Dunn Paper

23

$100 Million +

1) Grew net sales over 22% vs. paper industry average of 0 to 1% in 2007. 

2) Increased new customers by 28% (typical customer has a year ramp up period 
so we have not realized the full benefit of growth and we have the strongest 
pipeline in our company’s history )

3) Expanded global reach continues to grow with clients in South America, 
Australia and China, 

4) Plant is running at full capacity and now has a three month backlog of 
business. 

Top lessons learned

1) Identify the needs of marketplace.

2) Target and focus on those accounts we can satisfy.

3) Go full out to service those customer and prospects and become a 
trusted advisor and help our client’s win business


1) Understand the needs of the marketplace. We engaged our customers to 
understand their needs and why and how they would benefit from working with 
Dunn. We became more intimate with them and deeply engaged to understand key 
needs. 

It turned out that their best customers had some common needs. Namely, they 
were looking for on-time delivery, flexibility in placing orders, great 
technical support and cost-efficiency when using the paper.  They were not 
looking for the lowest cost paper, but, rather, they needed paper that was 
most efficient to use when on their presses. Therefore, quality of paper and 
technical support where much more important than the price to these customers. 

2)  Focus our effort. For this, we created an ideal sales fingerprint and an 
unacceptable client profile. We used this method to rank and score clients and 
prospects in relationship in our ability to properly service them. This 
allowed us to focus on companies that we could satisfy and clients and 
prospects that would recognize the benefit of working with us. Those that fit 
the profile well were pursued. Those that did not were dropped.

3) Service the customer and become a trusted advisor
Once fingerprinted we made sure to go all out and know that customer. Senior 
business and technical executives made in-person visits to understand their 
prospects and clients better than any vendor in the business. We formed close 
relationships with all levels of the client’s organization (from operational, 
technical, financial and management perspectives and help our client’s win 
business and become instrumental in their success.

We strive to become trusted advisors to our clients and help them win business 
and reduce costs. We engage our clients at all levels from the CEO on down the 
technical plant operators and strive to understand their business as if it was 
our own. From a cost perspective, we work with the technical people to make 
their plant operationally efficient. To make sure they have the most up time, 
their schedules are met and they run efficiently. From a sales perspective we 
go on sales call and help our clients win new business. As an example, we 
recently help a client win an account at major fast food restaurant by 
leveraging our expertise and experience in that business.

Mr. Voss has been with the Company as Vice President, Sales & Marketing since 
2001. He has twenty-five years experience in product development and marketing 
in the paper industry, having previously worked at Crown Vantage, James River, 
Thilmany Pulp & Paper and Fort Howard. Mr. Voss received an MBA and BBA from 
the University of Wisconsin.

Our customer base is comprised of paper converters. These are companies that 
take a roll of paper, print on it, cut it and deliver it to end customers to 
use. Their clients are companies that leverage paper and paper based products 
to create brand identity in the marketplace. Since we are part of a whole 
product solution, it is vital that we think of our client’s clients as our 
customers as well. Our paper is used by consumers’ everyday from the paper 
that labels your favorite beverage bottle to the paper that wraps your 
favorite sandwich at almost every fast food restaurant in the country.

We make sure our marketing, product development and sales are completely 
aligned with ourselves and more importantly how they are aligned with our 
clients and prospects. We interview our clients and prospects on what their 
current needs are, what their future needs are, what is working well and what 
needs improvement. We then look at the future opportunities and areas of 
improvement. We work with our clients and prospects to develop new products 
with new features and capabilities to lower their cost, run our paper more 
efficiently and help them win more business with end clients. Our entire 
organization including sales, marketing, customer service, technical support, 
product development and Sr. Management take active roles in creation, 
development, testing, marketing and sales of our complete product line.

If you want please come up to Port Huron anytime to tour our plant and 
facility. We are a manufacturer of specialty papers to the world and we have 
been producing quality paper since 1924. We have an international presence but 
are driven by local community values.  We are proud to have extraordinary 
loyal customers and vendors.  Our workforce is comprised of skilled craftsmen 
that have an average tenure with the company of over 23 years. We love 
visitors and would enjoy the opportunity to show you the art 
and science of paper manufacturing.