By Ed Avis
COVID has stuck a knife into the heart of business around the world, and the reprographics has not been spared. But smart business people have been able to tease out some positive aspects of the tragedy. In an APDSP webinar on July 16, three panelists discussed the world of imaging post-COVID. The first question asked of the panelists – Dirck Holscher, former editor the Larry Hunt Newsletters; Paula Fargo, owner of Curry Printing in Baltimore; and Paul Korman, co-owner of Trukmann’s Reprographics in Cedar Knolls, NJ – was what “silver linings” they had discovered. Their responses are below. (If you’d like to read a transcript of the webinar or view the recording, simply log into the Member Center and click on Member Tools on the left side; the webinar recording and transcript are the 3rd and 4th items on the list.)
Dirck Holscher
Yes, there have been a few silver linings that I've heard about. One comes to mind, a quick copy company was approached by one and then two huge school districts to do at-home course packets for their students. Many students, these are both fairly rural areas, did not have high speed internet, or if they did, mom and/or dad were using it for work. They had very low participation in their coursework, so they decided to go back to good old paper. He's running two shifts doing thousands and thousands of course packets.
Paula Fargo
I wouldn't say the silver lining was in the sales of new items. I'll say that the silver lining was in the chance to really see how your management of your company is doing. What's that old saying, “When the tide comes out, you can see who's been swimming naked.” There's really no place to hide during something like this. Any management practices that aren't up to snuff are going to be smoked out immediately.
It's a good time to take stock, get your team on the same page, and tackle projects that might not get done when you're moving in sixth gear. When you're in first and second gear, you've got a little time to take care of some of those projects.
Paul Korman
A number of years ago I remember Doug Hoek doing a presentation for IRGA where he talked about going outside of the conventional circles of business to gain access to businesses that you don't do business with, as well as supporting your existing businesses. One of the things that we picked up on early was the sneeze guards. We have a flatbed, and so we print on acrylic, so we had it available and people started asking us about it.
Then we started to promote it, and we've probably done maybe $75,000 or $80,000 in sneeze guards already. Might be higher than that. We've got about another $80,000 to $100,000 in the pipeline, and we're continuing to market it regularly.
One of the companies I did sneeze guards for was an engineering firm I had never done business with. I was dealing directly with and walking through the empty facility with the president of the company, and we sold to all five of their locations. Now as they open, we anticipate having opportunities for new business there.
We're also doing work for accounting firms. We've done work for coffee shops, who by the way market, so there'll be opportunities for digital print later on. We've done ice cream shops. We've done software companies. We have done institutions. We did about a $5,500 job for a local township. We did the whole municipal building, the library, all of the concession stands at the pool and at the fields. We're quoting a lot of school jobs. We've gotten a couple of them. That's an area we see emerging as well.
It has opened up areas of business that really were not normal verticals of ours, but now that we're in them, virtually all of them have other opportunities. We're excited about now that we've gotten to know people there, and hopefully we've done a good job with this. I always ask people to give us an opportunity, and with any opportunity we'll have whatever share of their business that we earn. We're in the door at places that we've never been before and areas that are all new to us.
(If you’d like to read a transcript of the webinar or view the recording, simply log into the Member Center and click on Member Tools on the left side; the webinar recording and transcript are the 3rd and 4th items on the list.)