If you ask some of the printers that outperformed the majority of their peers in this year’s Top 500 what it was that separated their businesses from the rest, you would expect them to talk about investing in the latest kit, running a lean operation or a sales strategy focused on margin.

The truth is that all of the traits mentioned above are a given – it’s the intangibles that separate the great businesses from the good businesses. And in this area, when it comes to generating a strong bottom line, being good enough just doesn’t cut it.

"It’s all about the focus and commitment of the management team and the entire staff, and the flexibility and responsiveness that it breeds," says David Laybourne, managing director of PrintWeek’s Printing Company of the Year, Real Digital International.

This is echoed by Daniel Smith, partner at Grant Thornton, which worked with PrintWeek on the production of the Top 500.

"Businesses have to keep reinventing themselves, there are some great print businesses and what they have in common is that they don’t stand still. They don’t rest on their laurels, they’re always looking for the next opportunity," says Smith. 

However, even the most successful print businesses have to operate in the same tough market conditions as those less fortunate. What seems to separate them from their rivals is an ability to not get bogged down in the challenges, but instead focus on the opportunities. In fact, some business owners even believe that the recession has made them better leaders.

"Up until 2008/9, I actually felt that I had the Midas touch, because we had grown sales and profitability every year. But the recession taught me that all of that hard work can be wiped out in just a few months, which made me more cautious and re-evaluate the industry and our place in it," says DXG Media managing director Duarte Goncalves.

Goncalves isn’t alone in extolling the virtues of not losing sight of your business’s core strengths, rather than getting distracted by constantly looking for the next innovation.

"We’ve had double-digit growth in a market that is going the other way and I apply a lot of the basic rules, and that’s essentially keeping things simple. Where we score is that we endeavour to give customers a good experience, we don’t want to create any dramas – so we always deliver on expectations," says Eclipse Colour managing director Simon Moore.

It all sounds very straightforward, but as Moore admits, it’s easier said than done. "The key is to have the right management structure in place to deal with the ebb and flow of business," he adds.

Question of culture
Surrounding yourself with the right people seems to be a recurring theme, when you talk to any successful business owner. It will come as no surprise to learn that the best companies all lay claim to having the best staff, but the question is how do you attract them? Some companies, such as Real Digital, have profit share schemes, others, including DXG, pay regular bonuses linked to company performance or other generous remuneration packages. Some state they simply offer a fair salary in relation to an employee’s position.

While the fiscal rewards may vary, all of the best-run firms seem to have an ethos or culture that drives every member of staff to go ‘above and beyond’ and, according to Smith, you can spot those companies a mile off.

"They have the people that look forward to coming into work on a Monday. They want to drive change, drive the business plan, identify the next opportunities. At those businesses it’s almost like the whole workforce acts like an R&D department with the aim of improving the business," he says.

It’s a given that every member of your staff knows their job, but do they all understand your business’s goal (and this doesn’t mean one of those woolly, meaningless ‘mission statements’ that were very popular in the noughties)?

"Everyone has to be there to achieve a common goal, and I know it sounds obvious, but critical to that is everyone knowing what that common goal is – don’t just assume they do. But if you have the culture right, where everyone is more than willing
to help, then those that aren’t really stand out," says Moore.

And there’s the rub: your business is only as strong as its weakest link.

"At the end of the day, our clients have a choice, they don’t have to use us, they could go to a competitor. What makes a difference is that we treat each client as if they’re our only customer and that has to be a team effort, if one person in the team doesn’t deliver or doesn’t buy in to that culture, then we’re all going to fail," says Inc Direct chief executive Noel Warner.

The usually thorny issue of pricing seems to draw a common consensus from successful businesses too; basically you will never hear a rep from a good business claiming that their outfit is the cheapest.

"Hand on heart, we regularly walk away from work. There was one week in September when we walked away from £47,000. I’m running a £3.5m business, that’s a lot of money to turn down," says Goncalves. "Of course we will take a view on work and the bigger picture, but we don’t want to be just the cheapest in the marketplace, we want to be the best customer experience."

In the same way that a commodity-driven sales rep is unlikely to be welcome at a margin-focused company, you’re also unlikely to find a Bentley with personalised plates and a boot stuffed with golf clubs in the managing director’s parking space.

Even as recently as 10 years ago, the print industry was rife with lifestyle businesses, where the owner rocked up mid-morning had a couple of meetings, left for a boozy lunch with a client and then sauntered off for quick round of golf before dinner with another client. Sadly, for some at least, those days are gone.

"The market moves very quickly and it’s very easy [for a lifestyle business] to get left behind and only realise it when it’s too late, because you’re not talking about a business having to subtly and continually evolve, you’re talking about significant change in a short time frame, which is incredibly difficult," says Laybourne.

While the lifestyle businesses are becoming rarer, there are still a lot of companies that revolve around an almost overly charismatic leader, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – provided that limitless growth isn’t your goal.

"We all know those great small businesses, where the boss is a real character and people do business with the company because of him. The problem is that those businesses aren’t scalable, because there are only so many lunches they can take clients to," says Smith.

And growth is one of the biggest challenges facing even the most successful business leader. Not just achieving it, but actually managing it or, more importantly, knowing when to stop managing it and hand over the responsibility to someone else.

"I know a lot of managing directors that try to do everything themselves, but they’re not actually managing the business. To me, anyone who is running a business needs a team below them that they can trust, and that’s as much to do with the managing director as it is their team – too many find it too hard to let go," says Goncalves.

This is something that Moore empathises with, he realised three years ago that he needed help running the business if he really wanted to take it to the next level.

"It’s all too easy to get involved in minutia of the day-to-day, so freeing up my time enabled me to focus on our strategic goals. If I hadn’t done that then I think we would have struggled to be in the position we’re in now," says Moore.

Warner took a similar decision, promoting his finance director to the role of managing director and stepping up to the role of chief executive.

"It means I can work ‘on’ the business and not get bogged down ‘in’ the business, so I can focus on making sure we maintain our entrepreneurial spirit," he says.

Sustainable growth
However, growth can be a double-edged sword. Grow too quickly and cashflow can be strained, profit margins can slip and management resources stretched. It’s a given that in the current climate, sustainable growth that retains margin is key, but that’s easier said than done and there is an argument that in some instances small is beautiful when it comes to profitability.

"Because of our size, we’re like a little speedboat: we can change direction and embrace change very easily, but bigger organisations are like super tankers and even though I want the business to continue to grow, I don’t want to get too big and lose that nimbleness," says Warner.

Surprisingly Smith agrees and says that the ‘turnover is vanity, profit is sanity’ is still a concept that is lost on too many print firms.

"You have to focus on margin and cash, sometimes less turnover is more when it comes to profit – it’s too easy to lose focus when you’re trying to grow," says Smith.

In fact, many of the most successful businesses have realised that the time and effort they spend on securing new business to achieve growth might be better spent growing their existing clients.

"A year ago I decided to change our focus for a time and concentrate a bit more of our energy on our existing clients and, by golly, did that pay dividends. I’m sure a lot of people will say that’s common sense, it’s page one, but it’s easy to forget the basics sometimes," says Warner.

It’s these basics that all flourishing firms seem to get right. Yes, they all have good kit and good metrics, but the intangible that separates a great company from a good one is its people – from the business leader down. And this is something that Goncalves is passionate about.

"I know it sounds like the cheesiest of clichés, but hand on heart our people are our biggest asset. And they’re the only thing that can really separate any company from its rivals, because they’re the only thing in any business that is truly unique."