This summer Solopress took on Phil Foster as head of business development, a new role for the £32m turnover company (estimated sales for 2022), which expects to further expand its payroll, kit list and business premises within the year. I asked MD Simon Cooper about the decision to create this new role, and whether we’re likely to see many more PSPs follow suit as they continue to diversify.
Dare I ask - isn’t it the job of the MD to head up business development? Solopress has developed rather well since it was founded in 1999, especially since it joined the Onlineprinters Group in 2017. And you have been there as MD since February 2019, so when, and why, did you decide you needed someone else in that specific role?
Indeed it is. However, all elements of the business fall under my remit and so it’s difficult to spare the time needed to really support and onboard new customers. Additionally, when it comes to new service offerings we would like to add, like branded marketing portals, we need a dedicated resource to spearhead those initiatives.
Solopress has really ambitious plans to double the size of the business over the next five years and in order to do that we need experts like Phil [Foster] on board that can help us onboard new customers and launch new service offerings.
What’s your definition of ‘business development’ in respect to the new position - and have you clear objectives of what you want Phil Foster to deliver as head of business development?
Solopress has typically acquired its customers through online marketing channels and customers are then able to self serve, or deal with a human that can process their orders. However, many customers, especially larger resellers with high annual spend on print, aren’t happy to visit a website and start transacting - they need to have a personal relationship, someone they can build a relationship with and trust to ensure their projects go to plan. Phil will therefore proactively reach out to print resellers to explain what the Solopro service (our programme dedicated to serving the trade) is all about, but also remain behind projects to ensure everything progresses smoothly.
Beyond that he will also be instrumental in launching our book printing service, which will enable us to service more of the publishing market, as well as launching our branded marketing portals.
Naturally, Phil has some sales targets as you would expect, but that’s between the two of us! However, for any business looking to have a proactive outbound sales team, my advice would be to ensure that the targets are heavily geared towards acquiring new customers and that any commission or bonus payments are related to incremental revenue gains and not servicing existing turnover. Therefore, if a sales person gains £1m of new business in year one, any commission payments in year two should not be related to servicing that existing business but rather focussed on gaining more new business.
Many large-format PSPs are diversifying and wanting to grow their businesses. Do you think it’s imperative that they all have a business development ‘leader’ of some description?
I wouldn’t say it’s imperative. I think it’s highly dependent on the size of the business and the areas they would like to expand into. I would say - and you would expect this of me - that it’s imperative that large-format PSP’s looking to expand consider partnering with a business like ours that can help them offer a wider range of products to their customers at really competitive prices with fast turnaround times.
Beyond that it’s imperative to have a long-term strategy - a clear understanding of where they would like to get to and what the growth strategy is. We’ve just been through this process within the Onlineprinters group, planning out our five-year strategy where our goal is to double the business. For us at Solopress in the UK that means we would like to achieve £60m by 2027. We’ve planned out a range of organic growth measures we will implement which entails adding new product and service offerings as well as a series of M&A activity.
What are your feelings on bringing someone into that role from outside the print industry - or, perhaps from within new target sectors/markets?
Personally, I would always strongly favour someone with print experience and would be highly unlikely to bring someone in from outside of the industry in a customer facing role. It’s essential the person talking to the customer is a real expert in their field. That said, I think people from outside of the industry can help us think differently and approach the market in new and unique ways, so in areas like marketing or software development a print background isn’t essential.
What knowledge do you think that business development leader needs to have to deliver the company the best outcomes?
They need to be really knowledgeable about print in general and then specifically about the products and services we have on offer. They are the customers conduit into our business and need to make that as successful for the customer as possible. They need to be able to think laterally, to identify where there is an adjacent market or opportunity we could easily be addressing with only minor alterations to our business model (in our case, publishing is a good example of this).
Whilst knowledge is important, it’s equally as important to have a couple of critical attributes, like trustworthiness and reliability, without those all the knowledge in the world will amount to nothing.
Do you think business development is becoming more difficult given the current economic/trading climate?
I think this is highly dependent on the business you’re working within and the offering you have. Our business represents extremely good value and so in times of tough economic pressure, when buyers are looking to make a saving, they will turn to businesses like ours to find those savings.
It’s critical that you arm your outbound team with a powerful proposition - as a business leader you’re setting them up to fail if you send them out with a ‘me too’ offering. You need to have a point of difference and a way to grab the attention of the potential buyer.
For us, whilst we are an online printer, we are also prepared to take orders from customers through a human interface. This means that when customers need something off piste that’s not available on the website, they can achieve their requirements to speaking with one of our team. That’s just a small example but one of the ways in which we are able to differentiate our service.
Talking to Phil after just a couple of weeks in the business, his inbox is starting to fill up and it seems like the proposition he has is being well received. Long may it continue.