SOLION

In 2004, Wendy Coutu, President of SOLION decided to enter the Office Products market. The following is her story, told in her words. We are retelling it here in order to share with other TopForm customers, the success story of a company with vision, exceptional tools and superior management.

Wendy was looking for new ways to grow revenue. She learned from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics that for each dollar her customers spent on printing, they were spending five times that on Office Supplies, double that on Janitorial/Sanitation products, and more than an equal amount on Furniture. Even if she couldn't capture all this business, she knew that the opportunity for revenue growth was tremendous. But how could she venture into this arena without adding to SOLION's headcount?

TopForm had the answer, SOLION invested in the TOPS option of Web.ec in July of 2004. They spent the months of July and August implementing and testing until they were reasonably confident that orders were flowing properly. They knew that they still had a lot to learn about the Office Products business, but like the Nike challenge, it was important to "Just do it!."

Engaging the Sales Representatives was the next step. They had an all hands meeting where they laid out the strategy. Each of their sales reps were responsible for identifying 20 target accounts. They were to meet with each of the 20 accounts and sell them on the concept of On-Line ordering including Office Products. With the customer's buy in, they set them up on Web.ec and TOPS. Then the sales reps met with each customer to give them an overview and to teach them how to use the site. They asked their customers to try the site for 30 days and provided them with a General Line catalog.

Once a sales rep had 20 customers up and running, they identified the next 20 and repeated the process. One of SOLION's sales reps had 30 customers up and running within 30 days! Of course, as you might expect, others successes were slower to come.

Here are some statistics on their results. In August of 2004 prior to launch, SOLION's revenue from Office Products was zero . By the end of September, 30 days later and 30 customers later, they were at $15,000. By the end of 2004, they were at a monthly rate of $30,000 with 65 customers purchasing. With solid results, they kicked off 2005 with a sales meeting completely focused on Office Products. From product training to sharing successful sales strategies, they were all motivated to continue the momentum in 2005.

In 2005, monthly revenue continued to grow as they added more customers in the program. A year after launch, in September of 2005 ,they were running at a monthly rate of $100,000 with 180 customers on-line and today, they are running at $140,000 per month in office products sales.

As with any new endeavor, there were challenges, however, there is no question that entering into the Office Products market has been a resounding success.