Sunday, January 31, 2010

Behind the Printshop Business' Location and Opportunity

Its final. I have decided to stick with the location along Timog Avenue, Quezon City. I admit I was too enamored with the business space in Robinson's Pioneer complex that I overlooked how costly it would be to renovate the place. It was only then that I realized when the contractor sent to us the quotation of the renovation! So right there and then, I politely turned down their offer and also asked the Lessor that I would be withdrawing my reservation even if that means losing the non-refundable reservation payment(Ouch!). Good attitude dictates good business, or so I thought. Anyway, I was also informed by our printers' supplier that good thing we have decided to stay away from the place since they too have clients, which are similar to our nature of business, operating on the other side of the complex, inside the mall which we would inevitably compete with should we have decided to operate there. Never thought finding a location would be this hard. As days gone by, the more I have to keep my act together and move on. And now that we have already found our second home, we are more than happy to be along Timog Avenue, Quezon City. For those of you who are not familiar, Timog Avenue is home to a lot of businesses and it won't hurt much to have another print shop especially near the Timog/Morato circle or aptly called the boy scout circle. So there are two established printshops located on the intersection of Timog Avenue and EDSA. The advantage we have is we are not near them. The way I see it, we can take advantage of the residentials and businesses near our domain, if thats the proper way to put it. My dilemma now is we are located on the second floor of the building without visibility from the road! This will require more aggresive marketing strategy I said to myself. Its worth take the risk anyway since on the medium rise building we are located in, there are also other new small businesses, like a pasta resto, dental clinic, eyelash/nail spa, and an auditing/accounting firm. Our very first client is the auditing/accounting firm. They had to process tax and income returns so I beg in even if we are not really fully operational to begin with. Opportunity is already presenting itself. I grabbed it. Off to work, I printed quite a number of papers. Then on the last set of what I printed, I made a terrible mistake on the printout. So they have to be redone as what the owner has asked which I readily obliged to do. I didn't asked or even got payment for the wrongly printed documents even if the owner was already paying me up for my own mistake. I am going to build a business built on trust and satisfaction of the customer. These are what we are going to standby with and where we want to be known for. As much as we can provide, under reasonable demands, we are willing to give in. I believe what Stephen R. Covey has to say about effective people, "Effective people are not problem-minded; they're opportunity minded. They feed opportunities and feed problems." As we are starting small, we are more than willing to grow personally and professionally. I wouldn't know for sure what the owner would think had I accepted his payment for my print mistakes but I guess he liked what he has seen as he was already asking us to print them a lot more of their documents. The numbers are astonishing, far from my expectations! And today, he came into our shop and asked what else we can do and we fit the bill as he also needed someone to do logo, brochures and flyers. I told him that we will be more than glad to be of service to him and his partners' endeavors. Me and brother are excited what the next days hold for us. We are ready. May God help us.
For your viewing, here are some pictures of our still "un-signage" print shop:



My brother on his workstation:

That's me:

2 comments:

  1. Hi! I'm Vince, 19 years old... wish you ould help me with my prob..
    I want to put up a small printing shop and I just dont know where to start...
    they say that i have to start as an apprentice on a printing business so that i will be familiar with the system...

    thank you...

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  2. Hi vince! Thanks for dropping by! I admire you for at such a young age you dream big. It is very rare people your age would want to have their own business! Anyway, I figured that same problem too. I hope I can help you with my limited know-how. What exactly do you want to print? The answer may lie partly on the present demand of the market on which location you plan to put up your small print shop. Today, there are various kind of print shops -- one is the Digital print/copy shop, Large format print shop, Letterpress and the Printing press(I think I missed a lot but generally those are what I know). I started with reading forums. I never thought, there are actually a lot experienced printers willing to help you out and give you sound advice. Some are even willing to accept On-The-Job training, but I am not sure if they will give you a pay unless you turn yourself in for possible employment. Working in an offset press may be a good start for you. If you have knowledge on graphic design, even better! I suppose you need to ask yourself, what I want to do for my print shop? You may also start doing graphic design first and ask printers to print your designs for your clients. For sure, you will learn how the printers work, at least the process involved. Some guy I knew, is a new guy in a printing press, as he told me, he started hanging out with graphic artists and asking for tips on how to do this and that. He told me how they work in the printing press, since I don't really know, what I have are digital. Graphic design is very much intertwined with printing. Don't be afraid to experiment, there is a creative self in you waiting to be unleashed! As they say, you have to do wrongly before you can make do right. Last but not the least, there are schools that actually have courses for printing and they even provide job placements after graduation. Good luck! Let me know your thoughts..

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