Company Puts New Face on Traditional Printing Business Small Business Achievement Award – BizInk By SHELLY GARCIA Senior Reporter The printing industry has been stagnant over the past few years. But don’t tell that to the owners of BizInk, a Chatsworth-based online printing company. Since the two partners opened their doors five years ago, BizInk’s business has doubled and its client list has grown to include a number of national and regional companies. What’s allowed BizInk to wrest its share of business in a no-growth market is an unusual combination of industry and technology that has made the company among the only printers of its kind. BizInk customers can log onto a secure website and not only place printing orders but customize them to different regional and office needs. “They can do everything and they control a lot of it in house and locally,” said Dave Di Tomaso, the owner of 3H Network Inc., which operates 18 Subway restaurants. Di Tomaso sits on the board of a regional franchise group representing 700 Subway restaurants, and after using BizInk for his own business, suggested the board invite the company to pitch the regional assignment, which BizInk won. “The other companies didn’t have the same capacity by any stretch.” BizInk co-owners Tom Pelino, president, and Scot Feinberg, vice president of business development, went to the same high school, but the two didn’t know each other until Feinberg, who owned a printing company, went looking for an investor. Pelino had a software company, eCybersuite, and the partnership soon grew beyond financing. With Pelino’s technology expertise and Feinberg’s printing know-how the two were able to build a menu of services few competitors offer. “It takes an awful lot of work and printers in general are cautious because they have to bring on board a lot of programming staff and the printers don’t know what the programmers are doing,” said Tom Stodola, director of management services at Printing Industries Association of Southern California. “All they can see is all this money going out and they don’t know what the return is.” Even with their in-house expertise, the two partners started out small, initially brokering much of the printing and binding work out to other companies while they worked on setting up a secure website and slowly added the printing equipment they needed. As their capabilities grew, so too did the company. Fulfillment center The partners started out by themselves in a small office in Van Nuys and then expanded to another, larger office in Woodland Hills when the staff started to grow. Then, as they continued to ramp up, they added a fulfillment center, storing printing materials for customers and delivering them as necessary, a move that seemed to change the company overnight. “We took over a large fulfillment program for IHOP,” said Pelino. “In one day, we actually had to have a larger facility to accommodate 100 pallets of merchandise that showed up on our doorstep.” Last July the company moved to its current facility in Chatsworth and BizInk, with 33 employees and annual revenues of $3.7 million counts among its clients Staples, Health Net, Warner Bros. and IHOP. Each company that works with BizInk sets up a master account that includes the range of printed materials it requires anything from stationery to menus and collateral materials. Then, individual units can access a Web site and make modifications to the materials based on their needs. Say, for instance, an IHOP restaurant wants to substitute grits for french fries or a Subway franchise wants to run a special promotion. Those changes can be made with the push of a PC button and submitted along with the order. The process saves time and money compared to working with traditional printers. “It’s given us flexibility,” said Dave Waco, a co-owner and vice president of sales at MOC Products Co. Inc. in Pacoima, which was among BizInk’s first clients. MOC manufactures chemicals and other products used by dealerships to service cars, and each make and model may require a different set of products along with a different schedule of suggested maintenance services. With the help of BizInk, MOC can customize a menu of scheduled services for each individual customer. “So in addition to selling products and services, we are a marketing company for them,” said Waco. “We are in the forefront of our industry and BizInk has been part of that.” In California, printing industry sales have remained level at about $14 billion annually for the past three years, but the number of print shops has declined by almost 1,000 during that time, according to PIASC. BizInk’s hybrid approach has helped it to weather that consolidation. But the company has not relied on its concept alone. Customer contact Feinberg said he still talks directly with his customers several times a week, even though BizInk now has a customer service staff. Customers say the company’s bids consistently come in lower than competitors, and BizInk goes the extra mile, helping to design customers’ Web sites at no additional charge. When Di Tomaso, who sits on the board of the Diabetes Research Institute, needed invitations for a charity event printed, he asked BizInk for help. “They stepped up to the plate and that was probably $3,000 or $4,000 worth of their money,” Di Tomaso said. “Tom Pelino and Scot Feinberg, they’ve taken an attitude that you tell us what you need and we’ll make it happen. They’re an absolute pleasure to work with.”
