Press-A-Print

Press-A-Print Success Story: Charles Potter and "Farkel"

Ever heard of Farkel?  This dice-rolling game is rapidly gaining in popularity.  Maybe you’ve played it yourself!  Behind the scenes at Farkel’s world headquarters, Legendary Games Inc. in Wichita, Kansas, you’ll find Charles Potter, a Press-A-Print Owner/Operator who has definitely found his niche.  I caught up with Charles recently and he told me a little more about how he turned his glimmer of an idea into a very profitable commodity:

Where did the idea for Farkel come from?  Farkel is a game that I learned from a friend a long time back.  Some versions are very old, (hundreds of years), but it had never before been released as a packaged game.  I saw an opportunity, so I decided to try mass marketing it. 

So how did you come across Press-A-Print?  Originally, we had Farkel in labeled film containers, but people started requesting larger dice, so we tried to find something better.  (Packaging is everything, especially for new products!)  We wanted a small, pack-along version that would fit in a pocket.  At a tradeshow in Colorado, we met Fred Martin advertising the Press-A-Print pad printer.  He printed some film containers for us to show that it would meet our needs. We later found a hinged box, but still needed a way to label it.  We thought “Hmm, this pad printer would be perfect for printing Farkel packs,” ..and the rest is history.  We came to PAP training in about ‘98 or ’99, and we’ve been printing Farkel packs with our Press-A-Print pad printer ever since.   

How much do you still use your PAP pad printer for these games?  As a rough estimate, we’ve probably printed between 2-300,000 games on the pad printer.  Our poor machine, we probably print an average of 100 impressions a day!  We obviously have fast times and slow times, but we use it a LOT, and it’s holding up wonderfully. 

What’s the most creative promotional use you’ve seen for Farkel? We’ve actually done a lot as wedding favors.  People buy 2-300 games, then put them out at every table setting for people to take home.  They’re really popular in gift shops, family reunions, 50th anniversaries, fundraising products, and much more.  We send a lot to our servicemen and women overseas, because it’s easy to play, and lightweight so the soldiers can carry it easily. We’ve had good success selling through retailers, too; we do a lot with Hallmark, hospital gift shops, etc.  We’ll also be selling with Barnes and Noble starting in 2007!  We are also license holders for some colleges and universities, and have been contacted by professional sports organizations too.

Do you print anything else besides Farkel?  I’d like to get into more products, but this is keeping us so busy that we haven’t yet!  We’ve done over 2 million dollars in gross sales with Farkel since we started.  It took us a long time to get there, but we’re still going strong! We have a facility where we produce the game out here in the Kansas countryside; we’ve got 6 employees, plus four outside who help with assembly, bookkeeping, etc.  I still do a lot of the printing myself!

Where can people go to find out more about Farkel?  Check our site at www.pocketfarkel.com.  We’re glad we followed through with our dream, and say to other PAPers:  you never know where your business will take you!  Have fun!

Press-A-Print Spotlight: Raziel Arcega

We at Press-A-Print always like to brag about our Owner/Operators' successes.  Recently, we received an email from Owner/Operator Raziel Arcega, who was honored and recognized by a local business organization at BizCon, the nation's largest multicultural business conference, held this year in Garden Grove, CA.  Check out the details on Raziel's award at this link: 

http://ocregister.com/ocregister/money/homepage/article_1277969.php.

Our congratulations to Raziel Arcega of LNR Promotions in Buena Park, CA on her continuing success!

Spotlight: Emery and Jerri Harmon

One of the greatest things about the Press-A-Print business opportunity is the instant network of helpful, knowledgeable colleagues you step into.  The learning curve in printing promotional products sometimes seems quite steep, but with the help of the PAP staff and other PAP Owner/Operators out in the trenches, every problem has a solution.  Emery and Jerri Harmon, of Harmon Ad Specialties in North Richland Hills, Texas, recently retired from full-time selling after many profitable years in the advertising specialties industry both selling promotional products and helping countless other PAP operators along the way.  A few days ago, they gave me a minute of their time to describe their experience in the business:

1.      What attracted you to PAP?
After twenty years in management, Jerri was looking for something less stressful. When we passed the PAP booth at a home & garden show, pad printing looked like an interesting process that would take little space, and didn’t cost an arm and a leg.

2.      How has your dream played out?  (What did you first see as the potential, vs. what it became?)
Our original thought was that pad printing would be a hobby generating a little income, and providing something to do that was both useful and interesting. As we actually moved into business mode, pad printing became a tiny element in our overall operation. Later we added screen printing, and although we did many small orders with that equipment, we contracted out all our larger orders – decent profit with little work. The addition of dye sublimation and digital transfer equipment further enhanced our capabilities.

3.      What did you start out doing before ad specialties?
Both of us had extensive business careers.

4.      When did you decide to go full-time?  How did that transition come about?
Jerri started when she took early retirement in 1998. The first couple of years were relatively slow paced (by choice), but picked up significantly when she decided to make it an income producing venture. Emery provided encouragement in the early years, moving to part time help, and finally left the corporate world and joined full time in 2003.

5.      What’s one of the more interesting things you’ve printed on/done an order for?
Jerri developed and implemented employee recognition programs. Working with area managers of a national corporation, she took the corporate annual theme and tied that in with local performance awards.

6.      Are there particular businesses/industries that you have really been pursuing?
Jerri spent most of her time working with about 200 area managers of a national corporation. Emery focused on small businesses, most of them local.

7.      What are the things you like best about the business?
The opportunity to be creative. The business owner or manager is burdened with running their operation, and can’t allow their mind to freewheel like we can. We can add a different perspective to their situation, helping them to reach their goals.

8.      If you were talking to a potential PAP buyer, what would you say to them?
There is real money to be made in Advertising Specialties. Think beyond the onesy-twosy approach – include it, but go beyond. Having pad print and screen print equipment readily available gives you a big advantage over other distributors when it comes to the small quantity, quick turnaround requests. Being able to meet those requests will help you to get the larger orders you will broker out.

9.      What advice would you give to new PAPers?
Decide if you’re going to have a hobby or a business. If it’s a business, ensure you’re adequately capitalized and that you have a plan. Your new Ad Specialties business will eventually replace your current job, but it takes time. Many of the problems we hear about stem from an expectation that the profit from the new business will immediately meet the financial needs. This just isn’t reasonable to expect, and is a sure recipe for failure. Any small business should expect a period of small or no profit, and a longer period when all profits should be invested back into the company before starting to take a draw.

Also, self promotion is very important. Prove to your potential clients that advertising specialties work by promoting yourself. Always have self promo pieces available, and give them out readily. Budget for them so that they are part of your plan. Many of our clients came as a result of them seeing an item we had given somebody else.

Spotlight: Caddo Parish Teacher Resource Center

New PAP Operators Marilyn Strong and Michelle Duet of the Caddo Parish Teacher Resource Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, recently gave us a few minutes to explain some of the things they’ve been doing with their unique setup.  They've got quite a niche!  Here's some of what they shared:

What’s unique about your business setup?

We run a media center/teacher resource center for the Caddo Parish School District (serving 75 schools; it’s a big district!) here in Shreveport.  The setup is designed for teachers to come make things for their classes; we’re equipped with everything from computers, printers, laminators and paper, to bigger things like our PAP equipment, a commercial plotter for banners, and we’re adding an embroidery machine soon, too!  We bought the equipment to expand services to the district, and we run our business as a nonprofit entity within the district.  Everything we bring in above the cost of the item goes back into the schools, into restocking our inventory, expanding services, etc. 

How has your response been so far?

We’ve only been at it for a couple of months, but it’s been fantastic, just with the people who come in for other stuff.  They walk through our facility, see some of the things we can do, and orders start coming really fast.  We haven’t even really started and we’re already working overtime!  We have a presentation at a principal’s meeting on August 3, where we’ll give our first pitch to all 75 schools together, it’ll have to be first come first serve, but I know we’re going to get a lot of response from that!  I hope we can keep up!

Tell us about one of your first orders:

We picked a school to be our guinea pig; we created some artwork and started putting it on everything we could think of.  We had leftover pad printing ink, so we figured we’d use it up practicing on other stuff.  We printed pens, keychains, visors, stress balls, all sorts of stuff, not to mention the screen printed shirts and bags, buttons, magnets, stickers, etc.  When we had someone come in from that school, they saw their logo on stuff and started saying “I want some of those shirts, and some of those pens, and those balls, and wait, you do aprons too?!”  We were just going to keep some of the stuff as display samples, but it’s hard to hold on to stuff because people keep buying it!  We tell them “You’re printing the shirts, why not print some bags as well?  So they do!  We’ve had lots of success with stock designs, too.  Whatever we print, they buy!  We can crank out 40 bags in about 45 minutes (minus curing time) on a one-color job, so we’re getting a little faster, but we have to in order to keep up! 

You’ve got a pretty impressive workspace and showroom, can you tell us about it?

We’re in a converted warehouse (owned by the school district) that also includes a library, a dozen or so teacher development specialists employed by the district, and the rest of our resource center.  A lot of the shelves we’re using were already here, but unused as part of an old video/materials checkout station.  We’re putting that to good use!  Our area is a little over 1400 square feet.  We’ve got the space, might as well use it!  We’re hoping to get another screen printer soon to help us keep up with demand!

Anything else you can share with us?

We love y’all at Press-A-Print, they weren’t kidding when they said we’d have great Customer Service and Tech Support.  Everyone’s been so helpful!  We’re really excited, and everything we sell we turn right back around and do more!  We couldn’t have done it without y’all!  We’ve been trying to apply business practices to our situation, we feel like fish out of water since our setup is different than most, but Training was so helpful and really helped us with a lot of questions.  We came back from PAP Training and started giving advice to a bunch of other district employees on how they could structure their school training seminars, based on some of the stuff we saw at PAP!  Thanks so much to all y’all for helping us get to this point, y’all are the best!

Spotlight: Chuck & Tara Wilhoit

Here's another spotlight on some Press-A-Print Operators who are really making an impression:  Chuck and Tara Wilhoit of Innovative Promotions in Cortland, New York.

1. What are your gross sales since starting up?  "We're still adding it all up right now, we have some accounts receivable still to add in , but since June 2005, we've done over 60K with close to 20K more in the works.  Our original goal was to top 100K gross in the first year, and we're going to blow that goal away very easily!" (On top of that, they're both working full time at other jobs, he's a webmaster and she's a veterinary assistant.  Chuck's planning on moving to full-time in spring 2006.)

      2. How did you build your client base?  "We just focused on doing business with the people we already knew.  Those connections also have connections, which turns into more leads and eventual orders.  Chuck has a graphic design background, so we've been able to build off of that to help our clients design their logos as well as print them."

3. Did you target any specific industries?  "A little bit: As we contacted different businesses, we came up with the idea of composing a coupon book that could be mailed out; we worked out a deal between us and them to where their advertising through us puts them in the coupon book, which will bring them more customers.  It's been quite a project, but is working really well--we're looking at making it into a quarterly project.  So in that sense, we worked with a lot of small business owners.  We've also started to work our way into bigger things with bigger organizations; we're close to landing something with Cornell University that could be really big."

    4.  What have you found to be the most effective way to market your business?  "Networking with people you already know (and the people that those people know), and using some advice we heard at training:  Wear your company!  We have our own printed/embroidered apparel, which we wear everywhere.  We pass the shirts out, too.  We have vinyl decals on our cars.  The other day, the mayor of our town said to me, "Chuck, I don't go anywhere in this town where I don't see 'Innovative Promotions' on something.  I said, "Tom, what size shirt do you wear?"  He told me, and the next day I took him some coffee and a printed shirt in his size.  I saw him at a restaurant the other day and he was wearing the shirt.  That's great advertising."

5. Do you belong to any civic/leads groups? "We were involved in Rotary club, which gave us some good connections.  I'm a youth hockey/soccer coach, we volunteer at (and donate some pro bono work to) an annual fall pumpkin festival, several youth groups, that kind of thing.  Since we were directly involved, we did some of the things for these groups at no cost, and those have turned into some great repeat orders.  Working our way in that way gave us the entire athletics department of one of our local high schools, which is a great consistent ordering body for us!"

     6.  How would you break up (in percentages) the amount of work you do in screen printing, pad printing, brokering, etc.? "Probably about 30% pad, brokering 5%, screen 45%, 20% other.  The 'other' category comes in where we've gotten paid to not only fill the order, but also helped design logos, from doing things like the coupon book, etc.  We had an OB-GYN just open a clinic in our town; I drew a logo for her over dinner, she's using it, made some orders with us, and in the process we got involved with helping produce a TV commercial for her, which we're also getting paid for.  We want to be a one-stop shop for our clients, so we decided to take the challenge, and it's working out great!" 

7.   Have you done more business in a few large orders or multiple small orders?

"It's kind of hard to say.  We started out with smaller orders, but those have turned into repeat customers who have started doing bigger orders.  It's a progressive thing."

8.  Has the support received from Press-A-Print contributed to your success?  If so, how?  "The training, customer support, and help with ideas and product searches have been fantastic."

9.  What advice would you share with new PAP operators?  "This might sound kind of cliche', but don’t limit yourself.  Think of how you can increase the value of the promotion.  I had a pet salon that wanted some pen or something and I said, 'That's all fine and good, but let's turn this into something that will bring them back in to you again.  How about you order some imprinted leashes with your business name on it, and give those out.  When your clients come in again with their dog on the leash you gave them, you give them a discount on their next 5 or 6 shampoos.  She was like, 'Shampoos?'  I proceeded to explain how people want a deal if they're going to be persuaded to wash their car, their dog, etc.  They know they need to do it anyway; giving them something that subtly prompts them to do it puts them into action, which becomes money in your pocket.  Then I hit her with "We can also put you in our coupon book with some deals you can give your customers."  See what I mean?  Another thing is don’t be afraid to give stuff away.  That was kind of hard to do at first, because it's a cost, but the return has been infinitely greater than what it cost us for the item we gave out.  In this business you really are only limited by what you decide you can or can't do." 

Spotlight: Rick and Arlynn Klassen

We often hear back from some of our operators who are experiencing remarkable growth, have made big, helpful changes, or who are just plain enjoying what they do (and why not?).  From time to time, we'll spotlight some of these operators, and find out what they've done that works.  This spotlight is on operators Rick and Arlynn Klassen of Aldergrove, BC, Canada. 

1. What are your gross sales since starting up, roughly?

Approximately $80,000 - $100,000 we have been in business since may '03.  We average $10,000 to $14,000 per quarter.  Some are higher, some are lower, but that is our average.

2. How did you build your client base?

Mostly by cold calling, some by referral from family and friends, a lot through networking groups, and some just by talking ourselves up to anyone who would listen.  In a business course, I learned that you should always give out two business cards so if they lose one, they have the other in reserve, or you give them two and ask that they give one away on your behalf.  It seems to work!

3. Did you target any specific industries?

    Rick loves to silk screen so he focused on that, but that only opened doors to other stuff.  He just went business to business; lots of times he would go into new places but we didn't pick any specifics, really.

4. How do you advertise your business? 

    Mostly through our business cards and PAP flyers in the beginning.  Now, we wear our logo everywhere.  We have our clothing embroidered or screen printed with our logo and a message, we have our vans decalled (which we do now as well, and did ourselves), we advertise through the newspaper in a business-to-business section that goes to 3800 businesses which costs only $50 a month, and we also use a referral system. 

    We also did two tradeshows at which we both "attacked" the passersby.  We got a lot of business from both of those, including decalling of vehicles, t-shirts, pens and tattoos.

       5.   Do you use virtual sampling?  If so, how has that contributed to your marketing success?

   With the vehicles we decal we do; some of our customers also use this, it helps us with artwork approvals.

       6.  What do you do most of: pad printing, screen printing, or brokering orders?

    Rick loves to screen print, so we do a lot of that.  My typesetting and graphic design background has really helped in this area, but we also broker a bunch of stuff.

       7.  How would you break up (in percentages) the amount of work you do in each of those three categories?

Probably around 20% pad printing, 50% screen printing, and 30% brokering.

8.   Have you done more business in a few large orders or multiple small orders?

We do a combination of both. We have worked with the Canadian Cancer Society and a few other really big ones but we do a whole lot of little stuff which frequently brings us bigger stuff.

9.  Has the support received from Press-A-Print contributed to your success?

     Oh yeah!!!  Without people like Judy, I wouldn't be where I am.  PAP has been generous, gracious, kind, helpful, and patient.  They have been very helpful with technical problems and a lot of research.  It's been the best experience we've had!