As the football season kicked off earlier this month, two managers had a harder task than many. As well as trying to succeed in their own right, Nigel Clough and Darren Ferguson, sons of Nottingham Forest and Derby legend Brian Clough and Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson respectively, have the arduous task of following in their successful fathers' footsteps.
East London finisher Reflections' managing directors Luke and Paul Hastings are fully aware of what Clough and Ferguson are going through, having taken over a business that their father Richard Hastings built up from scratch.
Richard Hastings formed the company - a lofty epithet for what was essentially one man and a thermal laminator - in 1993. It operated on small premises, but quickly built up its customer base thanks to its owner's alertness to the benefits of thermal lamination.
As a result, his machine was running at 10,000 sheets per hour (sph), while rivals were struggling to improve on 6,000sph. Understandably, he became very popular.
But he didn't stop at thermal lamination. In 1996, he decided that spot UV would go hand-in-hand with his services, especially when the only competitor at the time was renowned for its slow turnaround.
Then, in 2000, the company introduced cutting and creasing to its niche services and moving from its small facility to a 1,850m2 building around the corner.
Hastings had shown himself to be ambitious and ready to change with the market - a clear recipe for success.

Emergency call
However, in 2002 he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. At the time, both Luke and Paul were working at a stock brokers in the city.
"We came home one evening and got the bombshell. We left our jobs in October 2002 and started at Reflections the next day, it was as fast as that," says Luke Hastings. "Our dad spent a large chunk of his life building up the company and he did not want it to be sold."
"We knew nothing about print," adds Paul. "But then I don't think a lot of people do. We just did our best to support him in that year before he handed the company over."

In the six years since Luke and Paul took charge, they have shown they are more than a match for their father in the expansion front. For starters, in 2003, several of the company's regular customers moved to Kent. Rather than let them get away, Reflections followed them down and set up a new site.

They replicated the pattern pioneered by their father when he opened, with one laminator, shortly followed by spot UV. In 2005, they did the same thing when opening a plant in Essex and over the past few years, the company has also added foil blocking services and started producing its own glue.

When the  brothers took over the business, it had a turnover of £2m. It hit £10m last year and £12m was the next target. However, the recession has hit trade and this year the turnover is likely to be nearer the £8m mark. The economic fallout has also led to the merger of several facilities.

However, the company is not moping about the current financial climate. Luke Hastings says: "We are using the down period to launch new products, we are looking to reposition ourselves and our products."

The latest launch is Optix, the company's exclusive 3D printing product that the brothers expect to go down a storm once financial stability returns. This year it has also launched a fabric substrate, the Soft Touch Range, which offers a "luxury" feel to the laminate and One Hit Wonder, designed for adding spot UV to particularly porous materials like fine art boards in one pass.

Luke Hastings says: "In the future we want to be involved in more things like Optix. Everyone has their own version of an environmentally friendly laminate, just branded differently, but this stand us out from the crowd.

"It is exciting, it is innovative and it is a good opportunity. Designers are always looking for different finishes. We want to be able to say ‘don't ask us what we can do, tell us what you want'. If they want something that looks like leather, feels like sandpaper and smells like oranges we will come up with a way to do that."

Whether this move into specialist products is successful or not, Luke and Paul have clearly prospered under the burden of succession, continuing and adding to their father's legacy.

Reflections
Formed 1993
Managing directors Luke and Paul Hastings
Locations East London, Kent and Essex
Turnover £8m
Employees 90
Services lamination, overall UV, spot uv, specialist screen, foil blocking, die cutting, specialist finishing techniques