Don Razinsky, Heidi Harrell, and Steve Thompson
By Ed Avis
You think you’re busy? Don’t complain about it to Don Razinsky, owner of GraphX Digital Services in Shreveport, Louisiana. In addition to running GraphX, which he launched this summer, Razinsky is personally involved in 14 different community organizations, from the fire district board to a food bank to the local chapter of Associated General Contractors. And he’s a police officer in the town across the river!
You would think that all that time away from the office is bad for business, but it’s exactly the opposite.
“That’s the formula that has helped me be successful,” Razinsky says. “It’s all relationships. I’m friends with everybody from the mayor on down. I’m connected with developers before any architect or contractor knows about them. So guess who has a good chance of getting a lot of the work?”
Building on Layers
Razinsky started in reprographics in the late 1960s, working for Charrette in Boston, and then took a couple of years off to serve in the Coast Guard. They sent him to Vietnam, where he was wounded in combat. When he returned to Boston he joined the police force, but after two years he couldn’t resist the excitement of reprographics work and returned to Charrette. He went on to a 33-year career at Ridgways. He retired from ARC (which acquired Ridgways in 2000) in 2011.
“I was still too young to really retire,” he says. “I have a lot of friends in the industry, so I put together a good business plan and implemented it.”
Razinsky and his partners bought a building in a high-traffic area of Shreveport and renovated it into a trendy, modern workspace. The renovation included about $15,000 worth of glass for the sleek façade.
He also brought on two experienced employees -- Steve Thompson and Heidi Harrell -- with a combined 50-plus years in the reprographics business. “They were people I had worked with before, and when I said this is what I want to do, they said they’d like to be part of it.”
Then he started building his business with the idea of layering. He invested $150,000 in equipment, starting with traditional wide-format AEC printers and moving into wide-format color, small-format forms and flyers, and other technologies. Each new technology added a layer of service and potential market on top of the previous. His latest “layers” include equipment to print vehicle wraps, wall murals, and window clings.
“That way when the traditional work is down, the other stuff is normally picking up,” he says. “Luckily, we’ve had everything going up.”
The Mix
The layering technique has resulted in a solid mix of clients for GraphX Digital. Razinsky estimates that about 40 percent of their work comes from traditional AEC clients and 60 percent from other areas.
The fastest growing areas are vehicle wraps, wall murals, and other large color graphics. “We just did a whole mall, with the whole front window of the mall covered with window perf with all of the different stores shown,” he says.
One traditional reprographics business practice that GraphX has been able to get away from is pricing work by the square foot. Instead, customers are charged by the sheet or by the job.
“We still base our pricing on square footage behind the scenes, but for the customers it’s a sheet price or job price,” Razinsky says. “We trained our customer base to think in square footage for 60 or 70 years, we always measured everything that way. But now with the newer generation they have more trouble dealing with square footage. They just want the price for the whole job.”
Tough Competition
Naturally, GraphX Digital is not the only reprographer in town. Other major players in town include Classic Reprographics and ARC.
Razinsky says he doesn’t use a “hard sell” technique when he introduces his new company to potential clients. “I don’t try to do a heavy push,” he says. “I just ask people to give us a try. Use us as a secondary, let us earn your business. I’m not going to say we have 100 percent of the business – there are still people who like Classic and ARC – but at least we give people an alternative.”
An innovative way GraphX serves its clients is by making a conference room available to those who don’t have downtown offices. He lets them use it free of charge.
“We’ve had a couple of contractors use it, and some architects,” he says. “I have a lot of parking around my facility – so it’s real easy. We’re on a high profile road, and everyone likes us because it’s easy to get in and out of here.”
Not Slowing Down
Razinsky’s many relationships in Shreveport are essential to business, but so are the sponsorships his company takes on.
“We let everybody know that we give back to the community. We’re not just taking everybody’s money,” he says. “When people see all of the sponsorships, they know we are part of just about everything in the city.”
And Razinsky himself can be seen all over the city. The week he was interviewed for this story he had two breakfast meetings, two lunch meetings, and three dinner meetings. On Friday night and all day Saturday he was scheduled to serve police duty, and he planned to work security for a basketball game and a Christmas tree lighting on other nights.
“My wife sees me on Sunday,” he laughs. “I’m 63, I’m not going to slow down yet. I figure I’ll have time for that in the future.”