Software Partners Bring Business Centro Information Systems hit a sales ceiling for tax forms in its Bend, Ore., market. "We already had a high penetration in our area," says Richard Lawrence, who's in charge of strategic business development at the distributorship. "To achieve our growth goals, we needed to find a new way to market our product." Centro Information Systems' strategy: strength in numbers. Software providers were appealing partners, Lawrence says, and the distributorship paired with new customers by supplying software-compatible tax forms to software suppliers. Today, the company's six software partners have helped the firm win big business, Lawrence says. "We deal with companies that we never would have been dealing with," including the Denver Broncos and the Salt Lake Olympics Committee, he says. These accounts stretched Centro Information Systems' small-town reach, and earning the business didn't require cold calling or clocking miles behind the wheel. Ten years ago, Centro Information Systems processed roughly 20 to 50 tax form orders. Today, it's closer to ten times that volume. "The trend is that employment is down so tax forms are down," Lawrence says. "But we have grown through relationships and leveraging the opportunity we have to contact our client base through our software partnerships." Meanwhile, the information Centro Information Systems gleans from simply knowing which programs customers purchase lends Lawrence and the company's five other sales-team members background information to aid additional product pitches, Lawrence says. "Because they order tax forms, we have an idea how large their companies are," he says. "We may not know a lot about their business because the software could be a common payroll program. But we do know what software they use, and we can base our conversation on that to find out what their other needs are." Tax envelopes, payroll checks, accounts payable checks and standard business envelopes are some add-on products Centro Information Systems provides customers. Lawrence says excellent customer service, especially crisis management during the "intense" year-end crunch time, breeds customer loyalty. These are highly skilled accounting professionals who are "terrified of buying the wrong forms, making a mistake and not meeting the deadlines," he says. "Frankly, the whole process for most people is surrounded by anxiety." Centro Information Systems simplifies the selling process by supplying software companies only with forms that comply with their particular systems. Because the tax form selling season lasts from late summer through January, Lawrence says meeting with software companies before the rush ensures that Centro Information Systems provides its partners with forms that meet regulatory changes and software updates. "We work closely with [software companies] to provide them with information they need for a year-end mailing," Lawrence says, noting that he scores add-on sales with tax envelopes and invoices. Together, the companies complete tax forms research before July, print order forms and catalogs by August, and mail information to the software providers' customers in September. The time constraint is "intense," and room for error is slight, Lawrence says. But necessity carves a lucrative market for tax forms of all kinds, no matter the move toward e-filing and laser-printed forms, he says. "It's an easy sell for several reasons," he says. "One, customers need them. They don't have a choice. Two, the forms are standardized. Three, it's easy for us to sell them because the software companies recommend us as the supplier. If customers don't buy from Centro, they won't guarantee the forms will work."