After the first audit, of Patrick Leamy's quick-printing business in Madison, Wis., Carns realized that finding and keeping good people was a concern in an industry with historically high turnover (45% to 50% is not uncommon), and it was an issue he hadn't really addressed. He hired a full-time director of training with a degree in human resources and beefed up PDQ's training program so it lasted a month and included a number of quizzes. "It really hit me over the head back in Wisconsin that no one's goal in life is to enter the quick-printing business, and there are fewer and fewer quality people to select from. So if we spent the money up front to hire the right people and train them well, then maybe we'd end up cutting turnover." It seems to have worked. Carns estimates that PDQ's annual turnover is only 10% or so.
Meanwhile, Leamy was so petrified by the prospect of his peers picking his business apart that he started looking at his operation two months before his fellow TIP members arrived for the audit. "I was able to cut $90,000 off our yearly overtime bill," he says.
Customer Service
The obvious but missing ingredient Sitting in his office one day, Tom Carns leans forward on the couch, and with disbelief rising in his voice, says: "Sixty percent of all the printing that is done in America is either screwed up or late. What an indictment of an industry! There's a printer in Las Vegas with a sign that says, 'This is not Burger King. Here you get it my way, or you don't get it at all.' Can you imagine?"
PDQ does what it can to see that customers get it their way. In a room at PDQ, a row of loose-leaf binders sits atop a set of filing cabinets. Those binders contain a copy of every form PDQ has printed for every one of its commercial accounts. Each form is numbered and indexed on a master list. The customer gets an identical book and a master list, so when running low on a certain form, he or she can simply call up PDQ and ask for a refill by job number. Conversely, PDQ keeps track of the quantities ordered and the dates they're requested; that way, if there is an abnormal interval between orders, PDQ can call customers and ask if they're perhaps running low on a certain form.
PDQ also assumes responsibility for proofreading customers' jobs before they go to press -- virtually unheard of in the industry. "Other quick printers make customers come back and proof jobs," says Carns. "Look, you don't go to a restaurant and have the waiter come out and say, 'The chef is ready to put your steak on. Do you want to come into the kitchen and see if it's being done right?' " Besides, he adds, "customers are terrible proofreaders to begin with."
Carns says that PDQ has always striven "to operate on the same level with our customers. That means not having them step down to deal with us." Assuming responsibility for such key tasks as proofreading, typesetting, and design affirms that sense of equality. Running a business where employees dress neatly and no radios blare from the back of the shop reinforces it.
PDQ is nothing if not solicitous of its customers. With every job, it sends the customer a survey dubbed "Two Sides to Every Story." "In it," says Carns, "we tell our customers that we try to do things right and on time. The form has a blank side, with prepaid postage on it. We ask customers to give us their side of the story. 'What are your needs?' "
Every December PDQ also does its "defense defense" sales calls. "We go out in person to our 150 largest customers, thank them for their business, and ask how we can improve things," says Carns. "We ask them one other key question: 'What kind of printing are you buying elsewhere that you're not getting from us?' " A few years ago Carns found that "continuous forms" was cropping up frequently as the answer to that question. "So we bought a short-run continuous-form press in December 1989." Today PDQ sells continuous forms to 60% of its commercial accounts.
A New Paradigm
Professionalism and technology Tom Carns knows he couldn't have picked a better time and place to start a quick-printing business. Yet what is truly odd is that he seems to have spawned so few imitators. A year ago the commercial quick-printing industry had its trade show in Las Vegas. How many of the other 150 local quick printers besides Carns attended? None.
Carns believes not only that he caught local competitors flat-footed but that the quick-printing industry remains ripe for professionalization. "I think in the years ahead you'll see more people with M.B.A.'s getting into this industry because the level of competition is so low," says Carns. "It remains an industry of mom-and-pop outfits, yet with the electronics and computers now available, it's potentially very dynamic."
As evidence, he points to the 120 quick printers with whom he has formally consulted -- many of them highly successful. How many of those had ever written a business plan? One. Writing a business plan was one of the first things Carns did before starting PDQ.
Tom Carns could probably take PDQ on the road and set up shops in other cities. But he has no plans to expand beyond three locations and beyond the Las Vegas city limits, to be sure. He would rather strengthen his position simply by running the business better.
He'd also like to see it grow a viable arm based on his accumulated knowledge of the industry. This year Carns plans to kick himself out of his office and step up his consulting and seminar work. "I'd like to help other people get into this business." That will keep the business vital and help him stay in touch with others in the industry. It will also be a way for Tom Carns to avoid getting stale as he did a decade -- and a lifetime -- ago up in the Northwest, when he had no idea that a midcareer crisis could turn out quite like this.
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Research assistance for this article was provided by Martha E. Mangelsdorf.
