This month we publish our latest annual Gold List, the industry’s key ranking of the largest 100 print shops in the country by sales. By almost any measure, the companies on this list are the best and most successful firms in a printing market that we estimate contains about 9,000 locations. They operate in the same challenging business environment all printers face. Some are growing by a strategy of acquision, but all are struggling with price pressures and tight margins. Yet, they persevere, and if there is a secret or a magic bullet for achieving success, these guys can claim to have found it.
 

The magic bullet. That’s the one thing all of us are looking for, isn’t it? Behind every great success, in business, the arts, or in life, there must be a secret formula that made it happen easily. When I ask printers what they’d like to see in this magazine, one of the most popular requests is “How do the successful shops get to be that way? What’s their secret?” Well, here’s a story of two printers that might shed some light on the issue. No names are being revealed to protect everyone involved.

 

Printer One is an established printer that has fostered a good relationship with its long-standing client, who is happy with the service and the work he receives. The shop floor has an oldish press, but that’s never an issue because the printing is always high quality. Prices are also deemed acceptable by the client, who simply assumes he receives fair quotes, or really, never stops to seriously think about it. 
 

But, Printer One has no CTP on the premises, which means that files have to be sent a prepress house for plate output, and couriered to the shop. Sometimes this happens in eight or 16-page signatures on big jobs because the prepress house doesn’t want to be overwhelmed with the entire job at once. Proofs go the client in dribs and drabs over the course of about three days, which means whoever is proofing has to stop what she’s doing several times over the course of the production cycle. Usually this process, with printing, takes about two weeks. Printer One is a pleasure to deal with, will go the extra mile to pull off a job, and is technically very capable. But it offers little in the way of suggestions to improve a printed piece.

 

Printer Two also is an established business. It too has fostered a good relationship with its client, who’s happy with the service and the quality of the work she gets. The shop floor has a fairly new perfector press that produces great work. It has CTP capabilities on site and an FTP site. Its client does one upload for the entire job and receives a full proof of that job the next day. No extra time allotted to get the plates imaged. No having to stop several times to proof the job. The process here, with printing, takes about a week. Printer Two is not only technically awesome, but actually provides input and makes suggestions about printing techniques that make the client’s jobs pop. It too is a pleasure do deal with. And pricing? Well, the client is happy with the cost as Printer Two actually produces the same job for less money.
 

Can you also guess a little bit of the magic formula?