Coffee Corner with Travis Downs, Formax Dealer Sales Director

Formax has been up to a lot lately. Luckily, we got the opportunity to sit down with Travis Downs, the current Director of Dealer Sales, to talk all things Formax.

Say “Hey” to Travis Downs

Travis jumped into the digital print and finishing industry ten years ago at Formax. He quickly became driven by the same force that we often hear from manufacturers: the ability to help businesses create better projects easier and faster. In his current role, Travis works with dealers to get Formax products into the right hands. This includes a wide range of solutions that serve print shops, mailing companies, corporate offices, packaging facilities, and more. Travis and the entire team at Formax have been great partners with MyBinding, and we are excited to give you a chance to learn more about all they do.

About Formax, in Travis’s Words

“Formax believes that our dealers should have access to the best quality equipment from anywhere in the world – backed up by great service. After almost 40 years, Formax remains a family-owned business rooted in Dover, NH, that still manufactures equipment in the United States, and it all started with our Auto Seal Pressure Sealers that are the industry standard in pressure seal. That manufacturing background is a huge part of our identity and the development process for every product we launch. As our product line has expanded, diversifying to include our OnSite Shredders, Atlas and Square IT Print Finishing Products, ColorMax Envelope Printers, FlashGuard Laminators, (amongst others) we have never lost that small company foundation. There’s no better way to understand Formax than to know that a receptionist still greets every person that walks into our building and routes every call that comes in. We believe customers deserve great products and a personal customer service experience.”

What is it about your current industry that you felt spoke to you?

To be honest, I didn’t know a whole lot about paper handling equipment or the larger industry when I joined Formax. I saw a team of people all rowing in the same direction with passion for what they were doing, so it would have been crazy not to join in! I remember watching a folder/inserter run on my first day and having to step away and take a deep breath, remembering the amount of time I had wasted folding and stuffing envelopes in my previous job. Working with our dealers to provide solutions to make their customers more efficient and profitable never stops being rewarding. It is that impact we have on businesses, the relationships I have built with our dealer network, and the outstanding team I get to work with at Formax that keep me excited to walk into our building every day.

How do you feel the health of the industry has been in the last few years?

I think the rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated (credit to Mark Twain). I don’t think a day goes by where I don’t personally have to handle paper. Whether it’s junk mail, tax forms, invoices, notices from my four daughters’ schools, menus, business cards, or greeting cards. Paper is essential to so many personal and business aspects of our lives, I even read recently that the average office employee uses 10,000 pieces of paper a year. To me, that shows that paper is as important as it has ever been. The key to keeping customers and finding new ones is adding exciting, relevant products that make them profitable, save them time, and exceed their expectations. Refreshing our product selection with new things like our Cut-TrueDDC50 (more on that later), the Cut-True28A Guillotine Cutter, or our best-selling cardboard recycling products - the Greenwave410 and Greenwave430, that repurpose waste cardboard and turn it into valuable packaging materials - allows us to be valuable to our dealers and expand how they can help their customers.

What’s the biggest challenge in the industry? How did your team address this?

It has been a whirlwind 5 years, hasn’t it? My fourth grader just finished her time in elementary school that started behind a Zoom screen as a Kindergartener. It really has been a time of constant change. With new challenges for businesses that manufacture, import, and export equipment, we have had to adapt; managing a variety of disruptive forces to make sure we deliver the quality equipment and service to our customers in the time they expect. We do that by having great people that can be agile and adjust to the shifts and challenges. We prioritize keeping a responsible inventory of equipment and parts, over-communicating, and making sure the standard of customer service we keep is acceptable to our customers and not just acceptable to us.

What changes have you seen in your industry that have surprised you the most? How did your team pivot?

The use of platforms like Zoom, TEAMS, and YouTube have been gamechangers. The ability to do live product demonstrations to show our customers how our products can benefit them, in real time, has been one thing that really stood out for me. We’re doing product demonstrations in some cases with as many as 6 cameras – I never thought I’d be a producer! That ability to connect with customers from all over the country makes a big difference in identifying the right product quickly in the sales process and assisting with installations and support once the customer is ready to use their machine.

What advice do you have for someone new in the industry? Advice for someone experienced?

I would give the same advice for someone joining the industry as I would to someone in the middle of their career. It is all about relationships. Listening to your customers, understanding their needs, and solving their challenges. Those relationships become way more valuable than a low price.

What product does your company currently sell that’s quickly becoming a favorite of yours?

The Cut-TrueDDC50 Digital Die Cutter! It is just a cool product and so different from the staple products (like folders, shredders, and cutters) in our line. The Cut-TrueDDC50 can create any shape a customer can design on a printed sheet. Imagine a restaurant that needs to make daily menus, drink menus, postcards with tear away coupons, promotional stickers, table-top advertisements, to-go boxes. Then give them the ability to customize those things for private events – even cutting out things like masks for “big head” shapes like you’d see at a ball game for attendees. The Cut-TrueDDC50 is the one product that can do it all. It will read a bar code and then cut, crease, perforate, or even sign the pieces, and it is easy! Once we’ve trained the customer on the Cut-True Pro software – they can design in Adobe Illustrator and bring all of their dynamic brand ideas to life – if you haven’t seen it, there’s a great demonstration on our YouTube channel showing the product in action.

Where do you see your company in the next year? In the next five?

Formax is a company of achievers that are passionate about the products we sell and the service we provide to our customers. I think we will continue to develop new products and improve the products we sell today. We believe that if we bring good products to the market, trust our people, and focus on doing the right things, we will continue to grow within our dealer network and find more customers that trust us for more than one solution.

What goals does your company have for the year-end?

We are always looking at how to improve the dealer or customer experience. That could be everything from our new catalog (check it out, it is awesome) to content for our dealers’ websites, to improving the sales presentations we do on our equipment monthly (you can find them on our YouTube channel) and of course, new product launches. Our focus right now is preparing for three big industry events that we will be exhibiting at, including Printing United. We look forward to those shows all year for the chance to get in front of a ton of customers and show them new solutions for their businesses.

Is there anything else you would like to share?

Thank you to the MyBinding team for being a great partner and inviting me for this conversation. Formax relies on our dealer network to bring our equipment to their customers. As consumers, choosing your vendors and your partners wisely has never been more important. For all of us at Formax, our goal is to provide equipment you can count on backed up by people who care.

We highly recommend checking out all Formax has to offer. Products like the Cut-True DDC50 are truly exciting in the innovation and capabilities they offer. The products we discussed here just scratch the surface. It was great getting to chat with Travis and we look forward to continuing to collaborate in the future.