Firm Keeps Its Edge by Tending to Core Network
The Lesser family jumped into the technology revolution early, supplying specialized computer components to universities and government contractors in the late 1980s. Starting from home, they built up a computer hardware business that builds and services in-house networks. Keeping their most important clients happy by going the extra mile has proved successful for owners Larry and Janice Lesser and their son, Alex, who came on board as vice president in 1996. Alex Lesser was interviewed by freelance writer Karen E. Klein.
Our company changed drastically with the advent of the personal computer market, and to survive we had to become a computer manufacturer instead of just supplying system boards. As our knowledge progressed, we developed a niche business in setting up and servicing high-end work stations.
Most of our clients are in the government and education sectors, places like UC Irvine, USC, UC San Diego, the U.S. Army, [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] and NASA. We’ve found that with these large institutions, we don’t have trouble getting paid. Sometimes, with the smaller clients, they don’t live up to their end of the agreement and you have to waste valuable time and effort getting them to pay their invoices.
One of the first lessons I learned in the business is that a very small handful of customers typically ensures your survival. Instead of just expending our energy on generating new customers, we try to balance our marketing with ensuring the satisfaction of the 20% of our clients who supply most of our revenue stream.
That means, when our top clients want work done or have service calls, we put them ahead of everybody else, even though that may irritate our smaller customers. We ask the smaller accounts if they can hold off on their service until the next day, and 90% of the time they are OK with that. If they’re not, we try to take care of them right after the bigger customers’ problems are fixed.
Our biggest selling point--and the reason our customers are willing to pay a little more--is personal service. We go out and deliver our machines personally, we fully install them and we customize work stations where other companies won’t. If we hear that our best customers are having difficulty with the set-ups we designed, we will physically drive up, pick up the machines, bring them to the component manufacturer, swap out the parts and bring them back. The customers appreciate it so much, they do not care about the extra 2% or 3% we charge them.
Of course, if they come to us and say that one of our competitors is charging less, we’ll match that price because we don’t want to lose their business. But I’ve found that they rarely haggle over price with us. Clients like Northrop Grumman could hire full-time systems administrators to do the work we do for them, but they don’t because we take care of their needs as if we were an in-house consultant. They understand that we’re giving them service above and beyond what they would get elsewhere.
The problem you face, being a small company dependent on a few accounts, is what happens if one of the big guys drops out. You have to keep advertising your services in the hope that there will be new companies that will come in and fill the gap.
We’re always building relationships with new companies, especially companies where we can see there is a lot of potential for a large stream of revenue. We’ll go above and beyond our normal service calls to take care of them. If there’s a system failure, we’re at their office within four hours and we’ll take up to six hours to repair the problem without charging the customer.
If your business can provide a lesson to other entrepreneurs, contact Karen E. Klein at the Los Angeles Times, 1333 S. Mayflower Ave., Suite 100, Monrovia, CA 91016 or at kklein6349@aol.com. Include your name, address and telephone number.
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AT A GLANCE
Company: PSSC Labs Inc.
Owners: Larry and Janice Lesser
Nature of business: Computer manufacturer and network integrator
Location: 27601 Forbes Road, Suite 59, Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
Founded: 1987
Web site: https://www.pssclabs.com
E-mail: alex@pssclabs.com
Employees: 3
Annual revenue: $3.1 million
