A long-time friend and mentor, Chuck Surprise, brought up something in a conversation we had recently. Chuck was a pioneer in typography and digital prepress back in the early ’80s as I guess CTO/Visionary of Central Graphics, if he had had a title. I started there in 1990 as a typesetter but quickly moved out of it and into running the prepress department, and Chuck’s vision of where that shop needed to go always kept it on the bleeding edge until his retirement.
We were talking about the strategy of the Social Print Experiment, and how I’ve put more emphasis on finding larger customers (meaning feet on the street) that have the volume we need for the press, that are willing to pay a fair price for the work. His comment was that if you’re going hunting, hunt for elk and not rabbits. It takes longer to find the elk, but once you locate one, it’s a substantial contribution. It’s also not a strategy that a lot of printers stick with. Hunting rabbit is easier.
Since putting effort into this strategy, we’ve found a few elk that look to be promising. If just one of these come through, it will put the Social Print Experiment’s goal of $1 million in sales about 1/3 of the way there. In our meetings with these customers, we’re talking to them about their needs and their expectations, but not once have we talked about our press except perhaps in passing.
I met with Scott Cappel of Sorrento Mesa Printing (@sorrentomesa) last week. He showed me a beautiful six-color calendar that was absolutely stunning in quality and definition that his shop produced. It was also printed on a 2-color press, three times through. It looked better than what I’ve seen on six-color Heidelberg presses. Customers shouldn’t care what equipment you have to produce their work; only that you can meet or exceed their expectations.
So, while the work we’ve been producing in the past has slowed down, we are optimistic that this strategy will pay off within a few weeks. It hasn’t changed our bottom line – we still have a press payment to make, as well as other bills – but selling many multiples of low dollar projects has been of little interest to us. To me, that’s just rabbit hunting.
We’re hunting elk.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
We are looking to start a digital press, we used to run a traditional press with a 2 color GTO heidelberg machine. Your Experiment has been of great help. But, hunting elk or rabbit? We are looking at hunting rabbit considering our environment (Africa) and the drive to do business ethically, and to add, ours will not be a social experiment. Elk or rabbit? I guess your strengths, the business plan and environment will determine.
Andrew,
I think your friend has, unintentionally, given you some bad advice. He has a long track record in printing but your issue right now is not printing – it is that you are a start up. The only thing important to a start up is cash flow. And for a new printing company the primary source of cash flow is the kind of work you have been writing about. Sure, some of it didn’t turn out too well but you are learning all of the time.
The elks you want to hunt are much harder to cultivate successfully. They take time to turn a prospect into a customer and during that time your expenses are still accruing whether you run the printer or not. Many of these elks will already have printing relationships and you will have to convince them to walk away from that relationship. That is difficult even for an established printing company. Being a start up makes it almost impossible.
Get enough business coming in to cover your monthly nut before you go elk hunting. Otherwise you may only shoot yourself in the foot, or worse.
I would agree to some extent, that it would be better to build on smaller accounts. But, at the same time, I believe we have a compelling product to get someone to switch. I appreciate the feedback, and certainly we’ll be discussing it more. Thanks!