Wrong turn reveals right location for Insty-Prints
When Brian Walsh and his father Pat took a wrong exit off the highway, they turned around at a defunct gas station. Later they seized on the land as a low-cost location for their new printing business.
Insty-Prints of Palatine Inc. is now in its tenth year. The company has grown to more than $1 million in revenues annually.
Neither father nor son had been in the printing business prior to the fateful turn. Pat Walsh had spent the previous 25 years as a pilot for British Airways and had taken an early retirement package. Brian Walsh had just finished college in 1996 with a degree in communications. But both had a knack for computers -- and business.
"It was a matter of timing," Brian Walsh says of the decision to go into business together.
They settled on an Insty-Prints franchise store as their big investment. Brian Walsh says it took about $250,000 to get started, $90,000 of which was out-of-pocket.
The Walshes went on to break the Insty-Prints franchise "first fiscal year" record with sales in excess of $500,000 in 1998.
Unfortunately, that same year doctors found a cancerous tumor at the base of Pat Walsh's skull. So while his dad spent several months undergoing treatment, Brian Walsh ran the business alone. At the Insty-Prints convention in 1999, the Walshes were given the company's "Rookie of the Year" award, and Brian received the "True Grit" award for being the linchpin of the business during his father's illness. To this day Brian treasures it.
Pat Walsh later returned to work, but his cancer also returned, and last year it took his life.
However, while both father and son were devoting their full energies to the business, Insty-Prints of Palatine increased sales by at least 15 percent each year between 1999 and 2002. It took only five years to double the company's revenues to $1 million.
By then, the business had bought and outgrown its original 2,000-square-foot building, so the Walshes invested in a 3,000-square-foot addition in 2002.
Now, all the heavy-duty equipment is sequestered in a separate area, keeping the dirt and noise of daily operations away from dealings with customers. The new lobby area is bright and customer friendly, with inspirational quotes ringing the walls and classic rock playing on the PA system.
"The two things we've always attributed our success to are technology and service," Brian Walsh says.
The latest technological update is PrintShop Mail, a $3,000 software application that enables Walsh to do "variable data" printing. It allows clients to send individually customized messages in bulk, and it works by harnessing databases provided by clients about the people on their mailing lists.
With a good database, a bulk mailing can now be customized far beyond addressing recipients individually. PrintShop Mail enables personalization so that each recipient can be solicited with a demographically tailored message or thanked for specific purchases or donations -- all while preserving the cost benefits of printing mail in bulk.
Patrick Plumb, Walsh's general manager, is a 28-year veteran of the printing industry. He uses the word "adventure" when describing the technological changes that have taken place since he started out.
"It's become a lot more efficient," Plumb says. "Turnaround times are becoming shorter. Quality is getting higher. We're rising to the occasion as far as that goes."
Walsh refers to one of his high-speed printers as sounding "like a machine gun."
Customers like John Goldene, owner and president of Palatine-based Digital Home Technologies Inc., attest to the quality of the service that comes with the technological know-how.
"I have referred a lot of my builders to Brian because of his professionalism," Goldene says. "He does a majority of my marketing tools."
Goldene's company specializes in home electronics and automation, and has locations throughout the Chicago area. Walsh takes care of everything from Web design to printing business cards for all of them, and has for 10 years.
Despite such customer loyalty, Insty-Prints of Palatine's revenues have leveled off, increasing less than 1 percent between 2002 and 2006, perhaps because Walsh has needed time to get comfortable with accounting responsibilities his father had previously handled. But there's competition, too, from bigger printing businesses like Kinko's.
Insty-Prints is a franchise of Allegra Network LLC, a privately held graphic communications company that includes five other franchise brands. Allegra acquired Insty-Prints in 2002 to expand its presence in several U.S. states.
Based in Northville, Mich., Allegra posted record network-wide sales of $369 million last year.
Business profile
Name:Insty-Prints of Palatine Inc.
Business: Commercial printing
Location:510 E. Northwest Highway, Palatine
Owner: Brian Walsh
Web site: www.insty-webs.com
Founded: March 1997
2006 Revenue: $1 million
Employees: 8