Digital Now Reprographics
Digital Now Reprographics Pensacola location
Editor's Note: Pam Turner, director of operations for Digital Now Reprographics, recently became a Silver Level member of IRgA. She wrote a letter to IRgA that was so full of interesting observations about reprographics that we asked for her permission to reprint the letter here. She agreed.
Thanks, Ed. We are happy to be back on board with IRgA and I hope to get my staff more involved. In the 13 years since my location opened its reprographics shop many things have changed in this industry, so I am interested in hearing how other businesses are dealing with such monumental changes. All those years talking about a paperless society, I never thought I would see it. Of course, I am old school so will always keep a paper backup.
Our office in Pensacola opened in 1999 and our printshop opened in 2002. We expanded into the graphics/sign business in 2003 as it became evident the economy and housing were beginning to turn. We lost 95 percent of our residential business and survived mostly on commercial building for quite a long time. Our graphics department strengthened our bottom line and has helped supplement the losses in reprographics. High end residential continued and commercial is beginning to pick up again.
Our office in Memphis (Bartlette is a suburb) has had a reprographics shop since 1996, however, we did not attempt to grow the printing because we were the service agent for multiple large repro houses. We actually still service the ARC/Ridgeways accounts in both our locations. It was our belief that it wouldn't be right to compete against our own customers, so never tried to grow it on a larger scale until many recent changes.
The owner of the business, Michael K. Miller, moved from Memphis to Pensacola in 1999 to retire and was asked to expand business in the panhandle by Oce'. Michael and his wife moved back to Memphis after Ivan came through. Since 2011, I have been in charge of running the corporation on Michael's behalf. I still have my production duties in the admin area, and because we are such a small corporation I oversee all departments, which is very time consuming even though I have great staff. There are so many things I would like to be involved in if there were only more hours in the day. My nights and weekends are family time, which maintains my sanity.
I do plan on being at the Atlanta convention along with my sales staff. This is going to be a great year for COLOR and we look forward to growing business through this awesome change. It is quite the challenge, however, since there are so many companies out there dumping their pricing and willing to make so little profit I can't imagine how they plan on surviving into the future. We've survived all these 37 years by offering quality products and services at reasonable prices and being vigilant on our cash flow. It pains me to turn away business, however, I've been known to tell folks I can't pay my staffs salary if I give away products and I will never be able to compete with the internet or companies in rural areas versus downtown. When it comes to my accounts receivables one comment I've offered more than once is "I can't allow your cash flow problem to become mine."
My goal is to continue to look for ways to grow our business and diversify when warranted. We will always be about quality and ethics as we extend exceptional customer service to our customers. Our equipment sales department is all about filling the customers' specific needs and not about moving boxes or pushing products they don't really need. We have a great staff who goes the extra mile.
Pamela S. Turner
Director of Operations
Digital Now, Inc.