A Signmaker, Silkscreener and Printing Company walk into a location....

[LoGl]

No...not a joke. I recently had a friend who is a printing broker open an office upstairs from my shop. I initially wasn't sure if I was shooting myself in the foot by inviting her in (so to speak) but after 4 months of her being here I have determined it has been a good business decision. Because she mainly does sales on the road or over the phone, it hasn't really caused me to lose any business and in fact has brought me business because she will also sell banners and other signs wholesale from me which is almost always business I wouldn't have gotten on my own. Like alot of you, we offer graphic design services and then sell printing and tshirts as well from other providers. It's all good! Well now, a big space next door has opened up and we're thinking of having the silkscreener move in. Again I ask...will this be shooting myself in the foot. Because we are just off a main street, we are not "highly visible", but we do a decent amount of walk-in work.

My question to all of you is: Do any of you have this type of situation going on...or have you created this type of "business center" if you will. Like alot of businessess around here...artist communities....antique shops...there will be one after another after another real close by each other and that seems to work to create it's own "go to" spot. We are all 1-3 person shops and may very well benefit from this arrangement.

Thoughts???

 

[Pat Whatley]

If the silkscreener agrees not to compete directly with you...and you with him....I think it's an ideal situation. It can't hurt to get "similar" businesses together. People like the convenience of one stop shopping. If they know they can go to your building and get shirts made for their golf tournament then walk right next door and get the sponsor signs and banners done it gives you an advantage.

I don't see it hurting at all.

 

[mark in tx]

If you all can take a serious look at what you bring to the table, you should be able to complement each other well.
Are you both willing to throw jobs at each other that match the output capacity you each have?
Open communication will be the key, without it, things will degenerate quickly.

 

[rfulford]

It may not be a problem at first but it could easily turn in to trouble. Back in the 80's graphics businesses were highly specialized. Screen printing, offset printing, photo labs and sign shops were entirely different animals and no one worried about the other. When digital printing started rolling on the scene, digital services and printing were largely added to compliment the existing niches and everyone largely stayed in their own market. Today, all these businesses are diversified and it is easy for one to step into anothers market.

For example, what would happen if one of you purchased a flatbed? This is a great addition to a sign shop or a screen printer. I am sure that both you and the screen printer have made this consideration before.

 

[Gino]

I think it's a recipe for disaster in the end. With no formal paperwork to determine who gets what out of the pie.... you basically have an un-confirmed partnership. In most partnerships.... one will quickly get jealous of another because someone always thinks they are doing more work than the other and that's when the arguments start. Someone points the finger at the other and then someone starts to figure out how to make more money by cutting someone else out of the loop and then even more arguments will ensue. After these are ironed out, bad feelings will still be lingering and now that you all know each others weak spots... will prey on that. In other words..... your so called partners will figure out all they have to do is get this machine or that and they can cat you or you can cut them out of the picture and make more money..... RIGHT.

Four months isn't a long enough time to judge this arrangement. It take a year or so until you all will be at each others throats.

By the way, you asked if anyone had this type of situation. We did about 15 years ago. A textile printing company sub-rented from us in a 3,500 square foot shop above our old location. In the beginning everything was peachy. Took about eight months until all the crap hit the fan. It got so bad... they moved out in the middle of the night without paying two months rent and opened a place about 1/2 mile up the road and advertised all their textile stuff... with 'signs & banners' added to their new sign. Didn't take long until they went out of business.

 

[imagep]

Before we moved into our current building, the sign at our old location read "Image Printing of SC, Inc.", but now our sign says "Image Graphics Park" and has seperate panels for each of our departments.

We have a screen printing department, a sign department, an offset printing department, and a resume service all under one roof. We have lots of customers who will use us for multiple departments, we have others who just dont understand that we offer more than one type of product. Overall, there are a lot of skills that carry over between each graphic arts industry, so offering all under one roof is really no big deal. Personally, I can do a little of everything, but I dont claim to be as good at signs as my sign guy, not as good at offset as my offset guy, not as good at screen printing as my screenprinter, etc. My job is just to make sure that everyone is working and to shift our resources to whatever department is swamped at the time.


Our neighbor business is a place that fixes/sells copiers and our neighbor on the other side sells custom made coolers/freezers to businesses.

Most of our street is not developed, but it is my hope that it will fill in with "B2B" type companies.

 

[LoGl]

I thank you all for your input. I do think you all have valid points. I have considered the pros and the cons and have asked myself many of the questions you have posed. While we all dabble in different aspects of each of the three trades, I think if the focus is re-directed on our own trades, whole-heartedly, we can each take a better command of the businesses we know and do best and serve each other as well as our possible clients the best we can. Yes Gino...you make lots of sense...I can see it going right down the tubes if the "quasi" parntership isn't well figured out. No doubt. But really....I just want to go over and play with some screens and print some stuff! LOL......

But seriously....it's a lot to consider. If anyone has more thoughts...please share!