032526 ~ Business Solutions Your Way - Jessica Dulin

Our Saline Area Chamber of Commerce report today, we're going to talk about business solutions done your way.

Jessica Dullin is president of the Michigan computer supplies, they're based out on

concourse, wrote across from the city of Ann Arbor Airport. This woman-owned business

prides itself on a culture of kindness as it strives to make sure you feel you're getting

more for your money when you work with them. And of course, people have so many choices,

and we always encourage them to go local, and it doesn't get any more local than what you do.

It's so nice to meet you. Thank you, Lucy, and I'm happy to be here and thanks for having us.

A company your dad started back in 1998? Yes, he did. Tell me about your father.

So he had worked in the toner business for a good few years, and the toner business back in the

90s kind of had a bad reputation for calling people, finding out what machines they had,

and sending them sometimes junky, compatible toner cartridges with a high invoice.

I remember those days. Yes, he wanted to start a business based on a culture of kindness that

really met the businesses where they were at, and listen to them on what they want to use,

and hopefully try to provide them a great value if they did want to enjoy the savings that

compatible toner is offered. And what is your father's name? His name is Chris Brooks.

He sounds like a marvelous man with a good heart. Yes, he's running a company that way,

and wanting to do right by his customers. So when did you take over the company?

I took over the company. I started with him back in 1998 when the business opened.

I had just graduated high school and was focusing on a teaching degree.

And so I worked with him until 2008. I moved to the West Side of the State to focus on that

teaching degree, but in 2010, he had a spinal cord injury. And so I ended up moving back home

to help with the business. And in 2017, I actually purchased the company from him.

We always end up where we are supposed to be. It's so true.

A really amazing, I hear so many stories like that. And I think it's important for people to

realize, you know, even though you're on a path, follow that lead that you are being given, right?

Definitely. How has that changed your life?

Well, it has been an incredible journey. I was a little bit bummed at first and I had that

passion for teaching, but it was stuck here with this business and what do I do?

What are my responsibilities? And I have been able to really embrace that teaching component

both with leading an amazing team that we have. And also just helping our customers understand

what they're buying, what they're seeing in the stores, but we have to offer.

And so that teaching component has filled me up the last few years.

Yeah, that's a really good example. So your skill set fits in nicely.

And with what the culture that your father started in the company, how big is your company?

We have five full-time employees and three part-time people.

And it's called Michigan Computer Supplies. Always called that name.

We were Michigan Computer Supply without the S way back in the day.

And then we did a little bit of a shift and a chain upgraded logos and all of that and changed

our name very slightly back in 2012. You also expanded your mission, I understand.

We have. We've gone outside of just the Inc and Toner for printers and we have moved into

computers, which has always been funny that we didn't sell computers for many years.

So we've gotten into the computer space. We also deal a lot with custom labels, helping

some of our local businesses with labels like Gelato needs to have a label on it that will

bite through condensation. And so we did a lot of testing and different things to find that

right label that would actually stick onto a frozen container of Gelato. So different things

like that with a lot of trial and error just trying to get the product to be exactly what the

customer needs. And how has that obviously changed your business, but how has that expansion

done for you? It's done really well. It's helped us kind of just become an extension of our

customer's teams where we're problem solvers at Michigan Computer Supplies. So we like to listen,

like to learn, like to hear about different struggles in just ways that we can solve them and

make people's lives easier, especially when it comes to labels. A lot of times there's really

heavy shipping costs involved in those because they're heavy. And we use local manufacturers

for those. We also are able to buy in bulk where if our customer only needs four or five

rolls of labels, we are able to extend the price of much larger. Because you're buying in bulk.

And you're utilizing that for multiple customers. Precisely. And then that allows us to keep that

on the shelf too. So if there's an emergency, like, oh my gosh, we did not put our reorder in,

we work completely out. We can't wait two or three weeks. We're able to say, hey, you're good.

We've got this on our shelf. And we'll see you in 10 minutes. We're talking really nice.

Jessica Doolan, she is president of Michigan Computer Supplies here on Delusian Land Show,

Ann Arbor's Talk Station, 1290 WLBY. Jessica, I'm curious, you know, businesses out there.

I imagine a lot of them when they think they need computer supplies, printing supplies, labels,

anything along those lines to run their business, they may go online to buy that stuff,

which I find very hard to do because you never know what you're going to get. And I do love

buying local. What sets you apart for those businesses out there to have them understand that

working with you is a much better way to go. Mainly it is the human component. We are humans.

We answer our phones. The people that answer the phone most likely are able to help with that

problem. So you're not put on hold. You're not shuffled around. And what problems do occur?

And when they occur, you call us. You have a human being to help you. You're not on a chat screen.

You're not sitting on hold for 20 minutes. We're here to help and get it figured out right away

for everybody. Let's talk a little bit about how the industry has changed since those days.

In the late 90s, when your father started this company, laser printer supplies, inkjet printer,

barcode printer, scanners, labels. You do all of the custom labels, paper products. In fact,

I wanted to mention, real quickly, speaking of paper products, there's a nice endorsement from

Diane Keller from the president of the Ann Arbor Ibslanny Regional Chamber of Commerce.

And she says that she's been working with Michigan Computer Supplies for several years,

that you have fantastic service, that you even donate a case of paper to the A2Y each month.

Every nonprofit is looking to save funds with the help of Michigan Computer Supplies,

the chamber has been able to stretch valuable resources. That speaks volumes about that culture

of kindness that you exhibit. It does. We love nonprofits. They help the community in so many

different ways. And so any little way that we're able to help with our nonprofit customers,

we do donate a case of paper every month with a toner order. Oh, not just to the chamber.

No, it's nonprofits in Ann Arbor. If they're ordering toner from us, we are happy to donate a

case of paper each month. And that equates about a six to $700 value. That's a year for the

nonprofit. Yeah. So all right. So let's talk about ink and things like that. What's the latest

out there? What do people need to know? It has become a very crazy industry. You can go on

Am online and you can find a million different cartridges. The boxes these days too have several

numbers on the box. So people are very confused about what they need to order. It's like the industry

has almost made it confusing for people. And that's where we come in where we can take any number

that's on that box and figure out what you need and help educate you as to what the best product

and best choice will be for you. Is there an ink out there that is long lasting?

The OEM, which is the name brand toner that's out there. They are by far the best. It's OEM

original equipment manufacturer. So it's the name brand toner HP brother Canon to name a few. And

then there is a million compatible toners out there. There is also remanufactured cartridges.

The remanufactured cartridges actually take those name brand empty toners of HP or brother

and refill them redo the gears. They're a little bit they're a pretty great quality. But the

compatible is out there, especially with 3D printing. You can get the cheapest cartridge. It's brittle

that you might feel like only spent $10 on this instead of 200. But if it breaks, there are the

plastic snaps in your machine. You've got quite a mess on your hands. It's going to probably exceed

that savings you thought you had. So you don't recommend remanufactured? We do recommend remanufactured.

It's a compatible that are not made with the OEM cores are what's in the remanufactured toner

cartridge. So you're getting that HP core that is very well made. Not some plastic that's

something that somebody created with their 3D printer. So decided to master it. The word you

look for is remanufactured. And then with our remanufactured toners that we sell, we stand behind

them 100%. So even if you've had it for a year and you've printed 2,000 pages on it, if it gets

weird or anything goes wrong, call us, we come, we've swapped that out right away. No questions

asked. We try to make that savings really easy for the businesses. Jessica, are you only a B2B

business to business or we are mainly B2B. We do not turn away residential users. A lot of

times it's more pointing them in the right direction. It might not be something we're able to

provide for them. But I'm always happy to help people understand where they might need to go

to get some help. Okay. Our listeners can go online to Michigancomputersupplies.com.

They've got a comprehensive website. Michigancomputersupplies.com. Again, they're located on

Concourse. Is it Drive? I can't remember. Concourse Drive. Concourse Drive. Let's see. Russell

Video is out there. FedEx is out there across from the Ann Arbor Airport. I'll just south of

Briarwood Mall. And their motto is, where kindness meets tailored business solutions. And you got

to love that when you know you're going to be dealing with someone who has that kindness bent

to them. So you do a customized service. You're very, you really believe in that. We do. We work

under the Platinum Rule, which is meeting our customers, treating people how they wish to

be treated themselves. So every customer is different. We really try to meet customers exactly

where they are at. Right. You have a whole list of things that you do here. Besides

customized service, sourcing products for IT departments. Yes. That has been a really

great thing for us too, because we have a large account that operates on cruise ships out of Miami.

And their IT department is here in Southfield. And so they send me online links all the time for

cables, laptop batteries, laptop covers, just different things they need. And it allows them to

have a central person to call, find out where something is, because sometimes it might be two or

three weeks out. And this way, they're not having to chase things around. But we keep them updated.

Let them know exactly when to expect companies, computer experts, then. We really try. And it's

that being an extension of their teams, we truly care and want to make everybody feel successful

in that IT arena. You support medical departments with comprehensive supply solutions?

Yes. We do. We've been doing some medical

kidding that has kind of grown with one of our partners. And it's been really beautiful. And

again, we're able to just really change as needed. If something needs to be changed with those

kids, we change it on a dime. We make it exactly how it's needed. And so again, it comes to that

being an extension of their team, alleviating that stress because our team is going to handle it

to exactly to the needs that you need it. You do a great job with logistics?

Yep. We do a lot of shipping as well. And you say that you make sure that products are delivered

where and when they are needed on demand delivery of custom labels and more. We're housing overflow

products. Talk about them. We do that. Some companies are limited on space. They may have a big

project that they're getting ready to put together and they have nowhere to store the stuff.

So a lot of times we will offer some of the storage in our warehouse for people to kind of have

that extra space. All right. And e-waste and printer cartridge recycling.

That is a big one. It's harder and harder to dispose of these electronics these days. And so we

do offer free e-waste recycling to all of our customers. We either come and pick it up. We also

work with a great company called Aenea Cycling. And they pick up free of charge. So if there's a whole

lot of stuff, if a business is moving or something, we'll often communicate with them and have them

go directly to our customers location to pick everything up. I'm curious what your father who

started the company thinks about the business today, how it has grown. I am sure he is quite proud

of it. He put a lot of legwork into it for more than 20 years. And so we're very proud of how far

we've come over the years. Jessica Dullin, president of Michigan Computer Supplies. Visit

MichiganComputerSupplies.com. It's a company that her dad, Chris Brooks, started back in 1998.

And she took over the business and has been moving forward ever since. So congratulations to you.

Thank you very much. And thanks for having us. It's wonderful to get to know you and your business.

And they are members of the Saline Area Chamber of Commerce for more information about the chamber.

Go online to SalineChamber.org. Our thanks to Jessica Dullin, president at Michigan Computer Supplies.

You're listening to the Lucy N. Lance Show and Auburn's Talk Station, 1290WLBY.