Stephanie Justice assists a customer at the counter of Bay Area Printing and Graphics Solutions in Pensacola, Florida. The front of the counter is newly decorated with digital color prints. See next photo for the "before" look.
By Ed Avis
When Stephanie Justice first heard about reprographics shops creating color prints about a decade ago, she didn’t understand the appeal. Justice, the director of operations for Bay Area Printing and Graphics Solutions in Pensacola, Florida, saw the big color printers at Southeastern Reprographics Association and IRgA conventions and wondered who was buying them.
“I said, ‘Why are repro shops doing this?’” she remembers. “In Pensacola nobody was doing color, and it just didn’t make sense to me.”
Fast forward to 2016. Now Bay Area Printing is becoming an important supplier of large-format color to Pensacola businesses. Its evolution from traditional blueprinter to multi-faceted reprographics business follows a familiar path, but it was accelerated by the help of a long-time veteran of the color printing world.
Growing Up in a Diazo World
Justice’s father, Mike Wallace, owner of Bay Area Printing, started his blueprinting career with Ozalid Corp. He worked in the service end of the business until he learned of a blueprinter in Pensacola that had shut its doors. He bought the business and re-opened it as Bay Area Blueprint in 2003.
At the time Justice was a promotional advertising salesperson with territories in
Bay Area Printing's counter before its digital print makeover.
Chicago and Denver. Soon after her dad started Bay Area Blueprint he asked her to join him in the business as a salesperson.
“I was gone a lot, so when he was ready to put on a salesperson I was ready to get back,” Justice remembers. “I wasn’t sure it was going to be permanent, but when I came back my heart was here. This was where I was supposed to be.”
At the time Bay Area Blueprint served only the AEC market, and only with monochrome prints. In fact Justice sold a diazo machine to a county office in 2007 – surely one of the last diazo machines ever sold!
Seeing Color
Justice started realizing the importance of color by 2009. She attended classes on the topic put on by the SRA and IRgA, and the firm invested in an HP 800 inkjet printer.
“We were about three or four years behind Atlanta and New Orleans in color,” she says. “We knew the need for color was going to be there; we were just trying to figure it out.”
At first Bay Area (which eventually changed its name from Bay Area Blueprint to Bay Area Printing and Graphics Solutions) used its color printer solely for color renderings for architects. The work slowly evolved into other color projects, and they slightly expanded their customer base by adding the GIS community.
By 2012 they realized they should move more thoroughly into color. “The economy was horrible, and we felt lucky to have made it through,” she says. “We knew we needed to do something to survive.”
They bought a Mutoh 54-inch printer that year, which expanded their abilities.
“We started doing job site signs for construction companies,” Justice says. “We had no formal training; we really just taught ourselves. We made it work somehow. And we did OK with it – it was not a big money maker, but we did it.”
By 2014 things were picking up. Wallace is a high school baseball coach, and the firm started making sponsorship banners for the school. They also got some work making corrugated signs for real estate companies, and did some cut-outs for ESPN and local Little League teams. They bought a 64-inch Mutoh to give themselves even more capabilities.
“At that point I said it’s time – we need to really figure out what we need to do,” Justice says.
Enter David Goetter
The next important step in Bay Area Printing’s evolution occurred when Wallace and Justice met David Goetter, a long-time consultant in the color graphics business, at two different RSA meetings. After several conversations, they decided to ask Goetter to help them get a handle on the color business.
“A lot of reprographics firms are dabbling in color, and some are further along than others,” Goetter says. “I teach a crawl, walk, run philosophy. If a firm is just getting into color I start at the crawl state, where they learn a lot about materials and what they need to do next.”
Goetter met with Bay Area’s production staff in December. “David comes in here and from day one you knew it was going to be a very interesting week,” Justice says.
Goetter’s program is divided into two, one-week sessions. He first teaches the fundamental differences in materials, followed by efficient printing and finishing, focusing on the firm’s current equipment and inventory of materials. Then he trains the staff how to create 15 different large-format products, starting with a basic poster and advancing to window graphics, vinyl banners, and other more advanced products. He also helps the staff create a set of examples that they can use in their own display area as sales tools, and he teaches the staff how to reduce waste.
“We didn’t realize how much we were truly wasting,” Justice says. “It’s little tricks that made a world of difference. He just teaches everyone to do their jobs as efficiently as possible. He trained our finishing department on how to make the products look professional when they go out the door, in the most economical way possible.”
Goetter returned for a second week in January. “During the second week there was more product training, teaching us new things, different types of banners and ways to do them,” Justice says.
Sales Already Up
Justice says the investment in the training has already paid off – sales of color work are up 15 percent, and the training ended just a month ago.
“I’m a lot more comfortable now going out and seeing people and saying, ‘Hey, we can do that now,’” she says. “And our display room looks phenomenal now – every day customers are ordering more.”
Justice feels that her firm’s color capabilities have put it on a new path to success. Perhaps most important is the fact that many of her current clients – architects, contractors, etc. – are now becoming even better customers because they are tapping the company for more products.
“For example, now we can create these wonderful displays for architects that can be given to the owners of the condos on the beaches, and feel good about it. And I feel good – we did that!”
SIDEBAR: One Shop, Three Levels
David Goetter teaches his clients how to offer products at three price points – an economy, standard, and premium version. “By having three prices and quality levels, your customers can make a smart buying decision. Sometimes you need something less expensive and short term, sometimes you need something better. This way the customer doesn’t go shopping somewhere else, and it’s the best way to avoid having to lower your price and the best way to upsell.”
Learn more about Goetter’s services at www.davidgoetter.com.