Range Printing Gets Out-of-the-Box Accountability and Insights with Dynamics 365 Rapid Deployment
Range Printing has customers and salespeople spread across the upper Midwest, but with no centralized source of contacts and opportunities it was difficult to track customer interactions and revenue forecasts. New Dynamic’s Rapid Deployment Methodology for Dynamics 365 allowed Range Printing to establish sales process best practices, introduce a new customer qualifying tool, and improve visibility to new customer sales opportunities.
It’s hard to argue with 50-plus years of growth, quality, and long-term customer relationships. And it would be easy to simply keep doing what you’re doing.
But Shawn Sundquist, the third-generation co-owner of Range Printing in Brainerd, Minn., doesn’t think that way. More importantly, he doesn’t want his team to think that way.
Chief sales officer and business partner Andy Dumas shares that outlook and attitude.
“Our topline revenues have been driven in large part by a healthy existing customer base, so we’re putting more emphasis on new relationships and new customers,” Dumas said. “And that requires more prospecting, more pitches, and more proposals. It also requires automation to help us measure our performance towards these goals.”
Sundquist and Dumas decided to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365, using New Dynamic’s Rapid Deployment, an implementation methodology designed to get teams up and running quickly on Dynamics 365 with very limited, if any customizations.
“We had contacts, activities, and opportunities in multiple places, and it was hard to tell if we were making progress with new customer development,” Sundquist said. “New Dynamic came in with a quick-start plan to match our needs and resources and get us organized. In just a couple of weeks, we were able to start using Dynamics 365 without any delay or expensive customization process.”
Pains & Gains
Pains
- Sales prospecting and qualifying were difficult to see and measure.
- The sales process and opportunity stages were unclear and not tracked.
- New customer acquisition was not a primary focus.
Gains
- Prospecting and qualifying new customers are a priority that can be monitored and measured against sales team goals.
- Company owners and leaders have better insights into relationship and opportunity management.
- Sales tools such as pitch decks, qualifying checklists, and opportunity stages have added more structure and focus on the new customer acquisition process.
Qualifications, Communications, Tasks, and Opportunites – All in One Place
The company motto is “Everything Print: One call. One source. Endless Possibilities.” From ink on paper to digital format to logo wear, and promotional products, the company serves more than 3,000 customers nationwide in higher education, healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing.
Sundquist said the company specializes in more complex printing and fulfillment projects that often include multi-variable digital printing, kitting, and mailing.
“We know what our ideal customer looks like, what we do best, and where we can achieve our best margins,” Sundquist said. “And the new qualifying and scoping tools we’ve set up in Dynamics 365 help us all spend our time more wisely with those types of customers.”
Using its Rapid Deployment framework, the New Dynamic team first focused on configuring Dynamics 365 to meet Range’s immediate business requirements. The CRM capabilities of Dynamics 365 were integrated with Outlook and Teams to create a seamless contact and opportunity management experience for the Range team.
“We wanted to make it user-friendly and that’s what New Dynamic did,” Dumas said. “We set up pitch decks in Teams and added a prospect qualifying checklist in Dynamics 365 so we could capture this activity and get a better view of our sales pipeline. We’re now on a path to more predictable and repeatable sales.”
Dumas said the New Dynamic team delivered as promised. Though data imports and customizations were minimal, they were spot on for the Range Printing sales process.
“New Dynamic quickly learned how we do business and then tailored our Lead, Contact, Account, and Opportunity forms accordingly,” Dumas said. “We also have plans for integrating our printing and decorating ERP and ordering systems into Dynamics 365 as well which has the potential to add another level of productivity to the solution.”
Sundquist said the structure and insights provided by Dynamics 365 have been helpful for planning and forecasting, as well as qualifying and closing.
“Over our 50 years in business we’ve always invested in the best printing technology, and now we’re investing in our sales process and salespeople,” Sundquist said. “Software can
never replace our people and their relationships, but systems like Dynamics 365 can help us build new and better relationships and set us up for the next 50 years of service, quality – and growth.”
