Do you have your own print shop?”
- “What kind of equipment do you have?”
- “Do you buy jumbo rolls now?”
- “What types of applications are you printing?”
- “What happens when you run into a problem or you have a custom need?”
Working through these questions can be a stretch for distributors used to selling office products, promotional products, and forms and labels. But if you land the right client, it can be a huge win. You will be looking at hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars per order. Margins are lower than is typical, but small margins add up. This can be very profitable, especially since it takes the same amount of energy to place a $40,000 order as a $400 order.
Jumbo roll applications are also “set it and forget it.” Once you sell them, they tend to repeat month after month, year after year, so they don’t require a lot of account maintenance. The printed products themselves might change, but the orders go through our customer service, so there isn’t much for the distributor to do unless the customer needs support.
Are Jumbo Rolls Right for You?
To see if such an opportunity might open for you, take a look at your customer and prospect list. If you have a customer that is in the following markets, there may be an opportunity:
- Financial
- Retail
- Utilities
- Insurance
- Telecommunications
- Manufacturing & distribution
- Statement processing houses
- Direct mail processing houses
- Nonprofit
Start gathering information and putting together your questions. As you do, lean on us! Often, the statement processor or direct mail house needs support for things such as quality processes, disaster recovery, strict packaging requirements, and logistics—all things we can help with.
Wise Offers Transparent Engagement
This may require us to be transparently engaged in the selling process, and that’s one of the benefits of working with us as your supplier. We work in lockstep with you, and in nearly every case, we are transparent to the end user. We’ll do joint meetings and joint calls—whatever you need to close the sale.
Our distributor partners know us, and they don’t have concerns about us going around them direct. It’s a true partnership, and we can help provide the technical experience and know-how.
Want to see if there might be a jumbo roll opportunity in your future? Contact your RSM!
Learn more about selling jumbo rolls in our previous post!
