Last year was full of interesting, inspiring stories in the reprographics field. Here are eight of them. Enjoy!
Beyond Print: How Smart Repro Firms are Transforming
When the housing market collapsed in 2008, the management of Drexel Technologies realized they had to change how their customers thought of them. Drexel, a reprographics firm with offices in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Lenexa, Kansas, no longer wanted to be thought of as just a print and equipment supplier. Read More
Joe Williamson Seeks Streams of Income
Joe Williamson doesn’t chase print jobs for his firm, Franklin Imaging in Columbus, Ohio. That’s not to say he doesn’t pursue work for the company — he is a salesman through and through. But single-order jobs just don’t interest him. What he seeks are long-term streams of income. Read More.
Berlin Shop Creates Customer Cubicles
If you have self-service workstations in your shop, you’ll recognize the situation Elke Mann saw in her reprographics shops in Berlin. Customers crowded around insufficient counters, hovered over each other’s projects, and grew tired waiting their turn. So when Mann and her co-CEO Mathias Goldstein expanded one of the four locations of the business, G.R.I.M.M. Copy Plot & Digiprint, they used some of the new space to remedy that situation: They created eight private, comfortable workstations for their customers, many of whom are students at a nearby technical school. Read More
Three Money-Making Ideas from the German Convention
I had the good fortune to attend the convention of motio, the German reprographics association, in late August in Kassel. One of the most valuable parts of the event, called Netzwerktage 2015, was learning about some of the money-making ventures the Germans are embarking on. These are not groundbreaking ideas, but I’m sharing them here in hopes that they motivate a few IRgA members to try them as well. Read More
Nine Tips to Increase the Potency of Your Testimonials
In today’s social media-driven world, everyone understands the power of comments from customers. A few good reviews on Yelp or nice comments on Facebook can help drive business. But in many cases those comments are anonymous, and in nearly all cases they are unsolicited and difficult to control. Testimonials that you personally develop, which you can then post on your website or use in advertising, can be more effective and easier to control. Read More.
Should You Buy Another Shop's Accounts?
Buying accounts - an alternative to the purchase of a going concern - continues to be of interest to our readers. Here is a discussion of why this approach has become more popular for both buyers and sellers. The first two comments below present the advantages of this technique from the seller’s perspective. In addition, a reader shares his experience with buying accounts, discussing both the deals that worked and some that didn’t. Read More.
Five Tips for a Successful Website
You’re a business owner, and you want to reach other business owners. Period. That means your website needs easy navigation, visible contact information, a persuasive sales pitch, and a look that establishes your credibility but does not slow down your clients’ browsers. Read More.
How the German Reprographics Association Beat the Chains
In 1990, as Germany was celebrating its reunification, reprographers in the former West Germany and other countries smelled opportunity in the former East Germany. There were some existing reprographics businesses there, but 45 years of communism had put them far behind their Western counterparts. “Gold rush fever was spreading,” said Achim Carius, executive director of motio, the German reprographics association, during his presentation at the 2015 ERA/IRgA Convention in Atlanta in April. Read More.