Often quoted as the voice of the small printer, after almost 30 years in the print industry his opinion is courted by suppliers almost as often as members. Fortunately for both groups, talking is one of his favourite pastimes.

Darryl Danielli When did you get into the industry?

Sidney Bobb It must have been 1986 or 87. I was working as a business consultant and one of my first clients was a printer. 

But before that you were an accountant, right?

Well, that’s what I trained in originally, but then I became involved in marketing, training and then consulting. I think it’s fair to say that it has been a varied career. I was articled in accountancy, which to be honest I hated, but my principal brought me to London and got me various positions here. I eventually ended up as the chief executive of an investment company, which was sold to a bank. So then I set up a consultancy and ended up in print.

Which company was that then?

Pro Repro. I basically started working for them and then bought into it and ended up running it with my business partner for more than 20 years. My timing was pretty good because the company had just invested in one of the early colour copiers. In fact, the first colour device we bought was a three-colour Canon machine called the Colour T [a pre-cursor to the CLC] that cost £52,000 [around £130,000 today]. Canon sold 100 of them and we had two.

When did you get involved with the BAPC?

I first got involved with the Association of Colour Copy Centres, the ACCC. 

Did the ACCC become the BAPC then?

No, they were completely different organisations. The ACCC was more of a peer-to-peer thing; we would meet every two months and discuss the market and also technology, because you have to remember colour copying was very new and we didn’t really know what we were doing – and neither did the suppliers. So it was a very steep learning curve and the ACCC was almost like a safety net, so that we knew we were being dealt with properly by our suppliers and getting the right support.

So why did you join the BAPC then?

Well, because I didn’t know much about the print industry generally, when I started in the 1980s, so I went to a BAPC conference after seeing one of its adverts. I ended up on the committee and, after a number of years and the usual political infighting, they asked me to be chairman. At the time I was voluntary chairman and still running Pro Repro.

So when did it become a full-time job then?

Around 10 or so years ago. We closed Pro Repro, so I was looking for a new challenge and around that time the BAPC started to attract grants from the EU and UK governments, which enabled it to take on a number of paid staff, including me.

What happened to Pro Repro?

Basically it went broke. You’ve got to remember, we were operating in the West End, in Mayfair and Soho, and rent and rates were a major problem because we operated out of retail units and our particular market changed. People stopped coming to us. We had to go to them and the ‘retail’ model just stopped working. And, as a result, sadly, so did we.

So that was around 2003?

Around then, yes. It seems like a lifetime ago now.

The industry must have changed a lot in your almost 30 years in print?

Oh yes, I’ve seen lots of changes. The whole industry has changed. It’s still changing, but the speed of that change, that evolution, is now perhaps more rapid. The industry has always been changing, but if you take technological change, in the 1980s and 90s that was the revolutionary change impacting the sector. In those days, you saw things that were just mind-blowing. Don’t get me wrong, the technologies that are being developed today are exciting and effective, but they’re not anything that couldn’t be imagined. Back then, some of the technology was truly unimaginable.

Has the business of print changed too, though?

I actually think that’s been the biggest change, technology used to be revolutionary and business used to be evolutionary, now that’s reversed. If you look at the companies that are adopting cross-media or doing something else totally differently, it’s clear that we’re changing from a manufacturing industry to a service industry and that’s a really tough thing to do culturally.

Do you think it’s harder for smaller businesses than bigger ones?

Perhaps. I guess it might be harder for SMEs, because there’s one person making all of the decisions. A large company, on the other hand, can hire in the expertise to drive that change. With a small business, that change has to come from the owner, which means that he or she has to change before the business can, and that’s a big ask. There are probably more opportunities for the smaller businesses though.

How do you mean?

Look, a business needs to do two things: it needs to create employment and make a profit. That’s what makes the world go around. You can love what you do, that’s great, but first and foremost you have to do those two things. To really achieve that you have to learn to develop and evolve, you need to look at new revenue streams or where your customers are headed. Don’t get me wrong, many people are doing this already, but more people need to start recognising that change is good, it’s not something to be afraid of.

Where do you think the key opportunities are then?

It’s different for every business, it has to be as each business has different clients. I think in the ‘old days’ a client would ask you to do something and you just did it, no questions asked. Now, you have to ask questions; you have to ask them what they want to achieve with the job. Let’s remember that at the most basic level, what a printer does is produce something to enhance its clients business. Whether that’s selling their products or services, communicating their messages or just raising awareness. So the more successful your customers are the more successful you will be. So you need to understand their business to enhance it.

So what one thing do we all need to start doing then?

If big companies started to think like small companies and small companies started to act like big companies, I think business would be much easier for all of us.

Sounds easy.

I know, doesn’t mean it is, though. But we have to understand our customers’ businesses better. Printers should read more trade magazines...

I completely agree. 

I thought you might, but I’m not just talking about you. Printers should read the trade titles their customers read. If a lot of your customers are in the property trade, read Property Week, if they’re predominantly marketing agencies get Marketing Week.

So, basically, provided you read magazines with ‘week’ in the title, you’ll be better off than your rivals?

Very funny. Seriously, though, you have to learn about your customers’ industries. If you want to help your customers you need to understand their challenges.

I guess that’s the inherent advantage that an SME has then, because as a rule, the decision-maker is closer to the customers.

Yes, and the other thing in their favour is that their customers know that they’re dealing with the decision maker – which is a big plus. But small businesses tend to be more sectionalised than large businesses.

How do you mean?

I believe that everyone in a business needs to feel a responsibility towards that business. So we need to make sure that we are empowering our people, we need to ensure they have training. I don’t mean training on how to print better either. There’s no excuse for a printer to print a bad job. What we need to do is improve our employees’ other skills.

Do you think the industry as a whole takes training seriously?

No it doesn’t and that’s a massive concern. There are many, many exceptions – but just not enough of them. The harsh reality is that if we want to continue to innovate and evolve then we have to give our people the right skills to do that.

Getting back to how the industry is changing though, if you look at the larger companies, a lot of them don’t even seem that comfortable calling themselves printers anymore.

There’s no shame in being a printer. The only people that seem to get embarrassed about the word are printers. We talk about the image of the industry, but we created that image. Don’t blame the world for it, just do something about it.

Do you think the industry has an image problem then?

I just don’t think the industry believes in itself as much as it should. I know I keep saying this, but whatever a printer does it enhances somebody else’s business. We’re in the communications business, so we have to use every tool in our armoury to communicate what we can do.

You mentioned earlier that the industry is moving from a manufacturing industry to a service industry, does that mean that it’s becoming more professional?

Well, we’re not amateurs are we? I think that people have to be more aware of the business of what we do rather than the mechanics of how we do it. If you look at any successful businessperson, they’re not successful because they’re the greatest at whatever it is they happen to do, they’re successful because they’re a great businessperson – and that always comes first.

That makes sense, but it can’t hurt being great at what you do too.

Of course. But if you look at the Virgin companies, they’re not all owned by Branson, but he had the sense to create a business that represented something, so he could license it as well as set up dozens of businesses under the same brand.

Are you saying that there aren’t enough Richard Bransons in print?

What I’m saying is that there aren’t enough brands in print. Virgin is on a massive scale, but why can’t a small printer do that in their market or local community? Basically, create a brand so strong that when a local business needs to print something they automatically think of you. Not enough print businesses promote their own brand effectively.

I guess the internet makes effective branding even more important?

Precisely, especially with things like web-to-print. If you want to sell things at a profit, anyway. If it’s just the price then you’re in trouble unless you have the scale. It’s about making sure a customer knows that they can rely on you, trust you. It’s all to do with the brand.

What are the biggest challenges facing your members then?

I’m not trying to dodge the question, but for every firm, the challenge they face is the biggest challenge of them all. And even that probably changes every week or every day. It could be losing customers to a rival, shrinking margins, staff problems, rising rates or other costs. Every issue is important. If everyone had the same problem then we could collectively figure out the solution and wave a magic wand to fix it and retire to Hawaii.

There must be common underlying issues though?

It changes. I get calls from Monday to Friday from members that need help or advice; it’s rarely good news, everyone has an issue. It could be a problem with a customer, a supplier, a local authority or HMRC. But they’re incredibly diverse. Print is a very entrepreneurial industry that, in some respects, lacks structure.

But isn’t that structure something trade associations can help create?

We’re happy to help where we can, but there seems to be a real reticence for people to admit they need help sometimes. That’s a real worry. 

Do you think that’s changing though? Has the tough trading of the past few years made people more open to talking to and learning from their peers?

Sadly, not really. In some ways the internet has made things worse; it’s a great resource, but it’s become another reason for people not to talk to each other. Instead they email or do a bit of Google research. You go into offices and they’re silent apart from the tapping of keys. But just think of the conversation we’re having: we digress and talk about things we hadn’t planned to, and that’s what happens when you talk to customers, peers or suppliers on the phone or face-to-face. You can get so much more out of a thousand spoken words than from a thousand emails. Unfortunately, you can’t invoice for an interesting conversation.

Do you think that the industry is missing out on a trick by not being more open then?

Yes. It’s like the Godfather, keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer. I think printers should speak to their competitors; they should understand each other. You win the business that you deserve, there’s no magic solution, you have to work at it. The chances are that there’s someone out there who is going through the same problem as you, or has in the past – so you would be mad to pass up the chance to pick their brains.

How do we get that community spirit back then?

Well, people like us need to organise more events that get people together. The more conferences or events we run, provided we get the content right, the more the word will spread. But people need to get involved, because the more they put in then the more they get out of it. When we run a conference, the attendees don’t have to be a member of the BAPC, they don’t even need to like us, they just need to be there. It’s no coincidence that if you look at the most successful businesses out there, they’re generally the ones that attend events. You only need to come away from an event with one idea or one new contact, and your time has been paid for.

So you think of those types of things as free training?

At the recent Cross Media 2013 show the busiest parts of the event were the seminar theatres. That’s not because the stands weren’t interesting, it’s because there is a real thirst for knowledge in certain sectors of the industry. That is really encouraging, but too many people are still too concerned about admitting to a lack of knowledge. Most of the services that trade associations like us or the BPIF offer take a printer out of their comfort zone and that’s why they need them. But we need to stop thinking of asking for help as a sign of weakness – it’s not.

What is the most popular service then?

Legal services are not necessarily the most popular, because no one likes to have legal problems, but they’re certainly the most used and their use has gone up every year. But we don’t make money out of our services: if something costs a pound, we charge a pound. If it costs nothing, we charge nothing. We’re not here to make a profit out of our members. For example, our benchmarking software, it cost £65,000 when we installed it, but it was donated – so we don’t charge members to use it. 

I guess a chat is also free. What do your members most want to talk to you about right now?

In the past few years, the hot topic has been cross-media and how you can capitalise on it. The problem is that half of the industry doesn’t have a clue what it means. But rather than get hung up on that, they should just think of it as anything that adds a new revenue stream. For me, if you print and deliver a job to a customer, you’re a printer. But if you print and then distribute a job to your customers’ customers then that’s cross-media in its simplest terms. Printers talk about the threat of online. Yes, it is a threat, but don’t run away from it, embrace it. Align yourself with specialists and turn that threat into an opportunity. 

What’s stopping people from embracing these opportunities?

People are bogged down in the daily grind, so they can’t take an aerial view of their business and their customers. But they’re busy, so they think that they’re happy. The problem is that if you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got.

Very good. 

Look, words are cheap and it’s very easy to say. But if there’s a desire and a will to change, then anything is possible. 

But for those who run small businesses that must be a massive challenge, when they have to wear so many hats?

Of course it is, but then people have to delegate. Every business owner knows that nobody is as good as they are, and that’s the cross that they have to bear. But if you really want your business to develop then you have to learn to let go; it’s good for you, it’s good for your business and it’s good for your staff, and it breeds loyalty. 

Loyal staff are one thing, but do you think there is such a thing as a loyal customer any more?

Yes. If you look at all the fuss around energy prices at the moment and how unhappy a lot of people are with they’re supplier. Then look at the number of people that have switched suppliers in recent weeks – its abysmally low. Now that could be because they’re too lazy to switch, or like the customer service, or just out of habit. So customers can be loyal. The problem is that it can take a long time to build that loyalty and just minutes to lose it.

Who do you most admire in the industry

Different people at different times for different reasons.

Have you ever thought of getting into politics?

No, because the one thing you can’t do at a trade association is bluff. We can’t just dish out half-baked advice. I’m not suggesting that I know everything about anything, but I know who to ask or who to put people in touch with and many of those are the people I admire: so the people I really admire in print are the people that help others to help themselves.  

For more information on the BAPC Annual Conference, visit: www.bapcconference.co.uk