By Ed Avis
Attendees to Tuesday’s IRgA panel discussion on profitable services heard three IRgA members explain how they’ve succeeded with innovative markets: auto wraps, LiDAR and ADA signage. However, one theme repeated itself during each presentation – the fact that success in these markets has come via the traditional AEC market. In each case, the market has spread into other areas, but the path to those areas still passes through AEC.
For example, the first presenter, David Meads, who is director of operations for Hackworth and The Graphics Shop in Chesapeake, Virginia, talked about auto wraps. You’re probably thinking, “That’s go nothing to do with AEC.” But municipalities are among the biggest customers for auto wraps – they put the stripes and insignia on police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, etc. – and Hackworth’s relationships with municipalities surely goes back decades and is probably based on reprographics work they have done for builders and others working with the municipalities.
Dom Iorfino, owner of HB Digital in Huntington Beach, who was the third speaker during the panel discussion, said his firm also does wraps for municipal vehicles. He said that work has led to more work inside the police stations themselves, such as installing enlarged badges and other graphics on the walls. So what started as auto wraps blossomed into a bigger market.
The second presenter was James O’Keefe, the business development director of the Forensic Building Information (FBI) division of R.S. Knapp (Napco) in New Jersey. His path from traditional reprographics to innovative technologies was the straightest: Most the users of their LiDAR (which stands for light detection and ranging) service are companies that have long used Napco for traditional reprographics.
O’Keefe explained that LiDAR is a laser measuring device that creates highly accurate as-builts. Naturally, builders who have trusted Napco for traditional repro work are prime customers for this type of service.
“It’s just a different form of documentation,” O’Keefe explained. “We’re creating [documentation] based off of digital information that we captured with survey-grade pieces of equipment.”
Not only are their customers for LiDAR traditional AEC folks, but offering the service has helped Napco secure new clients in that field, O’Keefe said.
“There’s a client that is about 15 minutes from our headquarters. They’ve been open for 75 years. We’ve been open for 80 years, and for whatever reason, they never wanted to do any business with us on the reprographic side,” O’Keefe said. “They had an existing vendor that they were using and they were happy with them. But they recognize the value of what we’re doing in the FBI division and now all of a sudden we have a lot of open dialogue with that client, which allows us more opportunities to capture different avenues of work.”
Iorfino was the last speaker in the panel discussion. His company has succeeded with ADA signage that is highly architectural – in other words, they’re not making elementary braille “Men’s Room” signs that anyone can buy on Amazon. Rather, they’re stacking layers of printed substrates, braille dots and other graphic elements to create ADA signage that matches a designer’s vision.
“Our focus is that custom feel, that custom piece of architecture,” he explained. “The edges might be a different color than the face. We might use a laminate on it and put the beads on top with another placard, or with a slip-in sign. We try to think outside the box and make things beautiful and functional. You can charge more for that.”
As with the other two presenters, most of the customers for this kind of work previously bought – or still buy – traditional repro services. It is one more profit center to offer to the AEC clients who already trust HB Digital.
Iorfino made another valuable observation during his presentation: Property managers are good clients for ADA signage and other graphics, because each time one of their tenants moves, the signage needs to be replaced. Furthermore, when a property manager changes firms, Iorfino’s client list grows.
“The interesting thing about property managers is most property managers don't stay with one company,” he said. “So for example, CBRE might have a property manager that manages two buildings. So you get your leg in, you do the work for those buildings, but when they move on to another company or another series of buildings, if you've got good rapport with them and you've taken care of them as an account, they'll bring you along, which means that you have the original two buildings and maybe you have another four buildings.”
The panel discussion was full of useful nuggets of information like this. You can watch the recording in the IRgA Member Portal. Click here to log in, then select the “Reports and Recorded Webinars” tab on the left. This event is currently the top item on the list.