About Me
Who is this crazy ass guy?
I'll give you my background. I'm choosing to stay anonymous for several reasons that I'm not going to elaborate on.
I have a BS in Graphic Arts Management from a Midwest school. Yes, there is a degree for printing and yes for some stupid reason I choose to major in it. It’s a long story I might share at some point in time, but not today.
Out of college I spent a couple of years at a phonebook company as a production artist. I basically fixed peoples' electronic files that couldn't read instructions. The funny thing is we didn't charge for these corrections, but this was prior to the internet explosion and people still relied heavily on yellow pages advertising. Wow, times have changed.
I decided I didn't want to sit in front of a computer screen for 10 hours a day and wanted a change. It may not seem like it, but I'm a personable person and thought I would be good at sales. So I took a n entry level sales gig selling cell phones to businesses. Think early 2000’s. Not everyone had an iPhone on welded to their hand. This is when people still had conversations and text messaging was as rarer then a someone claiming to be a sex addict.
Long story short, I ended up at supply company. I sold prepress consumables (printing plates, proofing materials) and pressroom supplies to printing companies in a multi state area. I learned more about pressroom then I care to admit. After a good run, I was laid off. Funny how direct to plate really screwed me. You sell a printing company a half million dollar direct to plate system and your consumable sales drop by half since they now longer need film.
From there I took a break from printing and went into retail. You think printing is bad. Printing is like crack, its addictive, but most likely won’t kill you. Retail is like taking every drug imaginable, its going to suck and your going to die fast. When you get done reading this, go to church and pray to god you never end up in retail.
After about 30 seconds of retail I knew I need an exit plan. About a year later (yes I’m slow) I ended up at a very small large format shop. We sold banners, tradeshow graphics, short run posters etc. This was a fun a gig and I really learned a lot about selling printing. My boss was/is a nut job. I still have lunch with him once a quarter. As it turns out, I sold more projects that we had to out source then we could produce in house. The compensation for out of house projects was lower and I had to manage them. I might not have an MBA, but I know the house was making a ton of money off of me and I was getting shafted. I decided it was time to part company and start brokering.
Some how I ended up partnering with an established broker. At least, I thought he was an established broker. After about 2 years of me busting my ass and giving him 50% of the profits, I decided it was time to cut bait.
After talking to several of our partners I end up at a 40” shop. The owners had just purchased two companies and merged them together. They had big plans and I wanted to be part of it. I really liked working for this group. They had a vision of what a printing company was suppose to be. I spent several years with them. I sold printing for the most part. However, I did help them setup their digital printing department and managed it for 6 months. This was the first time I had to manage people and the first time I had to fire some, which really sucked!
Well they ended up expanding too fast and didn’t have the sales to support the capital investments. After they filled bankruptcy I decided it was time to jump ship. I’m glad I did, they end up closing up a few months after that. I was sorry to have to leave and even more sorry they didn’t make it. Good people, just bad business owners.
I landed on my feet working for a medium size printer, they had sales of a little over $100 Million the year I joined them. The following year was 2008 and lets say the sales crashed like a lead zeppelin. I was their for a little over 5 years. Over those 5 years I came to hate printing and corporate America. My wife finally gave me the green light to pull the eject cord and start my own business.
That is my resume in a nut shell. Not to sound like and ass, but I know printing.
I'll give you my background. I'm choosing to stay anonymous for several reasons that I'm not going to elaborate on.
I have a BS in Graphic Arts Management from a Midwest school. Yes, there is a degree for printing and yes for some stupid reason I choose to major in it. It’s a long story I might share at some point in time, but not today.
Out of college I spent a couple of years at a phonebook company as a production artist. I basically fixed peoples' electronic files that couldn't read instructions. The funny thing is we didn't charge for these corrections, but this was prior to the internet explosion and people still relied heavily on yellow pages advertising. Wow, times have changed.
I decided I didn't want to sit in front of a computer screen for 10 hours a day and wanted a change. It may not seem like it, but I'm a personable person and thought I would be good at sales. So I took a n entry level sales gig selling cell phones to businesses. Think early 2000’s. Not everyone had an iPhone on welded to their hand. This is when people still had conversations and text messaging was as rarer then a someone claiming to be a sex addict.
Long story short, I ended up at supply company. I sold prepress consumables (printing plates, proofing materials) and pressroom supplies to printing companies in a multi state area. I learned more about pressroom then I care to admit. After a good run, I was laid off. Funny how direct to plate really screwed me. You sell a printing company a half million dollar direct to plate system and your consumable sales drop by half since they now longer need film.
From there I took a break from printing and went into retail. You think printing is bad. Printing is like crack, its addictive, but most likely won’t kill you. Retail is like taking every drug imaginable, its going to suck and your going to die fast. When you get done reading this, go to church and pray to god you never end up in retail.
After about 30 seconds of retail I knew I need an exit plan. About a year later (yes I’m slow) I ended up at a very small large format shop. We sold banners, tradeshow graphics, short run posters etc. This was a fun a gig and I really learned a lot about selling printing. My boss was/is a nut job. I still have lunch with him once a quarter. As it turns out, I sold more projects that we had to out source then we could produce in house. The compensation for out of house projects was lower and I had to manage them. I might not have an MBA, but I know the house was making a ton of money off of me and I was getting shafted. I decided it was time to part company and start brokering.
Some how I ended up partnering with an established broker. At least, I thought he was an established broker. After about 2 years of me busting my ass and giving him 50% of the profits, I decided it was time to cut bait.
After talking to several of our partners I end up at a 40” shop. The owners had just purchased two companies and merged them together. They had big plans and I wanted to be part of it. I really liked working for this group. They had a vision of what a printing company was suppose to be. I spent several years with them. I sold printing for the most part. However, I did help them setup their digital printing department and managed it for 6 months. This was the first time I had to manage people and the first time I had to fire some, which really sucked!
Well they ended up expanding too fast and didn’t have the sales to support the capital investments. After they filled bankruptcy I decided it was time to jump ship. I’m glad I did, they end up closing up a few months after that. I was sorry to have to leave and even more sorry they didn’t make it. Good people, just bad business owners.
I landed on my feet working for a medium size printer, they had sales of a little over $100 Million the year I joined them. The following year was 2008 and lets say the sales crashed like a lead zeppelin. I was their for a little over 5 years. Over those 5 years I came to hate printing and corporate America. My wife finally gave me the green light to pull the eject cord and start my own business.
That is my resume in a nut shell. Not to sound like and ass, but I know printing.