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Now Is The Perfect Time To Assess Your Print Business

This video above is not about survival, for that check out this video here on how your print business can survive the Corona Virus. This video is about what you can do now in your downtime to put the seeds down to grow if you can make it through this.

The Last Few Weeks Isn’t What Your Business Is About

The last few weeks with a drop of is not what your business is about. If you did get a massive drop as you are tied into 1 or 2 segments that got hit the worst, then you need to assess.

But if you need to look at the last 12 months and compare it to the previous 1-2 years. Were you trending Pp? Down? Or Neutral?

Trending Up

If your business was trending upwards, then your key concern is solidifying your business and surviving this. However based on our experiences with a lot of the trade partners we work with, then this is definitely not the case.

If you are one of these businesses, some of the things you can do are look at your segments, and possibly see if there are new segments to diversify a little more with.

Trending Neutral

For us this is a dangerous position to be in. A lot of owners fall into the trap of thinking of marketing more and this will sort their problems.

But they really do not know if their business model and segments are solid enough. At the next road bump they may actually start trending downward.

Trending Down

If Your business was trending down for the last 12 months, then it is clear that something needs to change. If it wasn’t the current Pandemic that would affect your business then it would have been another bump that could have knocked out your business.

What We Did In This Situation

It was the GFC in 2008, we were trending Neutral. We were small and turning over under $1 million as we started in 2006. We knew our model was not working.

So what did we do?

We assessed our top 20 customers and we found that 19 of them were trade customers and represented 70% of our revenue. We had over 1000 customers in the previous 12 months that represented 30% of our revenue.

So what did we do?

We changed our business and our offering to become trade only. Because of it:

  • Our Processes became easier
  • We had fewer departments to manage
  • Our marketing became clear and a lot cheaper
  • We became focussed

This Is An Opportunity To Reset

I know how much the current market sucks. I hope that you can survive it. If you can it can also be a great time to lay the seeds to new markets, customers and minimizing future risk.

How Your Print Business Can Survive The Coronavirus


As we deal with Coronavirus, now more than ever the industry as a whole needs help. This is the darkest time we will see in 100 years. In this video, I am showing the process that we have used to solidify our position in the current crisis.

Health Of Staff And Family

The health of your staff and family is number one. Ensure you are putting them first. Your customers will understand this during this time.

Know Your Current Position Under Coronavirus Conditions

You need to know your current working capital to help tie you through. You need this to determine how long you can actually survive. You also need to work out how much money you are owed from customers and also what you owe to suppliers and work out your position.

Figure Out Your Current Break-Even Point

Work out what your essential overheads are and what staff entitlements that you need to pay in the case of a lockdown.

How Long Can You Last For During The Coronavirus Pandemic?

Divide your working capital by the monthly break-even point and see how many months you can last for.

Are You Comfortable?

If you are not comfortable with how long your business can last for, then can you get tighter with your overheads? Can you go to your landlord or bank? Can you extend repayments? Do you need to make some hard calls? Every 10% you can find savings to your cashflow monthly is 10% longer your business can run.

Staff

Certain contracts and awards have Standdown Clauses. But ensure you are looking after your staff as much as you can and that they can survive. But the number one priority is to ensure they have a workplace to come back to. When this Pandemic gets to the tail end, more people will be unemployed so by you having a job for them is a better position for them than some short term pain.

Keep Calm and Reset After Coronavirus

This is the best opportunity you will ever get to change your business, use it wisely.

Mediapoint quadruples production capacity with new Durst

Mediapoint is significantly increasing its production capacity, installing a new Durst P10 250 HS Plus large format flatbed printer, and a large format guillotine cutter.

Jamie Xuereb, owner of the trade wide format printer says, “We were at a point where capacity on our SwissQ flatbed printer was stretched. We needed to keep up on quality and speed. The business has been growing and the old printer was phenomenal but we needed the extra capacity.

“We have profiled it and it has been in use for a few days. Our production flow has already picked up. We have four times more capacity and we finish jobs more quickly. Our customers will see the effects of this over the upcoming weeks.

“We explored everything on the market and we specified this device for its quality and reliability. The print output is high quality, and it produces work at a high speed, which means we can be more efficient. It is a premium machine.

“With our profiling, we have gotten a higher ISO score so we have a larger gamut we can pick from in printing, which means we can produce better quality work.

“The Durst is an additional production capacity, it will become our main flatbed. The quality in the work it is producing is great and we are able to with a number of substrates and new stocks that were not available previously. It has a quick turnaround time, it lets us be more efficient, and pass on time savings to our customers.

“The printer was paired with a 3.2 metre guillotine, which has enabled us to do a broader range of work.

“Our plans change with our business model. We adapt to what is happening and we move quickly. With this printer, we researched, planned for it and made the purchase over nine months.”

Owners Jamie and Jason Xuereb have expanded their business rapidly, with the pair investing $4m in Mediapoint last year. The brothers extended their print area to accommodate new equipment, having added to their finishing department with a Josting Guillotine, Plast Grommet eyelet presses and a Lesiter Banner welder.

The Melbourne based company has been run by the Xuerebs for 12 years. Earlier this year the comany relocated to Derrimut, Victoria, to a facility five times larger than its previous location.

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