PrinterChat: What’s in Store for 2024

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:03] DC: This is the true story of two printers who agreed to podcast with me and have their opinions recorded. Listen to what happens when printers stop being polite and start getting real.

[0:00:13] JM: Hi. This is Jamie McLennan.

[0:00:14] WC: And this is William Crabtree.

[0:00:16] DC: I’m your host, Deborah Corn. Welcome to the Printer Chat Podcast.

[EPISODE]

[0:00:26] DC: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Podcasts From the Printerverse, more specifically, the Printer Chat Podcast. Yay, we’re back guys. First podcast for 2024. I am here with Jamie the Printer, Jamie McLennan, General Manager of DMR Graphics, powered by Invoke. Of course, William Crabtree, entrepreneur of Tampa.Media empire in Tampa, Florida. Hello, everybody. Welcome to 2024.

[0:00:58] WC: Hello, Deborah and hello, Jamie.

[0:01:01] JM: Hello, Happy New Year, Deborah and Will. Can’t wait to start the night. This is awesome.

[0:01:05] DC: Excellent. Our last podcast, we recorded in the beginning of December. We have a little catching up to do before we talk about our hopes, dreams and aspirations and plans for 2024. Jamie, let’s start the catch-up with you, please.

[0:01:23] JM: Yeah. December was a great month. The best part of it was having Deborah visit DMR Graphics, which was a highlight of the month. Yay. It was great to have you here. Show you around. You got to talk to Ian about neon inks and our lenticular projects and how to kick them off. We have a little story about that where we had a customer just come in and got wowed by the neon and told us to change his whole art to make it neon and how do we do that? We need to do it, so it was interesting. But it was a cool little project. That was a thing.

Then we finally signed on the dotted line and bought our Canon Colorado Press, a 64-inch white UV gel ink press. Should be here the end of January, first week of February, from what I understand. Yeah. That all went well. A lot of help from Deborah and her chiming in and getting us connected with the right people in the Canon booth. That’s our big things. Deborah visiting and our new press and we had a great holiday kick off. We finally got all together for the holidays. We got both teams together and had us all under one roof, which was nice, because we haven’t done that since before COVID. That was neat. Had some good lunch and had some fun hanging out. Yeah, it was a good month.

[0:02:35] DC: Excellent. I didn’t realize that Pennsylvania was hilly like has hills and things. Then I was like, “Oh, wait. There was valley forges over there, right?”

[0:02:49] JM: Deborah thought we were in the mountains. I’m like, these are just –

[0:02:50] DC: I know. I was cold in the mountains and that’s because I lived in New York and Florida. I mean, city and Florida, they flax up for the skyscrapers. Yeah, it was great visiting Jamie. I was drove by his plant and then he just happened to be standing outside, getting the mail. We’re looking for to see where I was because I said I was on my way and I just see this guy waving to me. I’m like, “Oh, that’s Jamie the Printer,” as I drove into his lot. But it’s a great place. It’s got a ton of equipment. Those SwissQs are gorgeous.

Everybody there is just so meticulous about what they’re doing, like class people. I really enjoyed visiting there. Thank you so much for having me. I also went to fresh orders, but I’ll talk about that on my catch-up. William, what’s been going on with you and Tampa.Media, the Empire?

[0:03:44] WC: The Empire. Well, it was a busy month. Busy end of the year. We did holiday party as well. We had both organizations together. We did top golf. That seemed to be quite successful. Everybody seemed to have a good time. Holiday bonuses for everybody. The companies fared well through the year. We hit some pretty big benchmarks as far as our growth sales as an organization. The number of orders that we did, we processed over 10,000 orders in 2023 between both organizations. We hit, actually for TampaPrinter, TampaPrinter since 2013, hit 50,000 orders at about the same time that we hit 10,000 orders for last year.

Over the course of 10 years, we did 50,000, but we did 10,000 of that last year. The number of jobs and orders that we’re processing is accelerating considerably. I spoke at the Inkish non-event in the beginning of December in Copenhagen, Denmark, which was an amazing experience. The event, or the non-event, I should say, was a very – I get to meet a lot of really amazing and interesting people. The event itself was informative and I had a blast. I had a great time. As well as my speech went, I’m obviously my worst critic, but I’ve been told that it was pretty good.

[0:05:04] DC: I liked it.

[0:05:06] WC: It’s online, so I just share it with Deb and Jamie today, so that they could check it out before we started. If you’re listening to this podcast, you obviously can’t see my face. Deb noticed a few scars on my head and my face. The last night in –

[0:05:18] DC: Hold on. As one often does when someone shows up on video with scars on their face.

[0:05:24] WC: On the last night in Denmark, after they had closed the hotel bar, myself and a few other people from the event, we rallied together and put together another event down in the lobby of the hotel and had the hotel manager getting us beers and we set up a bar. I had a bunch of booze in my room, because the booze that they had at the hotel was horrible, so I went searching for better booze. Had way too much. I wasn’t going to drink it all, so I decided to share it with everyone. I stepped outside for some fresh air and I slipped on some ice and I smacked my head on a concrete planter by the door. Knocked myself unconscious. Came to, tried to get up, and then fell again and smashed my face and broke my nose.

[0:06:07] DC: Oh, my God.

[0:06:09] JM: Will now owns the hotel.

[0:06:10] WC: Luckily. Yeah. If it was in America, I certainly would have.

[0:06:14] DC: Yes. But they were just laughing in Europe at the Americans and like, “Ha, ha.” I mean, they left you on the ground unconscious. They were just like, “Whatever. Someone was drunk a little bit.”

[0:06:22] WC: There was nobody out there. It was midnight. Actually, the hotel manager drove us to the hospital. I spent the majority of the rest of the evening and morning in the hospital. We got out at about 7am. Had to rush to the hotel to get our stuff, get to the airport just in time to make our flight to London. I had three days in London. That was the end of our trip and I walked around London with a broken face. It was still a blast though. I had a good time.

[0:06:48] DC: I didn’t know you broke your nose. Wow.

[0:06:50] WC: Yeah. Broke my nose. My septum is fully deviated at this point. I’ve gone to plastic and I’ve gone to an ear, nose, and throat and we’ll have surgery scheduled for sometime in March, or April to pick some of the scars on my face, hopefully.

[0:07:03] DC: Wow. Well, you should have gone last, because I –

[0:07:07] JM: They’re going to give you a deeper voice when you go in? They’re going to –

[0:07:10] WC: Well, I’m a little raspy right now. It went from coming home from Denmark and nursing my wounds and dealing with all of that, into being sick into the holidays and then into being sick again. I was back at work on Tuesday. I think I still was out on Monday. I’m no longer contagious, not that you can catch anything through a microphone, but I’ve been out and about and working and doing stuff and just I’m clearing out the residual muck that builds in your sinuses and your lungs when you catch the funk.

Work wise, nothing too major to announce. Everything that is happening right now is part of a bigger thing and a bigger plan, and I’ll save that for a little bit later when we’re talking about our goals and what we’re doing this year.

[0:07:54] DC: Excellent. Well, as I was saying, you should have gone last, because my catch-up’s going to suck after that, a story. My nose is intact, in case anyone’s interested in that. I did. I went to Philadelphia and then Lancaster, Pennsylvania area to with Domtar Paper. We filmed the last episodes of Project Peacock that we filmed in 2023, with an amazing agency called Big Industries and their printer, The Standard Group.

Then while I was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I visited the HH group, which is a lovely bunch of people. I saw Jamie and I visited Fresh Artists, which is an amazing organization that works with underserved communities in the Philadelphia area and gives children who have an aptitude for art a chance to become artists. They’re just an incredible bunch of people. It was amazing. On my way home, I got COVID, unfortunately. That put me down right before the holidays.

Since the holidays, I took a little time off. I regrouped for what I was going to do next year. Saw my family did some stuff like that. I too am really raring and ready to go for 2024. When we come back from this break, we’re going to talk about that.

[MESSAGE]

[0:09:22] DC: Print Media Centr provides printspiration and resources to our vast network of global print and marketing professionals. Whether you are an industry supplier, print service provider, print customer, or consultant, we have you covered, by providing resources and strategies that enable business marketing and creative success, reporting from global events, these podcasts, Project Peacock TV, and an array of community lifting initiatives.

We also work with OEMs, suppliers, industry organizations, and event producers, helping you connect and engage with our vast audience and achieve success with your sales, marketing, and conference endeavors. Visit Print Media Centr and connect with the Printerverse. Links in the show notes. Print long and prosper.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:10:16] DC: Welcome back, everybody. Jamie, hopes, dreams, plans, aspirations, goals for 2024. Go.

[0:10:25] JM: We’ve got a few of them. We had our 2024 kickoff today. We had all our sales team together. We reviewed all our 23 numbers, and reviewed what we’re planning on doing in 2024. It was a great day to have the podcast. A couple of things that one of the big things that I like that came out of Print Across America was we’re going to kick off our internship program this year. We’ve pretty much got everything all written, ready to go. Stacy in HR has put stuff together. We contacted a couple of schools that were here, reviewed it with them, got their thoughts. We’re going to have this going out soon, looking for internships for spring and summer. That should be pretty cool. That was a great thing.

[0:11:03] DC: That’s amazing, Jamie. Thank you so much for contributing to the future of the industry.

[0:11:10] JM: Yeah, we’re psyched about it. When they were here, all the students were asking like, “Do you have internships?” We’re just like, “We’ve never done it before, but we should.” Then it just kicked off from there. We’ve been working on it for a little while, so that’s going to kick off in 2024. A couple of the company goals, like we’re hiring some more salespeople. We’re looking to get Jamie some help. Jamie needs a little bit more help. Yeah. If you want to be my assistant, Deborah, that would be great. We’re an old company.

[0:11:32] DC: Oh, sure. No problem. Can I work remotely?

[0:11:35] JM: Yeah. Sure. Why not?

[0:11:35] DC: Okay, I’ll help you.

[0:11:37] JM: There you go. Then a person that’s going to work with me will then eventually become a sales person and go out on the road. We’re looking at that role and a couple of their salespeople. Then we’ve actually got – one of the big goals for 2024 is actually acquiring a couple more companies. We haven’t acquired a couple of companies since 2020. Last year, we changed names and did all that, becoming the Invoke, which took over our parent company, which is DMR powered by Invoke.

This year, we’re looking at there’s at least two eminent and then a couple more down the road. It could be a big year for acquisitions for us. That’s in our pipeline. Then, I don’t know if anybody does whatever Will has ever done any recognition programs for your team. We’re looking at a thing called HelloTeam, which is like – it helps the managers do your yearly evals and stuff like that, but it also gives out daily and weekly recognitions to your team. You can win awards and prizes and gift cards and stuff like that. I don’t know all the details about it yet. I’ll go learn more next week.

[0:12:40] WC: What was the name of that? What was the name of the program?

[0:12:42] JM: HelloTeam.

[0:12:43] WC: HelloTeam?

[0:12:44] JM: Yeah.

[0:12:45] WC: Is it a website?

[0:12:47] JM: It’s a website. It’s an application that you buy into. I’ll know more. There’s a big kickoff next Tuesday. I get to learn all about it. But then, you can –

[0:12:55] WC: Please, share some information. I love stuff like that. We try to do things like that as much as we can.

[0:12:59] JM: Yeah. It’s cool.

[0:13:01] DC: Yeah. I will let everybody know that by the time this podcast is released, there will be a link to whatever Jamie’s talking about in the show notes. Look down there right now and you can find it.

[0:13:10] JM: Good. That’s a cool thing that we just went over today. A couple of us knew about it, but it was something they’ve been working on. That’s more of a company goals for next year. A couple of goals that I’m personally working on is after our great open house for Print Across America, I rejuvenated and said, “Look, I need to start getting people back in here. COVID’s done. Even though everybody seems to be catching it now again, but we need to start having people back in for tours.” That day of tours was great.

I had two new prospects in December, people that we’ve never worked with before. Both of them turned into customers. Both of them, we did pretty cool jobs. My goal is to have two new prospects in at least a month for a tour, show them what we can do, rile them. Then tying that in is trying to visit more of my customers, because a lot of them are still working from home, or a lot of them are in the office, but not all the time. Most of everything we’re doing is still either Zoom, or phone, or email. Trying to at least get out on the road a little bit more. Visit people more. Bring some of our samples to them and highlight more, instead of just doing everything by the phone or email.

Trying to reinvigorate that again, because that’s part of the job that I miss is getting out in front of everybody and doing all that, because it really helps. People just get stuck in their own wheelhouse and like, “Hey, what about this? What about these cool ideas?” That’s part of my thing every month is trying to make sure I do that.

Then just getting back into my normal routine. As everybody knows, November, end of November through December, things get crazy. December was a very busy month here. We had a lot of things going on. We had a lot of customers that had to get things done by the end of the year, or at least spend money for the end of the year, which was nice. We had a couple of big projects that we’re building in December, and we’re still are working on, which we’ll probably finish in the next couple of weeks. Got out of my game plan, or what I normally do every day. Just trying to reset and make sure I’m following my own game plan and following my CRM and keeping everything in line and keeping in touch with those who I need to stay in touch with. One big thing, what Deborah did when she was here was Fresh Artists, so I’m going to see them on Friday.

[0:15:11] DC: Oh, excellent.

[0:15:11] JM: I’m looking forward to that. Yeah, they sent me a note to come and visit, since we’re only a couple of minutes away. Friday is the day. I’m going down there. That’s going to be awesome.

[0:15:19] DC: That’s amazing.

[0:15:19] JM: I’m looking forward to that. Yeah.

[0:15:21] DC: That’s so cool.

[0:15:22] JM: See how we can help them and keep that and see what they need from us.

[0:15:24] DC: I have two questions for you.

[0:15:26] JM: Sure.

[0:15:27] DC: First of all, and I apologize, I didn’t look at your site before I’m asking this question. Did you know video game going on over there? A lot of the things you mentioned about not being able to see your customers and things like that, a lot of the – I was able to have a tour of your plan and I agree, you need to be there to see what I saw, the passion and the people who were working there and the amazing things that you could produce. In lieu of that, we always talk about, did you know emails? Did you know we could do this and this and this? Your thing is so visual. I mean, did video game on your website? If you can’t get to visit customers, you can at least say, “Hey, we got this new press. You can take a quick look at it on the web and then come on over.” It could be a nice, little fish hook.

[0:16:20] JM: We have the whole video shot, the whole tour of the company. They can be editable in little chunks. Taylor Photo is part of our company. They did the whole walkthrough, starting from the beginning to the end, checking out all equipment. That’s done. I think we had a website podcast nine months ago.

[0:16:38] DC: That’s two. Yeah.

[0:16:39] JM: Our website is still under construction.

[0:16:40] DC: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah.

[0:16:43] JM: That’s going to be part of this quarter, 2024. Yay, it’s going to get launched. That will hopefully be part of that and on there. Yes. That’s what we’re going –

[0:16:50] DC: Yeah. I mean, like a real drill down. This is what the Colorado can do. Because that SwissQ is out of control with all the capabilities. Okay, the other thing I wanted to just ask you about is now you’re in your new role as a general manager. I know that you’ve been doing that for a very long time. You just didn’t have the title. Now that you do, do you feel like there’s any further professional growth that you want to do this year? If so, what would that be around?

[0:17:18] JM: I’ve never really been big on titles. I mean, I’m still the creative print strategist in my head. That’s what I do. My goal is to make sure my team’s happy and I just try and check in with everybody every day. What do you need? What can you do? We have a couple people like, “Hey, you’ve been running late for a couple of days. What’s going on?” “Things are going on. Crazy.” I’m like, “All right, we’re going to work with you. What do you need from us?” That’s what I want to make sure.

Number one, make sure the team’s happy. What can I do to make it do? I’m like, we’re under new ownership for a year. We just got to learn this group, trying to find out what’s going on. We’re going to be busy the next couple of months with acquisitions, trying to make sure everybody feels comfortable in what their role is. Eventually, maybe VP of operations, or something like that. I don’t know. Yeah, that would be nice. But take it one step at a time and go from there. Once we’ve owned four or five more companies, we’ll see what the next step is.

[0:18:09] WC: There you go, man. Move up that ladder.

[0:18:13] DC: Excellent. Will, any comments or questions for Jamie before we turn our focus to you?

[0:18:19] WC: I’m really excited for you with the tours. I was bummed out that I didn’t get to the point that I felt comfortable doing and participating in the Print Across America. We’re there now. The shops are fully in order. Next year, we’re in. Or this year, 2024, we’re in. But how you’re parlaying that into using that as a tool to continue to do tours and bring people in and nail on the head, Deborah, with the video content and even taking those little chunks. I mean, five seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds. Putting that into social media, putting it as a reel on TikTok, or Instagram.

That leads into the other platforms that you can show more and then you can use that as a way to invite people in for the tour and tie all of those different things together, using that as content for your social media, marketing, and everything else. It’s all part of the conversation. Kudos to you. Keep doing that. I’m curious to see how the evolution of the tours goes on. I would like to start doing some of that stuff myself, actually.

[0:19:23] JM: Yeah, they’re fun. That’s one of the best parts is having people in and they just – I mean, we’ve decorated everything. All the walls are done with Dream State graphics and IJ 180 and a couple other different brands. Then, plus all the different print samples we have around. There’s a lot of things to talk about. Catches people’s eyes in every corner, what’s going on. That’s the best part is having – it gets people talking and interested in what they’re doing, because a couple of times, we have people here, they didn’t want to leave. They’re just like, “Oh, what about this and this?”

[0:19:51] WC: You got to go home, man.

[0:19:53] JM: I know.

[0:19:52] WC: Go home. Get out of here. We’ve got you going on.

[0:19:53] JM: You’ve been here for 12 hours. I’m like, “We’re done.”

[0:19:56] WC: You serve beers, or coffee, or anything when people come in? Because that’s part of the problem. If you give them food, you give drinks, they’re not going anywhere.

[0:20:03] JM: That’s true.

[0:20:05] DC: Well, he’s giving them inspiration. That’s what with that.

[0:20:07] WC: That as well.

[0:20:08] DC: All right, William. Tampa.Media, I mean, is expanding, I’m sure. What is going on this year that you can speak about it this time? You always have secret stuff going.

[0:20:19] WC: Yeah. Well, there’s some secret stuff going on that I can’t talk about yet, but there’s definitely a lot that I can talk about. There’s quite a few layers to what I’m up to right now. I’ve got two goals for this year that are really easy to say. I would like to speak again. I want to continue to get speaking engagements. I’m hoping to speak at drupa. Deborah, we talked about maybe being able to participate in your DNA program there. I sent you some information about what my ideas and you’re going to hear a lot in the next few minutes about what that idea is. I’d like to speak at Printing United as well.

Now, the talk that I would be giving at drupa, if I do wind up getting to participate with you, Deborah, would not be the same speech that I gave at Inkish. If we could also put the link to my speech at Inkish in the comments, that would be appreciated. I don’t know. If ever –

[0:21:07] DC: It’s there now, everybody. Look in the show notes. Yeah.

[0:21:08] WC: Awesome. Love it. I’m sure most people don’t know, I grew up in foster care. I was a foster kid and that’s something that I talk about in my speech. Somebody came up to me afterwards and she was like, “Have you ever gone and talked to foster kids?”

[0:21:21] DC: What a good idea.

[0:21:22] WC: I said, “You know what? No, I haven’t.” When I got back, one of my things that I wanted to do was try to figure out how to get involved with organizations. My foster brother, I have a brother that is my foster brother. He’s my brother. He’s actually a caseworker in foster care and child placement and child protective services and everything else in the state of Washington. I was talking to him and he threw this big Christmas party for all the kids. They had Santa Claus come in and they’re giving out presents and they’re doing all this stuff. I’m like, “Man, I want to do that.”

I’m talking to Ashley and she’s like, “Trying to put on an event like that, that’s a lot. But why don’t you find an organization that does that and you can just help?” I was like, “You know what? It’s right on.” I’ve got a guy on my team, he’s my right-hand man. When I talk to him and I’m like, “Hey, I need to get this done,” he finds a way to get it done. When I don’t have the bandwidth to get something done myself, I put it on him.

It just so happened that another one of our employees had been at a trivia night, or something the night before, and it connected with this organization that does housing and placement for foster children. Very, very serendipitous how all of this just aligned and happened. It’s like, “Oh, hey. This just happened, da, da, da, da.”

I took the tour of that facility this morning, which was, it was kind of heavy. I had actually spent some time in facilities like that and it was crazy, because some of the same smells and a completely different state and a completely different part of the world and the same facility smells the same. But took a tour with them and talked to them and gave them the idea of wanting to speak and wanting to get involved. They do all kinds of community outreach and we talked about having our employees come and volunteer and then having the kids come to the facilities and do a tour of the facilities and see how stuff is made.

All of that comes into this other thing that I’m working on. I have a, and this is going to come from left field, but I’m going to bring it back together, right? My building that Sign Parrot is in has a second address. We have two electrical meters, which gives us an additional address. That address is also registered with the post office. What that means is, is we get a Google business page for that address. Wraps, vehicle wraps, you come into a sign shop, it’s like, “Oh, do you wrap cars?” Of course. Yes, we wrap cars. But it’s not something that people immediately put together that, “Oh, you’re a sign company. Of course, you wrap cars,” right? We are launching a new brand that is dedicated to wraps. We Wrap.

[0:23:53] DC: Yay. I love vehicle wraps.

[0:23:55] WC: Yeah. We Wrap Tampa is the brand. We Wrap Tampa –

[0:23:58] DC: Oh, my God. Hold, hold. Jamie. We Wrap Tampa.

[0:24:04] WC: It gets better. Hold on. You’re interrupting. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[0:24:07] DC: I’m not over that.

[0:24:09] WC: It gets better. Okay, so We Wrap Tampa is the brand. I also bought tampacarwrap.com. I am both. Car Wrap Tampa and Tampa Car Wrap.

[0:24:17] DC: Tampacarwrap.com.

[0:24:18] WC: .com.

[0:24:19] DC: Nobody had this?

[0:24:20] WC: No. Well, I had to buy the – one of them I bought outright. The other one I bought in auction for a 170 bucks. The search terms for vehicle wraps, car wraps, car wrap, no plural, is 50,000 searches a month. Car wraps with an S is 20,000 searches a month. Vehicle wraps is 12,000 searches a month. Those are the three top search terms for vehicle wraps. We own Car Wrap Tampa and tampacarwrap.com, but we are branding it as We Wrap Tampa.

The website will actually be rooted in Car Wrap Tampa or Tampa Car Wrap, one of the two, just so we get that keyword for our domain name, but everything’s going to be marketed as We Wrap Tampa. We’ve been –

[0:25:02] DC: I’m sorry. I just have to really –

[0:25:04] WC: Yeah. You have questions. What’s up?

[0:25:05] DC: No, it’s not a question. It’s an idea. We Wrap Tampa. Like, all the electrical boxes and everything all over Tampa, all those, all those, okay –

[0:25:13] WC: I’m getting there. Just bear with me. I promise. Bear with me.

[0:25:15] DC: All right. Fine. You’re ahead of me. Fine.

[0:25:18] WC: We’ve been working on the logo, which I’ve gotten concepts today that I really liked. When I told the employees, I said, “Well, what I want you to do is the designers, I said, take the word wrap out and I want you to replace that with love, or embrace. That’s what I want this imagery to show. I want you to show like, in the idea and the premise behind this brand is community outreach, right?” It’s We Wrap Tampa and it’s vehicles, walls, windows and storefronts. That’s what we wrap. It’s not just about wrapping vehicles. We’re going to work with non-profit organizations to work with local artists and donate wall mural installations in their facilities.

Touring the foster care place today, they have a gymnasium, they have an art room, they have a cafeteria, they have all these facilities and these walls, which is really funny, I’m walking around the tour and I’m touching the walls. I didn’t tell him anything about this idea till the end. She goes, “Oh, that’s why you were touching the walls everywhere we went into.” The We Wrap Tampa, launching this brand, differentiating the wraps, the idea originally started from we were going to break into more of doing color changes, instead of just printed wraps.

We found a body shop down the street that their mechanics will come to our shop to disassemble and reassemble the vehicles. It’s trying to think of a way to like, well, sign shops definitely aren’t a body shop, or a thing that you would think about for doing color change wraps. Been working on this marketing campaign for wraps in general for the last couple of months, where we have billboards up all over town. I bought a data list of 6,000 leads with their businesses that have fleets of vehicles. They have 50 vehicles or more, or 20 vehicles or more was the list. We’ve been emailing them.

What I did is I took that list and I tuned it down to the top 650 leads. The top 650 leads are the ones with the highest incomes, as well as the highest number of vehicles. That group of leads, I have this sequence of marketing points that we’re going to do. Some of them have probably seen the billboard. Some of them have gotten, or they’ve gotten emails from us, just from Sign Parrot, or what have you. Now, they’re going to get a postcard in the mail. We just mailed the postcard last week and the last week. Then they’re going to get a personal letter from me. I’m going to write a letter. Actually, I’ve already written the letter of what the content is, but we’re going to make the envelope look handwritten, so the font that we use, it’ll have a pre-cancel stamp. It’ll be bulk mail. When it comes to them, it’ll look like someone actually took the time to send them a letter.

They’re going to get a personal email from me. We printed out a 1,000-yard signs with the same marketing as the postcard, the email, and the billboard. We’re going to the neighborhoods where these businesses are located and we’re planning yard signs on the busy intersections around their business. Then the last thing will be to call them, right? Then if that doesn’t work, we’re going to get clients out of this, right? This is all being marketed as Sign Parrot.

At the end, once we’ve gone through this full cycle, anyone that has not responded, or that we’ve not really engaged with, we’re going to start over and then they’re going to get We Wrap Tampa branding and marketing. I’m turning this whole thing into – so we rebranded Gorilla Gurus. Gorilla Gurus is now Gorilla Consultants. We’re relaunching the company as Gorilla Consultants, as well as our podcast as Gorilla Consultants. I’m going to be doing a series on 650 leads and the journey of how we have gone through this marketing campaign and how we have done this case study and built this brand.

I’m going to take everything that I’ve done for marketing over the last decade and compress it down into a six-month period and launch a whole new company with it and do a whole podcast and a series, and it’s going to be our whole social media. It’s basically everything that’s going to be what we talk about outwardly is about this. That’s my idea for my presentation at drupa is to like –

[0:29:03] DC: I’m in.

[0:29:04] WC: All right.

[0:29:08] JM: I got to start over again. Can we start this whole podcast over? Revise what I’m doing in 2024. I’m following Will.

[0:29:16] DC: That is freaking amazing.

[0:29:17] JM: We Wrap Conchie.

[0:29:22] DC: Well, get the URL before he does. That’s what you have to do. What are you saying there? You know how many people – people if you’re smart out there, you’re buying your own local ones right now before Will gets them all.

[0:29:34] WC: Hold on. I have a funny one for you though, completely left field and this is something that happened. We got stiffed by a company on a sign. We did their sign as well. The way we do installs is you pay 50% deposit and you pay the balance when it’s done. Company supplied, or client-supplied artwork. They supplied the artwork. They didn’t want to pay a design fee. They hit us with a price match. Price match didn’t pay the design fee. They gave us vector artwork. We scaled the artwork. We gave them drawings, detailed drawings, how we were fastening, how we were putting it up. It was like a wrap on an old iHop. A banner wrap on an old iHop sign. It’s like a 1,000 bucks. $1,000 that they stif me on.

I’m sitting here thinking and stewing like, “How am I going to get these people back? What am I going to do?” Because A, you send them a demand letter. Take them to small claims court. Da, da, da, da, da. Guess what? They didn’t own their domain name. I own their name. Eight bucks.

[0:30:25] DC: Why can’t you just go take your wrap back?

[0:30:29] WC: There’s two parts of this, right? Technically, once you’ve installed something, it’s their property. You can be charged with trespassing. You can actually be charged with theft.

[0:30:37] DC: Vandalism, too.

[0:30:38] WC: Vandalism. Yeah. When you install signage and you’re on forums and you talk to people, people are like, “I don’t care. I go and do it.” Wraps. People who’ve tried to repo wraps on vehicles when people don’t pay for it. There’s a whole thing about it. For me, it’s like, I’m going to spend more money in resources to go and take something back that I didn’t get paid for –

[0:30:55] DC: And bail money.

[0:30:57] WC: Then possibly have repercussions and consequences for that. For me, it was fun. We did a whole thing. It created this camaraderie around the company. It was like, “They stole from us and we’re going to get them back.” I was like, “What should we do?” Somebody was like, “What you do is you put their logo in a cage on the website. You say, we’re holding your brand hostage until you pay us.”

[0:31:19] DC: Not a bad idea.

[0:31:20] WC: It’s not, actually. But yeah, buy your domain. If you don’t own the name for your company.com and every variation, spelling, misspelling, reverse words, all of it, buy it, so no one else can. I own 600 domain names that are Tampa, printing, printer product related, specifically just for the fact, so no one else can own it.

[MESSAGE]

[0:31:42] DC: It’s back. Citizens of the Printerverse, it is time to make your plans to attend drupa 2024. The world’s premier printing event returns May 28^th through June 7^th in Dusseldorf, Germany, with 18 halls filled with the products, services, and companies you need to drive your business forward. Drupa also offers visitors a variety of topical daily programming with speakers covering packaging, textiles, sustainability, and trends shaping the industry.

Stop by hole seven. I’m co-hosting the drupa next age forum with Frank Teuckmantel. Drupa dna offers 11 days of sessions, interviews, panels, co-located events, global networking, and of course, a little fun awaits. Visit drupa.com and get your ticket to the future of your business today. Links in the show notes. Drupa long and prosper.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:32:46] DC: I think I went the other day and I looked and I have 60-something and I dumped a bunch of them, which were ideas that just are never – now, they’re so far down the eventually, this will happen list that I’m like, “I don’t need to pay for this anymore.” But wow, amazing, amazing, amazing. Anything else, Will? I mean, that’s a lot of stuff.

[0:33:07] WC: Yeah. I mean, that’s what I can share. I’ve got some other things going that I can’t share.

[0:33:12] DC: Okay.

[0:33:14] JM: Very well done. I can’t wait to see how it goes.

[0:33:16] WC: It’s still going through some growing pains, but we have a really awesome staff there. We’re getting rid of our towable lift and I’m buying a boom truck. Using wraps as the way to lay the foundation for us to really invest in becoming the next level of a sign company, right? Because right now, we’re a wide-format printer and we do some sign stuff, but I want us to get to the point where we’re doing our own installations and we’re doing our own permits. I’m looking into getting the electrical specialty license that’s required to pull permits as a sign company in Florida.

One of the requirements, like basically, you have to meet one of the certain requirements and the one that I meet is three years or more of managing a relevant company, or organization. Even though I’m not an electrician, I think I can still pass the test and get the license. That’s one of my other goals for this year. But if you have an event at drupa, I’m going to be there, right? You want me to give my speech that I gave at Inkish or some variation of that? Let me know. If you’ve got something going on at Printing United, and you want me to come out and talk, then let me know as well. I’m sure you can find me. I’m actually on LinkedIn now, too. I’m paying attention to that after interacting with everybody at Inkish.

[0:34:23] JM: You are and you interacted with something I posted. I was like –

[0:34:25] WC: I’m on there. I’m just – I’m never on it.

[0:34:26] DC: Oh, really? I mean, I’ve only been posting our podcast for two years and haven’t even gotten a like from Will.

[0:34:33] JM: He replied to one of my posts. I was like, “Will’s here.”

[0:34:35] DC: Wow. Look at that.

[0:34:36] WC: I’m on LinkedIn now. You can message me on LinkedIn and I will respond to you.

[0:34:39] DC: Okay. Well, then you just look at the #printerchatpodcast and you’ll see our podcast. Okay, Will. I have a comment to make about something that you said.

[0:34:49] WC: Sure.

[0:34:50] DC: I love that you – first of all, I think it was completely fate. It was just that you were ready for this to manifest with facing this reality of foster care, and embracing it and then looking at it, being able to go back to it and making it better for others, which is what I’m getting from you.

[0:35:17] WC: Yeah, very much.

[0:35:18] DC: What I want to suggest to you is that – and it reminds me of Batman, because you know you’re my hero in a lot of ways. Batman or Bruce Wayne when you found out who he was, right? He was a hero to the orphans, even though he was a rich guy. He was still in that. He had something very in common with orphans. You have something in common with the kids who are in these places. I would love you to develop a young entrepreneurs program for them, where you can train them on digital marketing and printing and things like that.

This is beyond an internship. This is more like teaching them how to do business. Teaching them to here’s how to run an online print brokerage, and here’s software, here’s something you can do. You are really their hero because you’re a living embodiment of the other side of if they’re having a hard time. Now, I just want to preface that there are some foster situations that work out fantastic for people, but it’s not always that way.

[0:36:33] WC: Yeah. I mean, mine was definitely not great. I got out of it, a foster brother and I’m grateful for that. Mine wasn’t horrible. I was in facilities and in and out of places and I was stronger because of it, right? I survived it. I’m a rarity. I’m not the normal statistic. Most people who grow up in those environments don’t achieve success, especially the levels that I have. The point is to speak and knock some of the cobwebs down so that I’m not so shaky when I’m giving my speak. But also, to give them some motivation and some inspiration.

[0:37:04] DC: Yeah. But I want you to take that to the next level. Don’t just leave them with, I want to do it, but I don’t know how. Like, show them how.

[0:37:13] WC: No. I love that idea. Even looking at it from the standpoint of aging out, because this was a topic that we talked about because I went with another one of my employees that was adopted. The guy that actually started this whole thing, he was adopted and he’s volunteered at other programs and he’s talking about, well, I connected with these kids and then they aged out and I never heard from them again. That sucks and that’s really hard because you don’t know what happens to them.

That’s one of the big things in these programs is that they get taken care of until they’re 18. Then once they’re 18, they try to do their best to prepare kids to have a exit plan and somewhere to go. But a lot of them don’t. Looking at this as a way to say, okay, well, we can do an internship program associated with when you’re aging out, even starting maybe when they’re 16 or 17. We can do classes and even just going to the facility and talking to the older kids and saying, “Well, what are you interested in? How can we help you? Do you have that entrepreneurial spark? If you do, let’s teach you how to do that” right? Being a little bit more involved.

The first step is how do we help them with an event and do some fundraising? I do plan to dedicate and donate some of my time and help out some of these kids on a more personal level. I hope to, anyway.

[0:38:20] DC: That’s so cool. That’s amazing. Jamie, any comments about Will before I go?

[0:38:25] JM: No. No, it’s awesome. I’m like –

[0:38:28] DC: Jamie, you’re going to have to step up your game here. Yeah.

[0:38:28] JM: – taking lots of notes. I definitely have to step up my game for 202.

[0:38:32] DC: Yeah, pie in July, shmai in vilai, right? Sure.

[0:38:38] JM: Yes. But no. Will, awesome. I can’t wait to see the growth this year and everything that you’re doing. Yeah, keep us and let us know how it’s going. I can’t wait to – Like I said, my goal – one of the other things is visiting Tampa this year and seeing your facility.

[0:38:51] WC: Come on down, man. Come on out.

[0:38:54] JM: Yeah. That’d be awesome.

[0:38:55] DC: I’m only 50 minutes away. I’ll take you to our favorite Chinese restaurant, which is a big deal in Florida, because it’s –

[0:39:01] WC: It is.

[0:39:01] DC: It’s not really a good Chinese food, but secretly, sometimes I don’t tell Will and I drive over the bridge and I go to the – I go get those dumplings I love.

[0:39:09] WC: I get them all the time, so it’s okay. I do, too.

[0:39:11] DC: Damn you.

[0:39:12] WC: It’s right over the bridge. I get it. Jamie, if you come down, we could record a Printer Chat Podcast, all of us together in the same room –

[0:39:20] JM: Yes. That would be a –

[0:39:20] WC: At my studio and we – that would be a really cool thing to do.

[0:39:23] JM: Yeah. Well, we got to put that on the calendar and make a plan. It’s definitely –

[0:39:26] DC: Okay. Well, we’re here. Just come on down.

[0:39:30] JM: Okay.

[0:39:30] DC: Okay. Now it comes to Print Media Centr, Deborah Corn in 2024. Go. As we’ve mentioned a couple of times, from May 28^th through June 7^th of this year, in Düsseldorf, Germany, the world will once again get together for the world’s largest print fair. I am going to be hosting the drupa dna, which stands for drupa next age forum for drupa. Co-hosting with Frank Teuckmantel, who used to be with EFI. Now he is a connector of people in the industry. We’re going to be running panels, interviews, sessions. There’s co-located events there, networking events, going to be going on for the 11 days of the show. Obviously, there are 18 halls of drupa, like halls, entire trade show buildings. There’s 18 of them.

[0:40:30] WC: There’s a train, right?

[0:40:31] DC: Well, there’s a train that comes into – it’s called Messe Düsseldorf. They call it the Messe. There’s a train that comes into the Messe, so you can commute to other places. In the actual Messe, they have golf cart buses that run around, like in the internal part, if you don’t want to walk. I mean, it could be a half an hour to get across, if you have somewhere you actually need to be at a certain time. The hall for drupa dna is hall seven, which is actually where the train comes up. It’s drupa’s hall. It’s right in the middle of the action there. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m so happy that drupa is back after an eight-year absence.

I truly believe that decisions about the future of the industries, the products and the services are going to be decided after this drupa. Everyone’s going to – all those manufacturers, all those exhibitors are going to hear the questions people are asking them, are going to understand where people are thinking of their going, where they need to go with their business moving forward, or the industry will steer them in the direction that they need to go. We all are going to have to get together and get there, move forward together. I’m really, really looking forward to that.

Girls Who Print in 2024 is already off to an amazing start. Girls Who Print West Africa has already evolved to Girls Who Print Africa. They are really gearing up to band, or gather the women on that continent and offer education and resources and programs that also help women get out of the villages and be able to create their own businesses, or their own print businesses, and also be able to sell printed products. There’s a lot of selling of things in Africa and markets and things like that, especially to tourists.

Also, Girls Who Print is starting a division in the UK and Europe. I’m working on that. I’ll have some announcements on that as we move forward into the year. Now, Girls Who Print is global, but it’s different. I’m sitting here in the United States. I’m not in these regions. There are always the global mission of the empowerment of women no matter where they are, but then there also needs to be local and regional missions that support those communities. If you’re out there in a region that I didn’t mention and you want to step up to gather the women at print and move forward together and power long and prosper, please get in touch with me.

We’re also already, I’ve planned events for Girls Who Print this year. Starting with Women’s Print History Month is throughout the month of March, and we share the stories of women in the industry to give them greater visibility and also, share their words of wisdom and advice, and experience to help empower the women of print. We manifest that through a Q&A, which is posted on the website. This year, it’s going to follow the United Nations theme for International Women’s Day, which is accelerate progress, invest in women.

The questions we’re asking are about the personal and professional investments that people have made in their careers and why the industry should make an investment in women and why that’s important. You can go to Girls Who Print at the website and fill out that Q&A. I mentioned International Women’s Day. That is on March 8^th. I’m hosting a panel and an open discussion after, also about investing in women in the printing industry. It’s a free Zoom event. Go to Girls Who Print, and you can register from there.

On May 8^th, for the first time, I’m hosting and producing a live Girls Who Print Conference at America’s Print Show. That’s all day on May 8^th in Cleveland, Ohio. The following day on May 9^th, there is a luncheon that’s open to all registered attendees of the show, all exhibitors. Everyone can come. It’s a luncheon and leadership panel, so there’s information about that on the Girls Who Print website. At the end of the year, our annual Girls Who Print Day is on November 7^th. Really excited about that.

We mentioned Print Across America when both Jamie and Will were doing their – talking about what they were talking about. This year, Print Across America is going to morph into Print Across the Planet. I am partnering with the International Sign Association, who has for many years, had what they call Sign Manufacturing Day. They have successfully been doing the same thing, which is encouraging people to have open houses. They had more than a 100 global participants in their event last year. I had at least 30 or 40 just from the United States and Canada.

We’re going to combine forces. On Sign Manufacturers Day, they’re going to have Sign Manufacturers Day and I’m going to have Print Across the Planet. It’s the same exact thing. We’re both going to promote everything. It’s October 4^th. I’m really excited about that.

[0:45:56] WC: It’s going to be both on the same day, October 4^th.

[0:45:59] JM: That’s awesome.

[0:46:00] DC: All this is open houses. What are your –

[0:46:01] WC: Open houses. Okay.

[0:46:02] DC: Yeah.

[0:46:03] WC: Sign Manufacturers Day and Print Across the Planet.

[0:46:07] JM: We looked into Sign Manufacturers Day a couple of years ago, and we started getting all the paperwork done to do it. Things fell apart. Yeah, I’ve done about that for a while. They’ve –

[0:46:14] WC: October 4^th. I got 10 months to plan this time to go excuse.

[0:46:17] JM: That’s right.

[MESSAGE]

[0:46:22] DC: Like what you hear? Leave us a comment. Click a few stars, share this episode, and please, subscribe to the show. Are you interested in being a guest and sharing your information with our active and growing global audience? Podcasts are trending as a potent direct marketing and educational channel for brands and businesses who want to provide portable content for customers and consumers. Visit printmediacentr.com, click on podcasts, and request a partner package today. Share long and prosper.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:46:56] DC: There’s no cost. There’s nothing. I mean, all this is about having an open house and encouraging workforce development and showing everybody the really cool things you can do. Whether you sign up through the International Sign Association and be your member there and you do with that, or do it with them, you’re still going to end up on my Print Across the Planet Directory, which is all I want. I want to be able to show everybody all the places having an open house, no matter what it’s called. That’s how we’re going to support each other. I’m very excited about this partnership.

I really want to give a shout out to the International Sign Association, because it could be looked at as, “What is she doing? Why is she trying to make this with us, or anything like that?” That is not how what it was embraced at all. It was embraced at Together we do better. I just love that organization. Shout out to everybody at the International Sign Association.

I have an aspirational initiative that I am working on, which is called PodConPalooza, where I want to gather some of the really established podcasters out there in the industry and create unique online content, exclusive and unique online content. I want to frame it under the Summit Series. Do interviews with people who are at the top of their game and essentially, sell tickets for 5 bucks. Until you can pay a little monthly, $5 dollar fee to enter the PodConPalooza. When you don’t want to listen anymore, you just turn it off, or think of some way of creating this exclusive happening with podcasts.

Also, Project Peacock TV, there’s new episodes. I still have a bunch that I need to post that I filmed last year, but I’m updating the website, so I want to wait until people have a little better user experience on it before I really start posting the rest of the content. It’s coming and we’re scheduling for 2024. Another one of my aspirational projects is something I call Print Life, which is a workforce development initiative.

At first, I was wanting to send this media PR kick to guidance counselors and high schools and college recruiters and people to graphic communications program. I was talked out of it as a, in the crawl, walk, run scenario, I went right to run and I skipped crawl. Crawl is going to be, essentially, a poster. A large poster that can be hung in schools and then smaller versions that hopefully, we will encourage, give one to the art teacher, give one to the science teacher, give one to the computer, the marketing department, and just to hang it up. It’s basically going to be explaining to people that there’s actually a great life to have in print, and all the jobs that are available and all the things that we touch and really just make people feel like it could be a viable career path for them.

I actually had Jamie hold up a bunch of things for me and for my package. We will see how that goes. If you’re interested in supporting that, I could really use the support for that. That would be awesome. Podcasts From the Printerverse continues to grow. Our global audience has 146 countries in it and a total of almost 245,000 downloads. Last year alone, there were almost 40,000 downloads and I did a little math for us, which didn’t make my brain explode and I did use a calculator. But Printer Chat has more than 15,000 downloads, guys. Congratulations.

[0:50:58] WC: Let’s go. Let’s double it this year 30,000 in 2024.

[0:51:03] DC: Well, that’s total. That wasn’t just for last year. But I just want to thank –

[0:51:06] WC: 2024, 30,000. Let’s go.

[0:51:08] DC: Yeah. I would just want to thank everybody for listening. Yes, that’s you right now listening to this podcast. Thank you –

[0:51:14] WC: Thank you.

[0:51:15] DC: – so much for listening.

[0:51:15] WC: Absolutely.

[0:51:16] DC: And helping us get our information out to the global Printerverse. Last but not least, over the holidays, I updated the Print Media Centr website. It was a not knowing I was going to have to do it, but ended up – I had a dueling themes WordPress themes on my website. When we removed one, it caused a few more issues and anticipated.

[0:51:45] WC: What builder are you using now?

[0:51:47] DC: Well, now it’s in Elementor. Well, it was in Divi and Elementor.

[0:51:52] WC: Should have gone with Divi.

[0:51:53] DC: Well, there’s a whole bunch of reasons I didn’t. I can tell you that for my specific problem was with mobile. This is working much better for mobile and Elementor is. That was really my strategy here. I wanted to go mobile first. Print Media Centr’s demographics are actually the highest numbers, 25 to 35.

[0:52:15] WC: Everything is mobile now. If you’re building a website and your website is not mobile friendly, then you might as well not build a website.

[0:52:20] DC: I’m just saying, there’s a lot of Print Media Centr audiences doing everything on their phone. They’re watching the videos there. They’re doing everything on their phone. I just wanted to make it –

[0:52:30] WC: It looks good. It does look good, Deborah.

[0:52:32] DC: Thank you, sir.

[0:52:32] WC: I’m looking at it right now. No, it looks great.

[0:52:33] DC: Thank you very much.

[0:52:33] WC: Elementor. I’m only talking shit about Elementor, because it’s just a pain in the ass to use.

[0:52:37] DC: It is. The actual putting it together and the interface is very Microsofty to me.

[0:52:42] WC: Clunky. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[0:52:44] DC: Divi was much more, I felt I could be more creative with it. I was actually, by being more concerned about what it looked like on the desktop and being creative, I was freaking messing up the mobile.

[0:52:59] WC: What you have to do with Divi is you have to actually build two versions. When you go into Divi Windows, you can actually create a second version of the same element that’s mobile only.

[0:53:11] DC: Well, like I said, I had dueling templates and I had to make a decision and it wasn’t an easy decision. I finally just said, “Fine. I’m going to listen to my web developer,” who I wanted to give a shout out to. Stephanie Gannon. I’ll put a link to where you can get in touch with her in the show notes. She was the one who finally convinced me that I needed to do the right thing and go mobile first. Thank you so much.

Everybody, go visit the website. While you’re there, subscribe to the newsletter. That’s so far what I have planned for this year, as well as going to some events. Right now, I’m going to DSCOOP for sure, America’s print show. I’m not really sure about the fall at the moment. My event schedule is a little light this year, probably, mostly because of drupa. But I have a lot of preparation for that, so I don’t mind being home. Will, that means we can go get more Chinese food than normal.

[0:54:13] WC: Let’s hang out.

[0:54:15] DC: Yeah.

[0:54:15] JM: It’s in ISA in Florida this year?

[0:54:18] DC: It’s in Orlando. Correct. Oh, that’s right. That’s coming up. You’re absolutely right. Thank you for the reminder of that.

[0:54:23] WC: Where is that? When is that? ISA.

[0:54:25] JM: March, I think?

[0:54:26] DC: March. Yeah, we could go. Yeah, we could drive over, Will. It’s in Orlando.

[0:54:29] WC: Let’s go.

[0:54:30] DC: Yeah. Well, Jamie, you going?

[0:54:32] JM: I’m working on it.

[0:54:34] DC: Okay, we could hook up then. Yeah, that would be awesome.

[0:54:37] WC: I could bring the gear with us and we could do one – we could find a place and do one together still in Orlando, if that’s what happens.

[0:54:45] DC: I have a portable podcast thing. Actually, I could use three mics. I only have two, but I could buy another one. It’s pretty easy. Or just to get another portable mic. No problem.  Okay, we had a really long podcast, guys.

[0:54:58] WC: We did it. And it’s April, not March.

[0:55:01] JM: It’s April. Yeah, sorry.

[0:55:01] WC: April. April 10^th through the 12^th in Orlando. ASI, for ISA.

[0:55:05] DC: Thank you so much. I will make sure that there is a link to that and everything that we spoke about in the show notes. Again, everybody out there, thank you so much for supporting this series, for supporting Podcasts From the Printerverse, for supporting me and the Printerverse and the guys on the show. Really looking forward to everything that’s coming this year. Until next time, print long and prosper.

[END OF EPISODE]

[0:55:31] DC: Thanks for listening to Podcasts From the Printerverse. Please subscribe, click some stars and leave us a review. Connect with us through printmediacentr.com. We’d love to hear your feedback on our shows and topics that are of interest for future broadcasts. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Print long and prosper.

[END]