About us
Our story starts way back in 2003 just after our first child (Samuel) was born. When we opened a store in Rawtenstall selling printer supplies to home users & small organisations. And over the following 10 years opened another 3 through-out Lancashire.
As the marketplace changed we had to change too. And we strongly believed we could make a difference by developing solutions that solve our customers problems, which provided them with certainty.
We now operate from a large business unit located on the Lancashire Greater Manchester border in Haslingden, which allows us to help & bring personal service to customers throughout the north of England.
What we do
We develop and supply ‘fit for purpose’ office products & solutions that provide certainty of cost & certainty of service for small organisations.
Our number 1 focus is to help guide our customers in solving their uncertainty of cost and service problems for the solutions they require to run their operations. Things such as print technology, telecoms, stationery & IT.
Our role as guide is to help our customers identify and fix their problems, so they can concentrate all their efforts on looking after their own customers.
As their guide, we provide customers with complete peace of mind. And we do this by providing a price promise guarantee (never to increase the price’ whilst a customer is in one of our current agreements), by providing guaranteed next day service. All backed up by our 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Where are we going?
Our plans include more streamlined services for the office & workplace, designed specifically to solve problems and reduce costs in small organisations. With the aim of further increasing our customers efficiencies and/or profitability.
And we will use our affordable managed print service (MY Print Service) as the enabler to expand through-out the north of England, nationally and then potentially internationally.
We want to be known as a trusted advisor for small organisations anywhere in the world.
To support our journey, we will continue to drive new technologies & ethics into every part of our business, to help us deliver our global message of Simple Honest Service.
Why do we need investment?
Investment is needed to help us scale our (developed & tested) affordable managed print service (MY Print Service), which will be used as the enabler to accelerate growth, in a controlled subscription business model. Achieving net profits of £2 million in year 5 and a sale value of £20 million.
With future forecasts of £10 million net profit for full UK scaling with a sale value of £100 million.
And £36 million net profit for international scaling in the USA with a sale value of £360 million.
We restructured the business 3 years ago as the market was changing, closed our retail stores and moved away from the consumer market place. During this time we have re-invested £200,000 of our own money in developing a number of subscription based B2B services, MY Print Service being the flag ship and the latest product.
The business is profitable, but is not producing enough profit to fund the launch & up scaling of the MY Print Service in volume. We require extra investment to do this, which will fund extra sales, technical and support people, a new business system, an E-commerce website, a reordering app, monitoring & automation software, a relocation and a warehouse automation system.
We identified a problem
We have identified small organisations (small business, schools & charities) customers do not have peace of mind with their existing print technology solution. Through surveying and speaking to them, we found, most do not have cost or service certainty and in many cases their equipment Is not fit for purpose, which leaves them feeling concerned it’s costing too much and the negative effect it will have on the organisation if it breaks.
Large scale managed print solutions have previously been developed for medium to large organisations, who have many team members sharing one large workgroup device, making it affordable. But, they are cost prohibitive for small organisations to access and are not ‘fit for purpose’ for small offices or school classrooms.
Developed solution
My Print Service will fix this problem. It is an affordable ’fit for purpose’ managed print service designed specifically for small organisations, providing them with certainty of their total printing costs, certainty of guaranteed next day service and will bring them peace of mind through it’s 100% satisfaction guarantee.
The service provides the latest 'fit for purpose' business rated multi-function printer, unlimited (automatically replaced) cartridges and guaranteed next day support. And is packaged in an affordable (guaranteed price) monthly (£24.99 +vat) or annual (1 month free) subscription business model. Which delivers peace of mind by providing certainty of total printing cost & certainty of service if anything goes wrong.
Proof of concept
The service has been tested rigorously over the last 12 months for solving the identified problems, value for money (different price points), robustness, appeal and profitability. Within a 15-mile location radius we have secured 750 small organisation sign ups. And after analysis, saved these customers 60% (on average) against their previous printing cost. Whilst maintaining a 60% gross profit margin.
Financially, half of small organisations choose to pay up front on annual subscription (gaining 1 month free), with the other half paying by monthly subscription. Amounting to annual revenues of £215,538 and annual gross profit of £129,323 (60%).
Target market
Our target market are small organisations (small business (949,000), self-employed (900,000), charities (200,000) and schools (5,800) situated in the North West & Yorkshire with Humberside.
This presents approximately 1,874,800 target customers with a potential for 2,886,000 MY Print Service agreements (5800 school classrooms (10 agreements per school on average), 1,898,000 small business opportunities (2 agreements per business on average), 900,000 self-employed & 20,000 charities). This information has been gathered using the latest available Government parliamentary briefing papers in the House of Commons library.
Year 5 financial projections
We will sign up 18,300 MY Print Service agreements by the end of year 5, which is less than 1% of the target market opportunity.
Generating 18,300 agreements by the end of year 5 (half paying annually up front & the other half paying on monthly subscription), will provide an annual revenue of £6,828,769, a gross profit margin of around 66%, giving an annual gross profit of £4,499,537. Operating costs will run at 36.5% and come in at £2,490,006. Leaving a net profit margin of around 29.5%, which amounts to £2,009,531 (before tax) p.a.
These figures also plan for us to benefit through transactional add on business for general office supplies and extra subscription business for larger print services, cloud-based telecoms and IT support. We have planned for the business to secure 18,300 new small organisations and estimate (using our current business) we will gain (on average) at least an additional £120 p.a. in up sells for each new small organisation.
Our valuation of the business at the end of year 5 is £20,095,310. This valuation is based on a subscription business model (monthly or annual subscriptions) governed by signed agreements. And estimates a selling price ratio of 10 x net profit = sales price.
National expansion is a further option…
In the UK there is approximately 10,719,281 target customers with a potential for 16,632,810 MY Print Service agreements (242,810 school classrooms (10 per school on average), 11,390,000 small business opportunities (2 per business on average), 4,800,000 self-employed and 200,000 charities & non-profits).
And if we plan to sign up just 0.5% of these targets, this would generate 83,164 agreements and provide an annual revenue of £33,879,765 with an estimated net profit of £9,994,530 (before tax).
At this time, we would value the UK wide business at £99,945,300. Using the same subscription business model and estimated sale price ratio.
International expansion could also be an option…
In the USA there is approximately 60,430,000 target opportunities (1,330,000 school classrooms (10 per school on average), 57,600,000 small business opportunities (average of 2 in each business) and 1,500,000 charities & non-profits). Based on a 0.5% conversion, it provides us with a potential for 302,150 MY Print Service agreements.
This would generate an annual revenue of £123,091,370 with an estimated net profit of £36,311,954 (before tax).
At that time, we would value the UK & USA combined business at £463,064,840. Using the same subscription business model and estimated sale price ratio.
Testimonials
Care 4 Kids, Gemma Lewis. Since moving over to MY print service provided by John and Steve at MY Total Office Solutions, we have saved a small fortune. Every month we used to spend over £60.00 on two sets of cartridges for our Epson printer and now, we are only spending £24.99 a month and for that, we just don’t get unlimited ink, we also get a fully maintained, wireless, business rated multi-function printer as well. What this means to us, is that we save about 60% and as well as printing all our office work, we can let the children print as much as they like, safe in the knowledge, that if the printer breaks, the team at MY Total Office Solutions will fix or replace it at no extra cost to us.
Sarah Connelly, Smarty Pants. We had never used MY Total Office Solutions before, but received one of their mail shots for MY Print Service and could not believe what a great deal it was. After discussing it further, between ourselves and with the very knowledgeable team at MY Total Office Solutions, we went ahead and ordered one and have never looked back. As well as the savings, which are at least the 60% that they claim, the service they provide is fantastic, we can call them before 11am and they arrive that same afternoon to top up our cartridges. Now we don’t need to worry about how much we are printing, both for ourselves and the children, or have to waste time by hunting around for the cheapest cartridges and an added bonus, is that we never have to buy a printer again, as that is covered too.
Paul Schofield. Paul Schofield Financial Services. We would highly recommend My Total Office Solutions to every small organisation. They provide ‘peace of mind’ through certainty of your total printing cost & certainty of service. We were spending a small fortune on replacement printer cartridges and worked out it was as high as £2,590 over 3 years and this didn’t even include the cost of replacement printers or extra support. And we were flabbergasted when (after performing a free assessment) MY Total Office Solutions showed us that they will provide us with a ‘fit for purpose’ managed print service (including a multi-function printer, unlimited cartridges & service) for a fixed price of £825 over the same period. Saving £1,765 or 68% against our original costs. And their service is fantastic, they provide replacement cartridges fast & free and any service requirements are dealt with same day over the phone or with a next day onsite technician visit. Their affordable managed print service (MY Print Service) has without doubt, provided us with peace of mind that we have certainty of our total printing costs and we receive certainty of service, which allows my team & I to concentrate on growing our business and supporting our clients. MY Total Office Solutions overall service has been so good, we now buy all our office stationery from them, and have even had them provide us with some IT support too.
Case Study. Christ The King Primary School, Lisa Clegg (Business Manager)
Christ The King Primary School is a happy, friendly school situated within lovely grounds on the edge of Burnley in Lancashire. The school is committed to providing the best possible learning environment to ensure that the achievement of every single child matches their potential. This makes it vitally important they keep good control of their operating costs, which then enables them to spend more of their budget directly on the education of their students to achieve this potential.
But with dwindling budgets, the school finds it ever so harder to provide unlimited classroom printing for their teachers & students. They thought classroom printing would have to stop and need to move to a central photocopier. Which would reduce some cost but would create many security concerns. Teachers and students would have to leave their classrooms to collect their printing.
Customer objective. For the new year the school had a printing budget of £6,000, which was much reduced from previous years and included the funding of new printing technology. Ideally, they wanted to keep their unlimited classroom printing model, as it was the most convenient and safest solution for the teachers and students.
But, based on last year’s printing costs and the need to invest in new printing technology, they thought they would have to move to a central photocopier solution. Which the school had already costed into their new budget.
Our solution. We had already identified that unlimited classroom printing was an issue for schools and had spent the previous 12 months working towards a solution to solve this problem. And after lots of tests (in the first instances with local business) and prototypes we launched MY Print Service.
The new service was perfect for small offices of up to 5 uses, and as it turned out, school classrooms.
MY Print Service includes a business rated wireless multi-function inkjet printer, unlimited replacement cartridges and a full maintenance (fix or replace) package, for just £24.99 plus VAT a month. And is the perfect fit for Christ the King. It solves all their problems and gives them the latest equipment in all 10 of their classrooms. They are impressed and signed up for 3 years.
Financial and operational result. Financially, Christ The King are quid’s in too. Because they signed a 3-year agreement, we gave them an even better deal and allowed them to pay for it in a fixed monthly fee.
Over the 3 years they are saving a massive £12,000, against the cost of a photocopier.
And their monthly fee is just £166.58 plus VAT, which covers 10 fully maintained multifunction printers with unlimited ink cartridges over the next 3 years.
Operationally, things have got much better too. As they now have the latest technology, offering duplex printing, multi-sheet scanning & copying and smart device printing. But the best thing is security and safety, as no-one ever needs to leave the classroom to pick up their printing again.