He had no intention of starting his own business, but when several clients encouraged him to go it alone after he became frustrated with his then employer, the seed was sown.

Starting a print business isn’t cheap though, so it took two of those key clients agreeing to pay on seven days to get the business off the ground, something that Geoff has never forgotten and in many ways helped shape the business’s ethos of putting strong client relationships at the centre of everything it does. 

And with Geoff set to retire next year, that ethos is something that’s very close to Sam’s heart, and is one of the reasons that the business, now Geoff Neal Group after rebranding last month, has evolved from a rented ‘shed’ in Hounslow with a single-colour Heidelberg Kord and a pre-war guillotine, into a circa £15m London business with an unrivalled reputation for high-impact direct mail and a trophy cabinet crammed with PrintWeek Awards.

Darryl Danielli When did you get involved with the business?

Sam Neal From birth. No joke. Dad picked us up from hospital in the company van and he had a pallet in the back that he dropped off on the way home, with mum sitting in the front holding me. 

Okay, perhaps I should have asked when you started to get paid?

I did all my weekend and summer jobs here, but I suppose I properly joined in July 1998. Dad picked me up on the Saturday after I finished university in Newcastle, he drove me home and told me that I was starting work here on the Monday. He basically decided that until I worked out what I wanted to do with my life I would work shifts pushing a broom, moving paper, making a few plates or helping in the bindery, basically whatever the business needed doing.

Why did you study at Uni?

Psychology of sports studies; very relevant to what we do [laughs].

I don’t know, you could say print is a team sport. 

Very true. 

So how long did it take you to work out what you wanted to do?

After around 18 months our production assistant left to have a baby. So dad said ‘you’re still here, what do you think?’ and so I took over and learned print from our then production director Dave Rule, a very patient and amazing teacher. So I had school during the day with Dave and then evening school with dad, when he would tell me everything I had done wrong that day [laughs]. I was under instruction the whole time for around two years. I also learned estimating, because you need to understand the financials, from a great guy called Dave Capstick, a crazy, lovely Elvis fan and part-time actor – he’s now a full-time actor in New Zealand. It was a great learning environment thanks to the two Daves; they were both big characters who were incredibly passionate about what they did. 

Did that passion rub off on you?

Between them and dad it couldn’t not.

How big was the company when you joined?

Probably around £3m, around 25-30 staff. And some of those people had known me since I was a few months old. I learned to cycle in the factory, some of the guys sent me food parcels when I was at boarding school. They used to play a game of who could wrap them and make it the hardest for me to open. A lot of my childhood is linked to this business; I’ve had a lot of fun here.

Was it tough joining the business, as the boss’s son?

Everyone here took me at face value, nobody gave me any grief for being Geoff’s son. Dad always made it clear that he expected more from me than anyone else, so I certainly never had an easy time. I accept that I was given the opportunities, but I had to prove I deserved them. I have a very different management style from dad, but I’ve always tried to earn respect and not shy away from tough decisions – and I think that’s important. I more or less did every job in the company too, except finance and HR, and that helped.

What was the toughest job?

I’ve a huge respect for finishers, standing up for 12 hours, lifting and only moving around a little – that’s hard.

And you started to get more responsibility after a while presumably?

In around 2005 we’d got the company to £4m-£4.5m, but growth had stalled and we had been at that level for a couple of years, and I wanted more responsibility. I had this burning desire, energy and passion and was loving what I was doing, and I had a vision of where I wanted us to be. Then the lovely people at Robert Horne were talking to us about credit risk in the industry, and shared with us some research that highlighted that up to £2m, most print companies were run by one or two people, and were low risk. The credit risk then increases exponentially up to £4m and stays at the high risk level to £7m and then starts to fall away again after £10m.

So you were just entering the highest risk in terms of the size of the business?

Precisely. What we also found at that size was that it was harder to make money. We were having to go up against bigger and bigger companies, but we weren’t running 24/7, the kit was good but it wasn’t necessarily the latest, and we were suddenly finding that we didn’t have the right ISO for this or that. So we looked at the business and worked out what we needed to do. We initially tried to scale the business back a bit to see if that made a difference.

The idea being that if you were smaller you would be more profitable?

Exactly, but it didn’t work because by then we were in a bigger factory [the firm’s current base in Feltham, near Heathrow] and had moved up to B1 from B2, so we knew the only option was to grow. So in 2005 I was made managing director and dad became chief executive. In reality I was very much a shadow to him in the early days, but what it enabled me to do was run around, get really excited, come up with projects, try things, but always having them rubber-stamped by Geoff. Over time that stamping was needed less and less, but it was lovely to have the safety net.

So Geoff was running it day-to-day in your early years as managing director?

Of course he was. I was probably more of a pain in the arse than anything at the start.

But it gave you time to look at the business and try things?

It was the longest handover in history. But in 2005 we were circa £4.5m and this year we’ve just billed £14.7m, so what we’ve done is grow a million pounds year-on-year give or take. So we’ve put in better and better kit and won more and more good clients. To the point where we’ve virtually filled the entire space we have. For the first time ever we had a five-year plan, we knew the journey we wanted to go on and identified the area of the industry we wanted to work in.

Before that were you jobbing commercial printer then, rather than high-end?

Dad had always taken on the weird and wonderful. If someone had told a client something wasn’t possible, we would always find a way or at least come up with a workaround that achieved the same effect. That’s always been our attitude and still is; if everyone else says no then come and ask us and we’ll work with you to find a way.

So it’s always been high-end print then?

It goes back to the 1970s, I remember a story about Earnest [Wale, current production director] having a right old moan at dad about why was he taking on so much four-colour work when he only a single colour press and dad said ‘I don’t care, just get on with it’. Fortunately Earnest is and always has been our production guru – if he can’t make it work, no one can. We’re very fortunate with the operational and production experience we have here. We’ve got Craig Thornhill, our operations director, who’s not from print, which is lovely because he doesn’t have any baggage, and will just say ‘trust me chaps it doesn’t have to be this way just because it always has been’. And then we’ve got Earnest, and what he doesn’t know about colour or how to get the best out of a press just isn’t worth knowing. And then we’ve got ex-Blissett & Pugh production director Andy Murgatroyd as bindery manager and he’s the same with folding and binding.

For the size of the business though you’re quite ‘beefy’ on production?

To be honest we’re quite beefy across the whole business. We employ some exceptional people and that’s expensive, but the value for us is in those people. We could run with 15% less people and be a bit more efficient and perhaps a little cheaper, but then we wouldn’t be able to do what we do and offer the level of service we do. The fun and passion for what we do comes from the people, anyone can buy the fastest press and run them at ultra speeds and have a product that’s commercially acceptable at the highest possible efficiency, and there’s nothing wrong with that and it’s to be admired, but for us it’s more about producing something that is a lovely, beautiful, valued piece of print.

I remember talking to you years ago and you talked about the challenge of growing the business. It would have been around the time you became managing director [2005], and you felt that the biggest challenge was finding the right people on the management side?

I think the first time you gave us an award, which would have been around that time, you wrote that we had ‘come from nowhere’ – you might not remember, but we do – and that really drove us. Up to that point dad sold himself as the business and had built up three or four exceptionally good clients that were giving us lovely, lovely work. But he hadn’t gone outside of that, because he had run out of fingers to stick in holes. He was running finance with our finance guy, running production with Ernest, making sure we were buying right and also he was top salesman.

So you basically the business was in danger of running out of ‘Geoff’?

Exactly. I’d had seven years of learning where we were as a business, so while I wasn’t the finished article as MD per se [in 2005], I knew I had to take some of the pressure off him, shout about what we did and empower the sales team too. Don’t get me wrong, dad was exactly the right person to set up this company because he’s completely ‘on it’ in every sense, but the problem is that once you get to a certain size one person can’t be on everything, and you need to bring your people along.

Makes sense.

One of the hardest things about growth is that you might get a nice step change, some big wins or big investment, but then you need more people and you can’t find the right individuals quick enough and the business is stressed for six months while you recruit. We’re fortunate that the team has all chipped in when that has happened, everyone wanted to help, but it was tough at times. Now, though, we’re a little bit ahead of the curve in terms of people. Our next challenge is restarting our apprenticeship scheme.

Have you not had any for a while?

We were doing okay for a while, with a few younger people joining the business, but then they dropped out.

How come?

I think it was a little bit too much like hard work, and they could earn more as traffic wardens or whatever, with less hours and not having to work a Saturday, or being in at 7am. We do need younger people here, though, and in the broader industry, so apprentices are very much part of our plans.

Back to growth though, what were the other obstacles?

We had to work hard on getting our market mix right. It was really important for us. We used to have really big seasonal swings before, but we’ve tried to spread across multiple markets to counteract that; so now it’s a bit of automotive, professional services, financial services, boats, power, natural resources, communications, fashion and art. So it’s a fun place to work, but importantly we also have a better mix of markets, which makes us stronger. We could still have a better spread, of course.

Have you seen many companies walking away from DM in any of those markets?

We’ve had a couple of clients that have said in the past few years that DM isn’t happening, and they stopped and suddenly a few hundred thousand pounds of business just vanished. That was a challenge. Fortunately they realised that wasn’t the right thing for their business, but we still had to go and win it again. But again it proves that you always have to be looking for growth, looking to strengthen your sales pipeline, because work can vanish through no fault of your own, and that can hurt a business.

You mentioned kit earlier, has that been a keen driver of growth too?

I remember in 2010 that dad categorically told me before we went to Ipex that we weren’t going to buy a Heidelberg XL 105 because the time wasn’t right. One of things we’ve always done, and this stems from dad, is that we only borrow what we can afford – so if there is a bad month, you can live with it. So we went to the show and walked away from the Heidelberg stand without placing an order. But on the way back we had a very frank conversation, where we agreed that if we were going to buy a machine it had to be the XL. But we had to understand firstly the financial risk and also how much work we would need to fill it. So we set a figure that worked for us and I went back up to Birmingham and had to plead as the youthful, excited son that really wanted his new toy.

So basically it went along the lines of ‘I really, really want it but daddy won’t let me unless you do it for this price’?

[Laughs] It wasn’t far away, but I like to think I dressed it up a little.

There’s no shame if you got it for the right price.

That first XL in 2010 was the catalyst. We’d worked hard to get to where we were in 2010, but if we hadn’t been brave enough to put it in we would be a different business today. The business is about the people, but without that piece of machinery and its quality and the speed, we wouldn’t be where we are. And that experience made the second XL a no brainer. They’re awesome machines.

You have digital now too though?

No, well we have black-only digital [for over printing].

Was that a conscious decision, because a lot of businesses in your market have added colour digital?

In the past we felt that we didn’t have anyone who would champion variable work and if you don’t have that then it’s just an expensive photocopier. Especially if you go in for one of the higher-end machines running the cooler substrates and personalisation. And we didn’t feel that a £50,000 upgraded copier was the right thing – so we knew it had to be top end if we did it. But I’m pleased to say that we now have that expertise and our digital champions are chomping at the bit, and variable definitely features in our five-year plan. We’ve got 18 budgets for the next five years, depending on when we invest and what technology we invest in.

That’s interesting because you sometimes get the sense that some people make a digital investment purely because they feel they need to for their business to be taken seriously. You didn’t feel that?

Printers used to say yes to everything; we’d print business cards one day, magazines the next and high-end coffee table books the day after. Everybody did that. I think over time though we’ve learned that you need to be good at certain things. There’s a train of thought that you need to offer all things to be taken seriously, but I genuinely think that there’s no shame in being damn good at something and focusing on that.

You can see the temptation though?

I can and believe me we were tempted. We got really close to ordering a high-end machine, but at the time it was the right decision not to. 

What are the growth ambitions for the business?

We think we’ve got another £1.5m we can get through here as we are. Simply by being more efficient, working on our downtime and lost time. We still make mistakes too, not many, but still there’s a cost to those in terms of time and money.

But surely that’s the nature of the market you’re in, the more complex jobs are prone to taking a little longer and sometimes things don’t work first time every time?

That’s true, we’ll never be as efficient as some, because one minute we’re running 80gsm special uncoated stock and the next we putting through 800mic folding boxboard. As things stand, though, we think we could squeeze another £1.5m out of the business.

So you’re not looking to expand the Feltham site?

We are looking for another unit actually, although it’s still early days. But regardless, our growth will continue to be controlled and measured, and in markets that are right for us. Growth is vital to any business, because without it you can become complacent. But chasing a big number isn’t where we want to be. At the moment all of the directors can walk around the business and know everybody, and I think you need that at the quality end of the market. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of good clients out there that we don’t work with yet, so there’s plenty of potential – so perhaps £20m-£25m, but there’s no rush. There will need to be another step change in the business at some point though to support a new unit. 

And what about when Geoff retires next year, will you buy the business?

I bought it last summer, in July.

You kept that quiet?

Well, we didn’t want anyone to worry, it was no big deal. BDO helped, so it was very professional and it’s all sorted and was very smooth. It hasn’t changed anything really.

Except now Geoff is your employee?

[Laughs] Don’t even go there! Dad will still consult, but he won’t be coming into the office after he retires, but he’ll still be there when I need him. One of his amazing abilities is mental arithmetic and another is spacial awareness, so I’m pretty sure if I go to Drupa to buy anything he’ll insist on coming because he loves it and instantly knows the repayments and whether something will fit in the factory while I’m still fumbling for a calculator.

It’ll be hard for him to stay away from the office though?

Not really, not unless he gets very good at swimming or rowing – he plans to move to Jersey at some point. I think that was important for him, to have that distance to remove the temptation to come into the office every day. Don’t get me wrong, I would be more than happy to for him to stay here as long as he likes – but he wants to enjoy his retirement while he’s fit and healthy. 

I know you’ve had full managing director responsibilities for a while now, but the business will still miss him presumably?

Of course; he’s impossible to replace, he’s got more than 50 years’ experience. Things will change, some will be better, some might be worse. But that’s why we beefed up the management team. I’m sure I’ll still miss talking to him about the details of a job when I’m driving back from a client meeting. 

What was the best piece of advice he’s given you in relation to the business?

Don’t try and be him, do things my way, my style and be true to that and if you say you’re going to do something, do it and if it goes wrong, don’t hide it. 

What was the toughest time in terms of a learning experience at the business?

My first sales pitch on my own, that was hard. I also remember having the wool pulled over my eyes by a client once, which ended up costing us money and dad cuffed me for that. That was embarrassing and I knew it would never happen again.

What happened?

I thought I was too clever to get hoodwinked like that – so that was a very good learning experience. I also made the mistake of lying to a client once when he asked how his job was coming on and got found out very quickly, because I wasn’t bright enough to keep up the lie – I was probably 22 or 23. That was another very valuable lesson.

Final question, on the subject of valuable lessons – do you ever wish that you had got some experience working in another print business before taking the reins here?

Honestly? No. I’ve learned from so many amazing people here – the  two Daves, Ernest, Dad, the new management team... In fact I’ve probably learned something from everyone in the business at some point or other and also clients and suppliers. I hope that I’ll never stop learning. I haven’t had a boring day since I joined and I don’t see one coming. I’m not that practical, I’m no good with a hammer or chisel, so to be part of a process where you produce something that’s really cool is amazing and I genuinely love what we do, we all do.